Hierarch Michael I, first Metropolitan of Kiev

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: the category has been corrected from "righteous" to "hierarch."

According to church tradition, Hierarch Michael arrived in Kiev from Constantinople (via Korsun/Cherson) around 988-989, accompanying or shortly following Princess Anna, sister of Byzantine Emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII, sent to seal the marriage alliance and the baptism of Prince Vladimir. Tradition credits him with personally baptizing Vladimir and the people of Kiev in the Dnieper, baptizing the prince's twelve sons at a spring later called Kreshchatyk, and participating in the overthrow of the pagan idol of Perun in Kiev.

He is credited with founding a monastery with a wooden church dedicated to the Archangel Michael (precursor to the later Kiev Golden-Domed St. Michael's Monastery); monks who arrived with him are also linked to the founding of the Kiev-Mezhyhirsky Monastery. Tradition holds he traveled to preach in Novgorod (990) and Rostov (991), establishing the church hierarchy there. He was buried in the Church of the Tithes.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Michael's historicity as literally "the first" Metropolitan of Kiev is disputed by some historians (N. M. Karamzin, D. I. Ilovaisky, E. E. Golubinsky, and later A. V. Poppe), who consider Metropolitans Leon (Leontius) or Theophylact to be better attested; the Orthodox Encyclopedia itself concludes that his primacy "remains historically unproven, though church tradition upholds it." This is honestly reflected here, not concealed.

His feast is kept on June 15 (repose) and September 30 (translation of relics in 1730).