Confessor Hieroconfessor Agafangel (Preobrazhensky), Metropolitan of Yaroslavl

Hierarch Agafangel (secular name Alexander Lavrentyevich Preobrazhensky) was born September 27, 1854, in the village of Mochily, Tula province, to a priest's family. After his wife and son died in 1885, he took monastic vows as Agafangel and was ordained hieromonk. He served as bishop of Kirensk, Tobolsk, Riga, and Vilna.

He became Archbishop of Yaroslavl and Rostov in 1913, then metropolitan in 1917. In May 1922, amid Patriarch Tikhon's arrest, he was vested with locum tenens authority but refused to recognize the Renovationist administration, suffering persecution and three years' exile (1922–1925).

He returned to Yaroslavl as a confessor of the faith and continued governing the diocese until his death on October 3/16, 1928. He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church's Jubilee Bishops' Council in 2000 among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Not to be confused with the early-Christian Martyr Agathangelus of Rome (3rd c., companion of Hieromartyr Clement of Ancyra) — two distinct, legitimately venerated namesakes.