Rule and Works of Charity
Orthodox accounts describe Roman as a wise and merciful ruler who became, in the synaxarion's phrase, a father to his subjects. He established a poor-house and received the destitute who came to him from across the region, and he built hospitals and hospice houses both in the city of Uglich and in its monasteries. He is credited with constructing fifteen churches throughout his principality and with founding the town of Romanov on the high bank of the Volga, identified with the modern Tutaev. He is said to have attended divine services daily and to have conversed frequently with monks. By tradition his rule and prayers spared Uglich from devastation during the period of Mongol-Tatar domination.