Moses Archbishop of Novgorod

Saint Moses was Archbishop of Novgorod in the fourteenth century, serving the see across two separate terms (1325-1330 and 1352-1359). Born in Novgorod and named Metrophanes (also recorded as Mitrophan) in worldly life, he left home secretly in his youth to enter Tver's Otroch (Christ-Child) monastery, where he was tonsured a monk. At his parents' insistence he later transferred to a monastery near Novgorod, where he was ordained a hieromonk and eventually appointed archimandrite of the Yuriev monastery.

After the death of Archbishop David of Novgorod, Saint Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow, consecrated Moses as Archbishop of Novgorod in 1325 -- recorded as the first episcopal consecration performed in Moscow. The civic strife, factional quarrels, and repeated fires of the city weighed heavily on him, and after four years he petitioned to retire. He withdrew in 1330 to the Kolmov monastery and afterward to Derevyanitsa, where he built a stone church of the Resurrection of Christ and lived in asceticism for more than twenty years. He returned to the archiepiscopal throne in 1352 at the people's request, and is remembered above all for the many churches and monasteries he raised in Novgorod and its environs. He reposed on January 25, 1362; his incorrupt relics were uncovered in 1686.