Envy and sedition against Andrey by his relatives, the princes, so common in Russia in ancient times, did not force the prince to defend his rights and power with sedition either; he did not raise an open struggle and did not take up arms, which so often happened in such cases. The meek prince renounced his inheritance, abandoned all his possessions and fled his native city. As a poor pilgrim, Saint Andrew came to the city of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky (about 1360) and settled at the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker at the city gates. Some time later, the Prince of Smolensk was accepted as a sexton to this church and worked in such a modest position for thirty years, hiding his noble origin from everyone. 
The legends do not describe the exploits of the holy prince, the sexton, but is it not a great feat alone to leave the kingdom, family, hometown and become a sexton at the poor church of a foreign city? When Saint Andrew passed away (about 1390), they found on his body a gold chain and a ring – signs of princely dignity, heavy iron chains – a sign of his asceticism, as well as a small charter on which it was written in the hand of the deceased: "I am Andrew, one of the princes of Smolensk. For the sake of envy and sedition from my brothers, they left my kingdom, my house, and so on."
The poor sexton was buried at St. Nicholas Church, where he served his humble ministry, and his body was wrapped in birch bark.
Many years have passed since then, but the inhabitants of Pereyaslavl remembered the ascetic sexton. Soon after his death, they began to venerate him as a saint and celebrate his memory on the day of his repose – October 27; they painted his image; they composed a service – special verses and a canon. But then, around the middle of the XVI century, the celebration of St. Andrew's memory for some reason stopped, and the ascetic began to be forgotten. At that time, St. Daniel, a native of that city, was asceticizing in Pereyaslavl-3alessky, who probably knew the oral traditions about St. Andrew well and visited the temple where the saint served as a sexton, and his grave, saw his image and chains. The monk decided to promote the glorification of Saint Prince Andrew.
In the last year of his life, St. Daniel happened to be in Moscow on business for his monastery. He asked the infant tsar John Vasilyevich IV, his godson, and Metropolitan Joasaph (1539-1542) for funds to build dilapidated churches in the city of Pereyaslavl in the name of John the Baptist (at the western city gates) and in the name of St. Nicholas. Then the monk told the tsar and the metropolitan that the relics of St. Andrew, Prince of Smolensk, lay at St. Nicholas Church and asked permission to examine them. He recounted the oral stories that circulated in Pereyaslavl about the holy man, mentioned that previously his memory had been celebrated annually in St. Nicholas Church, pointed to the service to the saint and his image, and bitterly complained that the inhabitants of Pereyaslavl had stopped remembering the holy man of God. "That's why I announced all this to your empire, sire," said the monk, "so that such a saint would not fall into oblivion. I'm afraid that I won't be judged for my silence."
The emperor released funds from his treasury for the construction of new churches in place of the dilapidated ones, and together with the metropolitan allowed St. Daniel and the local clergy to excavate the grave of St. Andrew and inspect his relics lying in the ground. When the monk returned to Pereyaslavl and announced this mercy, everyone was so overjoyed that they wanted to ring the bells and gather the people to celebrate the unveiling of the relics. But one priest noticed: "If it pleases God to reveal the relics of His servant, then we will perform a prayer service without ringing and go to the grave of the saint. Then it will become clear whether this matter is pleasing to God and the most holy."
And so they did. They had a prayer service and, after dismantling the tombstone, they excavated the grave. It turned out that although corruption had touched the relics of the saint, however, the body was intact; the compounds did not separate from each other. Despite the fact that the celebration was not announced on purpose, a lot of people gathered for it. And when the holy relics were fossilized and the decayed birch bark was removed from them, many sick people took pieces of it and received healing. Having examined the relics of Saint Prince Andrew and without removing them from the ground, the Monk Daniel sent a report to the tsar and the metropolitan. The Archimandrite of the Chudovsky Monastery, Jonah, and the archpriest of the Assumption Cathedral, Guriy, were sent from Moscow for an official examination of the relics. When they examined the relics of the holy saint of God, Jonah asked the Monk Daniel: "Why did you witness these relics? Who commanded you to do this?"
The monk was greatly upset by Jonah's reproachful words. He began to cry and said that he had not acted voluntarily, but with the permission of the tsar and the metropolitan, who ordered him to examine the relics of St. Andrew; pointed to his image; referred to the service of the saint. Finally, he introduced three people who had been cured of their ailments at the discovery of the relics: John Oklyacheyev, the governor of Tsarskoye Selo, said that he had been cured of a long-term headache after touching the relics of the holy prince.; one woman from Pereyaslavl said that for three years she suffered from severe throat disease, could not pronounce words, but when, at the opening of the relics of St. Andrew, she took a piece of birch bark and swallowed it, she immediately felt relieved and began to speak; another woman was also cured of a long-term eye disease with the help of birch bark from the relics of the saint.
But neither the arguments of St. Daniel nor the witnessed miracles of St. Prince Andrew convinced Jonah and Gury. Jonah addressed the monk with these words: "His Grace the Metropolitan did not tell me anything about the holy relics and did not give any orders."
This meant that Metropolitan Joasaph left the matter to Jonah and Gury themselves, but they considered the evidence of Prince Andrew's holiness insufficiently clear and refused to glorify the saint of God with a church celebration. The Monk Daniel was greatly upset by the decision of the metropolitan and the investigators sent by him and predicted that for lack of faith in the holiness of the saint of God, all three would suffer tribulation: the metropolitan would soon be dethroned, Jonah predicted various misfortunes, Guria – the deprivation of his beloved son. At first they were confused when they heard the ascetic's threatening predictions, then they said that he had lost his sense from old age (at that time the monk was 80 years old) and was saying inappropriate things. However, the prophecy of St. Daniel definitely came true.
The ascetic's worries about the glorification of Saint Prince Andrew were not in vain. Since that time, the memory of the holy prince has revived in Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, and his memory has been celebrated locally. By a decree of the Holy Synod of 1749, the local celebration of the blessed Prince Andrew was approved; the decree prescribed that at all services in the churches of the city of Pereyaslavl, Saint Prince Andrew should be commemorated next to the names of other saints of Pereyaslav.
Miracles continued to happen at his tomb. So, during one fire, the wooden church of St. Nicholas burned to the ground, but the coffin of the holy prince, his image standing over the coffin, the veil and the icon of the Mother of God on the coffin remained intact.
The Venerable Prince Andrew was canonized in the 16th century, but his relics were kept hidden.

In 2000, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, the relics of the holy prince were found with the remains of an ancient coffin-deck. The shrine with the relics of the saint constantly resides in the Nikolsky Convent.