The head of Apostle Saint Andrew was presented to Pius PP. II – Pope Pius II (* 18 October 1405, r. 19 August 1458 to his death in Ancona, then in the Papal States, on 14 August 1464) on 12 April 1462 by Θωμᾶς Παλαιολόγος – Thomas Palaeologus, son of Byzantine Emperor Μανουήλ Β΄ Παλαιολόγος – Manuel II Palaeologus (or Palaiologos) (* 27 June 1350, r. 16 February 1391 – 21 July 1425).

Son Thomas Palaeologus had been the Despotate of the Morea, Greek territories nearly corresponding to the peninsula today known as the Peloponnesos, quite a beautiful corner of Christendom.

Thomas Palaeologus' brother, Ίωάννης Η' Παλαιολόγος – Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaeologus, was present at the Council of Florence. Had the union endured, the re-union between the Greek Church and the Latin Church, between that is, the Big O Orthodox Church(es) and the Big C Catholic Church, to which union Emperor John VIII Palaeologus consented in 1439, the last half-millennium would have unfolded very differently. As events did unfold, John VIII died on 31 October 1448. His successor was his brother, and another son of Manuel II, Κωνσταντῖνος ΙΑ' Παλαιολόγος – Constantine XI Palaeologus, and indeed Constantine had already been acting emperor years earlier, as regent for John during 1437 to 1440 when John was in Italy and at the Council of Florence, trying to peice together a united Christian coalition to save Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire, from the Turks. But John and the Greeks, the Eastern Romans, were betrayed by the Latins, the Western Romans, and the promised help never materialized. Constantine XI fell in battle together with his brother soldiers as the city of Constantinople itself fell on 29 May 1453 to the invading murderous Muslims, the Ottoman Turks.

Of course these events were before the pontificate of Pius II, but the connection among these men was strong.

The Constantinople-obsessed Turkish Sultan, the murderous Muslim who commanded the huge invading force, was Mehmed II. He reigned the first time as a boy while his father was in a strange sort of retirement. His second, real reign ran from 3 February 1451 to Mehmed's death at age 49 on 3 May 1481. This long reign encompassed the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, the most striking and enduring of his mass murders, but in fact the Turkish encursion into Christian Europe — divided and weakened ecclesiastically and politically — were remarkable. Orthodox and Catholic suffered unspeakable losses:

• The Albanians suffered attacks between 1466 and 1479. While Albania's first son and national hero, the Bane of the Turk, the Catholic Skanderbeg lived, Albanian national forces were able to hold off repeated attacks by gigantic forces, testimony to the fact that at times the individual man is decisive. But Skanderbeg died of malaria in 1468. Yes, national chroniclers everywhere love to exaggerate the strength of an attacking enemy and the scant size of their own defending heroes. In the case of the Turkish attack on Albanian Shkodër over a period of half a year in 1478-1479, the disparity in the size of the forces was truly enormous. In the end, Shkodër and Albania fell.

Note in Mark's Gospel, written before the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Luke and John, Apostle Saint Andrew is not the

first called – Πρωτόκλητος– Первозванний – Первозванный – Apostle.

In Mark, as in Matthew, the Lord apparantly sees Simon and Andrew together, and Simon is mentioned first.

In the first mention of an Apostle in Luke, at Luke 4:38, we are introduced first to Simon (and Simon's mother-in-law) in : "And he arose and left the synagogue, and entered Simon's house. Now Simon's mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they besought him for her."

Only in the Gospel According to Saint John is any Apostle mentioned before Simon-Peter, and here in John 1:37 we find two disciples hearing Jesus and following him. One of these two is shortly introduced as Andrew and the other, by tradition, is the Gospel's author himself, John. So, no where in the Bible is Andrew alone the "first called".

Was any kind of primacy of Andrew among the Apostles implied by the Lord in this passage, be it only a "primacy of honor" without leadership authority over the other apostles ?