Hierarch
Hierarch, Metropolitan Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev, Moscow, and All Russia
ок. 1336 — †16 сентября 1406
Also known as: Киприан Московский
Hierarch Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia — a Bulgarian by birth and an Athonite ascetic; Metropolitan of Kiev, Russia, and Lithuania (1375–1380), then Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia (1389–1406); he contributed to the ecclesiastical unification of the Russian lands and authored literary and hagiographic works; he was buried in the Moscow Dormition Cathedral, and his relics were found incorrupt in 1472.
Hierarch Cyprian was born around 1336 in the city of Tarnovo, capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. While laboring on Mount Athos, he was closely connected with the Serbian monastery of Hilandar and with Rusik, where he became close to the future Patriarch of Constantinople, Philotheus Kokkinos. In 1375 he was made Metropolitan of Kiev, Russia, and Lithuania, and after the repose of St. Alexy, having passed through difficult circumstances of ecclesiastical-political struggle for the Moscow see, in 1389 he became Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia. He labored greatly for the reconciliation of the fragmented Russian principalities around the Moscow metropolitanate, participated in the preparation of an all-Russian chronicle compilation, and contributed to the spread of the hesychast tradition and the translation of patristic and liturgical texts into Slavonic. He died on September 16, 1406, in Moscow and was buried in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. On May 27, 1472, during the construction of the new Dormition Cathedral, his relics were found incorrupt. His memory is kept on September 16/29 (repose) and May 27/June 9 (finding of relics).