Right-Believing Right-Believing Prince Andrey Yuryevich Bogolyubsky

Right-Believing Prince Andrey Yuryevich Bogolyubsky (c. 1111–1174), son of Yuri Dolgoruky, grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, Grand Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal. He moved the capital of the principality from Rostov to Vladimir and built the Dormition Cathedral and his country residence at Bogolyubovo, where tradition holds the Mother of God appeared to him — in memory of this apparition the feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos was established.

On the night of June 29, 1174, Andrey was murdered at Bogolyubovo by a boyar conspiracy of the Kuchkovich family. Local veneration arose soon after his death and intensified especially under Ivan the Terrible. He was canonized in 1702, when his relics were uncovered and placed in the Dormition Cathedral of Vladimir, where they remain today; his feast was fixed as July 4 (17, N.S.) — the feast of his patron, Andrew of Crete — rather than the anniversary of his murder. Despite his violent death, he is officially titled a right-believing prince, not a martyr: his killing was a political conspiracy, not an execution for faith, though church hymnography draws a parallel with the passion-bearers Boris and Gleb. He is also commemorated in the Synaxis of Vladimir Saints.