Martyr, Right-Believing Grand Prince Right-Believing Grand Prince Igor Olgovich, of Chernigov and Kiev, Passion-Bearer

Right-Believing Grand Prince Igor Olgovich, baptized Georgy, tonsured a monk as Gabriel, and given the great schema as Ignatius, of Chernigov and Kiev, Passion-Bearer, was the son of Oleg Svyatoslavich, Prince of Chernigov. He ruled as Prince of Novgorod-Seversk (1139–1146), and after the death of his brother, Grand Prince Vsevolod Olgovich, held the throne of Kiev for a mere thirteen days (August 1–13, 1146). No sooner had the people of Kiev sworn allegiance to him than the boyars broke their oath and summoned his rival, Izyaslav Mstislavich; Igor was seized and imprisoned in a pit-dungeon, where he fell gravely ill.

On January 5, 1147, while still a captive, he was tonsured a monk under the name Gabriel, and shortly before his death received the great schema as Ignatius, living thereafter as a monk at Kiev's St. Theodore Monastery, withdrawn from worldly affairs. Later that year, when the new Kievan prince Izyaslav marched against the Olgovichi of Chernigov, a rumor spread among the people of Kiev that Igor was conspiring with the city's enemies; an enraged mob stormed the monastery and, despite Prince Vladimir's attempts to shield the monk, tore Igor to pieces in the streets of Kiev on September 19, 1147. In 1150 his brother, Prince Svyatoslav Olgovich of Chernigov, translated the passion-bearer's relics to Chernigov, where they became renowned for miracles in the Savior Cathedral. The icon of the Mother of God before which the martyr-prince had prayed before his execution came to be called the Igorevskaya icon.