Venerable Ignatius (Prince Ioann of Uglich), of Vologda

Venerable Ignatius was born in 1477 as Prince Ioann, the son of Prince Andrei Vasilyevich of Uglich (brother of Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow) and Princess Elena. In 1491 Ivan III ordered the arrest of Prince Andrei and his sons (according to one account, for refusing to march troops against the Tatars); Prince Andrei died in captivity three years later. Ioann, together with his brother Dmitry, spent a total of 32 years imprisoned — first in Pereslavl-Zalessky, then transferred to Beloozero and finally to Vologda. According to tradition, Ioann comforted his despondent brother, saying that their sufferings freed them from the vanity of the world.

Shortly before his death he was tonsured into the great schema with the name Ignatius by Abbot Misail of the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery. He died on May 19, 1522; he was buried in the monastery's cathedral church near the relics of its founder — Venerable Dimitri of Priluki (who had established the community back in 1371, more than a century before Ignatius's tonsure).

Veneration developed from the 17th century: a 1690 petition testifies that "the venerable father Gerasim, and the venerable Galaction, and Ignatius shone forth with miracles in the city of Vologda and its surroundings, and their relics are incorrupt." He never received formal church-wide canonization, remaining a locally venerated Vologda wonderworker; he is included in the Synaxis of Vologda Saints (established in 1841 under Bishop Innokenty of Vologda).

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: the original stub erroneously claimed that Venerable Ignatius FOUNDED the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery — this is incorrect: the community was founded by Venerable Dimitri of Priluki, a disciple of Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, in 1371, more than a century before Prince Ioann's (Ignatius's) tonsure. Venerable Ignatius was not the monastery's founder, but was tonsured there and buried there at the end of a long life spent largely in captivity.