Saint Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow

Life

He was a great hierarch of the Russian Church in the difficult time of the Russian people's subjugation under the Tartars. Once in childhood he was catching birds, and fell asleep, and in a dream heard a voice: "Alexis, why do you labor in vain? I will make you a fisher of men." In his twentieth year he became a monk and in time became Metropolitan of Moscow. Twice he went to the Tartar "Golden Horde"; the first time to soften the anger of Khan Berdibek against the Russian people, and the second time at the invitation of Khan Amurat, to heal his wife from blindness. For three years that woman had been blind, but she was healed and received sight when Alexis read a prayer over her and anointed her with holy water. After a laborious and fruitful life he reposed in the year 1378 in his eighty-fifth year and departed to the courts of the Lord.