Hierarchs Moscow Hierarchs (Jonah, Philip, Hermogenes)

NOTE ON COMPOSITION: the card's name "(3-5)" indicates it covers the third, fourth, and fifth hierarchs of the classic five-member Synaxis of Moscow Hierarchs (Peter, Alexius, Jonah, Philip, Hermogenes) — i.e., Jonah, Philip, and Hermogenes — while Peter and Alexius (1-2) are apparently represented by a separate card. The Synaxis was established by Patriarch Job on October 5, 1596, originally honoring three hierarchs (Peter, Alexius, Jonah), expanded with St. Philip in 1875 and Hieromartyr Hermogenes in 1913; the list was expanded further in the 20th–21st centuries.

Hierarch JONAH, Metropolitan of Moscow, was born in the 1390s in the village of Odnoushevo in the Kostroma region. A monk from age 12, he labored at the Simonov Monastery in Moscow and was made Bishop of Ryazan. In 1448 a council of Russian bishops, not awaiting Constantinople's sanction (because deposed Metropolitan Isidore had signed the Union of Florence), elected Jonah metropolitan — a moment traditionally regarded as the beginning of the Russian Church's autocephaly. He died March 31, 1461; he was glorified church-wide at the Council of 1547.

Hierarch PHILIP (Kolychev), Metropolitan of Moscow, born Fyodor Stepanovich Kolychev, of a boyar family. He was abbot of the Solovetsky Monastery. In 1566 he was installed as metropolitan by Ivan the Terrible, refusing to unconditionally accept a condition not to oppose the oprichnina. He repeatedly denounced the tsar for the oprichniki's atrocities; on March 25, 1568, he publicly refused Ivan the Terrible his blessing in the Dormition Cathedral. A council, under pressure from the tsar, stripped him of rank on fabricated charges and exiled him to the Otroch Monastery in Tver, where on December 23, 1569, he was smothered by Malyuta Skuratov. His relics were transferred to Moscow in 1652 under Patriarch Nikon.

Hierarch HERMOGENES (Ermogen), Patriarch of Moscow, traditionally of Don Cossack origin. He served as a priest in Kazan, where in 1579 he was involved in the finding of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. He was elected Patriarch in 1606. During the Time of Troubles he firmly opposed installing the Polish prince Władysław on the throne without his conversion to Orthodoxy and the withdrawal of Polish troops, sending letters across Russia calling for resistance — appeals that helped spur the creation of Minin and Pozharsky's Second Militia. Imprisoned by the Poles in the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin, he died of starvation in captivity on February 17, 1612, having refused to order the militia to stand down.

The Synaxis's joint feast is kept on October 5/18.