Hieromartyr Misail, Archbishop of Ryazan

IMPORTANT IDENTITY INVESTIGATION: the original "mishael" card contained images of THREE different people named Misail, mistakenly mixed in one folder (a name-collision contamination typical of this database). One image (now excluded) is clearly inscribed "Venerable Misail of Abalak" — a different saint, a 19th-century Tobolsk hieromonk (born Pavel Ivanovich Fokin, 1797–1852), unrelated to this card. Another is clearly inscribed "Hieromartyr Archbishop Misail" with the iconography of a hierarch in a mantle — chosen as the card's primary identity, having the clearest textual confirmation and the most historically significant veneration. The hypothesis of duplication with the misail_vavilonskiy card (the biblical youth Misael, one of the Three Youths of Babylon) was also investigated and rejected — image inspection showed these are not the same person.

Hieromartyr Misail was born in the early 17th century in the village of Gruzino in the Novgorod region. On April 13, 1651, he was consecrated Bishop of Ryazan by the future Patriarch Nikon, then Metropolitan of Novgorod.

He labored extensively to enlighten the pagan population of the Ryazan and Mordovian lands with the light of Christ, personally traveling to preach. On April 9 (other sources say April 1), 1656, he was killed by an arrow during one of these missionary journeys by a crowd of about 500 armed Mordvins, while trying to persuade the pagans by word not to resist baptism; he walked toward them in his episcopal mantle, with a staff in one hand and a cross in the other.

He was glorified among the locally venerated saints of Ryazan on January 12, 1987. His feast is kept on April 10/23, and he is also commemorated in the Synaxes of the Saints of Ryazan, Tambov, and Lipetsk.