A Greek of Monemvasia who from his youth embraced the monastic life and was called to be metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia, shepherding the Church through years of division and strife.
Feast Day
July 2
Draft
Draft — pending review. Not yet verified for publication.
Our Father among the Saints Photius, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia
Life
Photius was a Greek hierarch of the early fifteenth century who, after embracing monasticism in his youth, was sent from Constantinople to govern the Church of the Rus' as Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia. He led the metropolis from 1408 until his death in 1431, a period marked by the political fragmentation of the Rus' lands between Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Arriving in a metropolis impoverished by invasion and without command of the local language, he devoted his episcopate to restoring the Church's discipline and finances and to preserving its canonical unity against attempts to divide it along political lines. He is venerated on July 2, the day of his repose, and his relics rest in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.
Timeline 6 moments
ReadHide
1397Monastic service in MonemvasiaBorn in the Peloponnesian city of Monemvasia and tonsured a monk in his youth, Photius served under the elder Akakios, Metropolitan of Monemvasia.
September 1408Consecration as metropolitanFollowing the death of his predecessor, Metropolitan Cyprian, Patriarch Matthew I of Constantinople consecrated Photius as Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus'.
1409-1410Arrival in the Rus' landsHe reached Kiev in 1409 and, after some months there, travelled on to Moscow, arriving by the spring of 1410. He found the metropolitan residence ravaged in the wake of Khan Edigu's 1408 invasion and the treasury empty.
1414-1420Restoration of canonical unityWhen Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania arranged the election of Gregory Tsamblak as a separate metropolitan for the Lithuanian lands without the approval of Constantinople, the metropolis was divided. After Gregory's death around 1419-1420, Photius negotiated peace with Vytautas and reunited the whole metropolis under his authority, abolishing the separate Lithuanian metropolitanate.
July 2, 1431ReposePhotius died in Moscow and was buried in the Dormition Cathedral.
1471-1472Uncovering of relicsHis relics were uncovered during the rebuilding of the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, near those of the Metropolitans Cyprian and Jonah.
Contributions & Legacy
2 contributions
ReadHide
Episcopate and Contributions
Photius governed the metropolis of Kiev and All Russia for some twenty-three years under Grand Prince Vasily I of Moscow. Sources record that he worked to rebuild the Church's material standing and to restore ecclesiastical discipline after the disruptions that preceded his arrival.
Beyond administration, he is credited with literary and canonical works, including a treatise on the selection and installation of bishops dated to 1423, and with efforts to suppress the Strigolniki movement, a dissenting current active in the Rus' lands during his episcopate.
Relics and Veneration
Photius was buried in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, where his relics were uncovered during the cathedral's reconstruction in the early 1470s. He is commemorated on July 2, the day of his repose, with a further commemoration of the translation of his relics observed on May 27.
