Saint Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow

Life

Philip was born February 11, 1507. Once standing as a young man in church he heard where the priest was reading from the Gospel: "No man can serve two masters," and he was frightened by these words as if they were being spoken exclusively to him, and was enlightened at the same time, and withdrew to the Solovetsky Monastery where after a long and difficult novitiate he took monastic vows. Having become in time the igumen, he shone like the sun, and all the Russian land heard of him. Therefore Tsar Ivan the Terrible brought him to the vacant place of Metropolitan of Moscow in the year 1566. But the holy man could not look with indifference upon the atrocities of the terrible tsar, but counseled him and fearlessly denounced him. The tsar found false witnesses against Philip, deposed him and ordered that he be dressed in simple tattered monastic robes, and imprisoned him in Tver. Skuratov, one of the tsar's confidants, came to Philip's cell and strangled him with a pillow. But soon by an evil death perished all those who had been against Philip. And after several years the saint's body was found whole, and incorrupt, and fragrant, and was transferred to the Solovetsky Monastery.