Hieromartyr Philip Metropolitan of Moscow

1507 – 1569

Also known as Philip II of Moscow · Philip Kolychev

Metropolitan of Moscow who openly rebuked the cruelties of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, was deposed and exiled, and was strangled in prison for his witness to justice and truth.

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Commemorated as

Our Father among the Saints Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia, the Hieromartyr

Life

Philip II of Moscow (born Fyodor Stepanovich Kolychev) was Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia from 1566 to 1568. A member of one of the most illustrious boyar families of Muscovy, he abandoned a promising court career at the age of approximately thirty to enter the Solovetsky Monastery on the White Sea, where he eventually rose to become hegumen and transformed the monastery into a major center of construction and economic development. Elected Metropolitan against the turbulent backdrop of Tsar Ivan IV's reign, Philip accepted the office on the condition that Ivan dissolve the Oprichnina — his feared private army and apparatus of political terror. When that condition went unmet and the killings continued, Philip took the extraordinary step of publicly rebuking the tsar during the Divine Liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral in 1568.

He was subsequently arrested, subjected to a show trial on charges of sorcery and immoral conduct, deposed, and exiled to the Otroch Monastery in Tver. On 23 December 1569, the oprichnik Malyuta Skuratov — Ivan's most feared enforcer — entered Philip's cell and strangled him. He was glorified as a saint and martyr in 1652 when Patriarch Nikon persuaded Tsar Alexis to translate his relics to Moscow, an event that itself carried political significance as a public acknowledgment of Ivan's crime.

Timeline8 momentsReadHide

11 February 1507Birth in MoscowBorn Fyodor Stepanovich Kolychev in Moscow into the ancient and prestigious Kolychev boyar family, which traced its lineage to a companion of the Grand Prince of Moscow. He grew up in close proximity to the royal court and knew the young Ivan IV from childhood.
c. 1537–1538Entry into Solovetsky MonasteryDeparting from court life, Fyodor travelled north to the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea and entered the monastery there, receiving the monastic name Philip. He worked initially as a forge operator and baker before advancing through the ranks of monastic life.
c. 1548Elected hegumenAfter approximately eleven years of monastic life, Philip was elected hegumen (abbot) of Solovetsky Monastery. Under his leadership the community undertook significant building projects: two stone cathedrals, a brickyard, water mills and storage facilities, and a canal network connecting 72 lakes on the island. These improvements made the monastery economically self-sufficient and architecturally impressive.
25 July 1566Consecration as MetropolitanAt Ivan IV's insistence, the episcopate elected Philip as Metropolitan of Moscow. Philip agreed to accept the office on the condition that the Oprichnina — the tsar's separate state apparatus of terror — be abolished. Ivan did not honor this undertaking.
2 March 1568Public rebuke of Ivan IVDuring the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, Philip publicly refused to bless the tsar and rebuked him before the assembled congregation for the ongoing violence of the Oprichnina. This act of prophetic witness was unprecedented in its directness.
November 1568Arrest and depositionIvan arranged a council that charged Philip with sorcery and a dissolute life. He was arrested — reportedly seized during a liturgy at the Dormition Cathedral — imprisoned in chains, and eventually transferred to the Otroch Monastery in Tver. The Holy Synod formally deposed him.
23 December 1569Death by stranglingMalyuta Skuratov, the most feared commander of the Oprichnina, came to Philip's cell at Otroch Monastery and strangled him. Philip had reportedly refused to bless Ivan's planned campaign against Novgorod, and his execution has been understood as a final act of reprisal.
1652Translation of relics and glorificationPatriarch Nikon persuaded Tsar Alexis to formally retrieve Philip's relics from Solovetsky and translate them to the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow — the same church where Philip had publicly confronted Ivan. He was canonized that same year. The translation was accompanied by the tsar's written apology on behalf of his ancestor.

Contributions & Legacy

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The Solovetsky Years

Philip's nearly three decades at Solovetsky — first as a monk of the community and then as its hegumen — formed the spiritual and administrative character that would define his metropolitan ministry. The White Sea monastery, remote and demanding, cultivated a tradition of austere monastic labor alongside theological study. As hegumen, Philip proved a gifted administrator: the hydraulic engineering of the canal system connecting the island's lakes was a genuine technical achievement, and the stone cathedrals he commissioned remained defining structures of the monastery for centuries.

His tenure at Solovetsky also brought him into early friction with Ivan IV, whose requests for the monastery to support the Oprichnina Philip resisted. This pattern of principled independence from royal pressure would continue when he accepted the metropolitan throne.

Metropolitan and Martyr

Philip's brief two-year metropolitan tenure was defined by his resistance to the Oprichnina. His public denunciation of Ivan in the Dormition Cathedral in 1568 was a singular event in the history of Muscovite Christianity — a metropolitan standing before the assembled court and congregation and refusing to offer the customary blessing to the sovereign because of his moral crimes. Ivan's response was to engineer Philip's deposition on false charges rather than confront him directly, a proceeding that itself bore witness to the political and spiritual weight of Philip's challenge.

The Church's memory of Philip has consistently emphasized the prophetic character of his witness: that a hierarch, at ultimate personal cost, held the criteria of the Gospel over against the logic of political power. His memory became particularly charged in later centuries when the tension between Church and state in Russia was re-examined.

Veneration and Legacy

Philip is venerated as a hieromartyr — a bishop-martyr — and his feast days fall on January 9 (the day of his death, old style) and July 3 (the translation of his relics to Moscow). He is one of the most prominent Russian saints of the sixteenth century and a central figure in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church's relationship with the Muscovite state.

His relics remain in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The Solovetsky Monastery, where he spent his formative years, later became notorious in the twentieth century as the site of one of the first Soviet prison camps — a coincidence of geography that Russian Christians have read as a further sign of the monastery's history of witness under political oppression.

Member ofReadHide

Synaxis of the Moscow Hierarchs

Commemorated together · Oct 5

Companions3 figuresShowHide

Monks of Philip's monastery who would later suffer under Soviet persecution in the same location

New Martyrs and Confessors of Solovetsky

His disciples at Solovki, drowned in the White Sea and venerated at Pertominsk.

Venerable Bassian and Jonahof Pertominsk

Metropolitan of Moscow before him, who gathered the Great Menaion Reader.

Saint MacariusMetropolitan of Moscow

Related Saints3 saintsShowHide

Saints connected to his life, mission, and place in Orthodox tradition.