SAINT PHOTIUS OF KIEV

Contrary to popular belief, the Baptism of Rus’ under Prince Vladimir did not automatically appoint a metropolitan for the Russian Church by Constantinople. Byzantine thought missions among pagan peoples were reprehensible, and so the task of enlightening his people, evangelizing them, and integrating them into the ecclesiastical structures of universal Christianity fell to Saint Vladimir. As if compensating for its initial inaction, Constantinople continued to send its metropolitans to Russia until its fall. Saint Photius stands out in this long line of succession.

1 Saint Photius (1408–1431) was the last Greek metropolitan saint of the Russian Church, sent from Constantinople. Saint Photius is commemorated several times throughout the year, one of which falls on September 29th, along with his predecessor, Saint Cyprian.

2 The beginning of the baptism of Prince Vladimir and his people in 988, and then the installation of Russian metropolitans beginning around 1038, was carried out for centuries from Byzantium. During Vladimir’s reign, Byzantium was a vast Orthodox Empire. Four hundred years passed before Photius’s time. From Photius’s death in 1431 to the tragic fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, only twenty-two years remained less than a quarter of a century for a young man. Many “Romans,” as the Byzantines proudly called themselves, preferred not to dwell on this. Many believed that the Empire would nevertheless endure forever. Like the plot of Gabriel García Márquez’s great novel, in which the ruler died, but his subjects believed him alive, Constantinople continued to be the capital of Universal Orthodoxy.

3 The next Metropolitan of the Russian Church after Photius, Gerasim, was a native Muscovite. However, he tragically intervened in the internal strife of the neighboring Lithuanian State and was burned at the stake. His pontificate was very short, lasting only from 1433 to 1435. Two years later, he was replaced by the Greek Metropolitan Isidore, who signed the Union with Rome at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1439. Soon after his arrival in Moscow, he was arrested by Grand Duke Vasily the Blind (1415-1462) and fled to Italy. The Patriarchate of Constantinople sent no more metropolitans to Moscow. The decline of the Byzantine Empire and the fall of the Autumn of the Patriarchate were rapidly approaching.