Andrew of Crete, born in Damascus in 660, led a monastic life in the monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem from 678 onwards. Sent on an official mission to Constantinople in 685, he preferred to stay in that city and for ten years continued his monastic practice there. When Leontius III ascended the throne in 695, Andrew was by imperial order ordained deacon of the Hagia Sophia and became head of both the local orphanage and the administration of the deaconry . In 711 he was appointed metropolitan of Crete with his see in Gortyna. In that year he signed the anathema of the 6th Council under Emperor Philippicus (711–713), thus supporting Philippicus's monotheletism, although soon afterwards he returned to orthodoxy. He stayed in Crete until 730, when Emperor Leo III called him back to the capital because of his opposition to the imperial policy that favored iconoclasm. For ten years he ventilated his resistance to that policy in his homilies but was finally exiled to Lesbos. He died on 4 July 740 in Eresos.