Hierarch Tryphon of Rostov

Saint Trifon, Archbishop of Rostov, was a fifteenth-century Russian hierarch whose exact birth date and place remain unknown. Before his episcopate he served as hegumen of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, and then, from 1448 to 1462, as archimandrite of the Moscow Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery "na Boru," serving as confessor to Grand Prince Vasily II the Blind; in 1447 it was Trifon who absolved the prince of an oath he had sworn under captivity, an act of considerable political significance for consolidating Muscovite power. On May 13, 1462, he was consecrated Bishop of Rostov and Yaroslavl and elevated to the rank of archbishop. In 1467, due to age or illness, he relinquished his see and withdrew to the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery in Yaroslavl, where he died on December 30, 1468, and was buried beside his predecessor, Bishop Prokhor. His individual feast day is February 1/14, apparently established because of his name-day connection with the martyr Tryphon of Apamea; he is also commemorated collectively in the Synaxis of Rostov-Yaroslavl Saints on May 23/June 5.