Constantine I of Kiev

Saint Constantine I was Metropolitan of Kyiv from 1155 to 1159, a Greek by birth, sent from Constantinople in the time of Grand Prince Yuri Dolgoruky. He is commemorated on 5 June. Our sources say only that he was "canonized", without a date or circumstances, so we cannot say more about his veneration.

Metropolitan of Kyiv

After Yuri Dolgoruky became Grand Prince of Kyiv on 20 March 1155, the Patriarch of Constantinople learned that Kyiv was ready to receive a new metropolitan. The patriarch chose Constantine and ordained him for the see of Kyiv. Before leaving, Constantine was the one who prompted the gathering of a council at Constantinople in 1156, in which disputes about the Eucharist were held. He reached Kyiv toward the end of 1156 and was received by Grand Prince Yuri and by two bishops, Manuel of Smolensk and Cosmas of Polotsk.

First of all he deposed all the bishops ordained by his predecessor, Metropolitan Clement Smolyatich, who had been raised by Prince Izyaslav Mstislavich without the patriarch's knowledge. Soon, however, he allowed the priests and deacons ordained by Clement to serve, receiving from them a written document, probably a promise not to obey Clement any longer. He anathematized Prince Izyaslav, who had died.

Last years

His ministry was short. In 1157 Yuri Dolgoruky died, and his successor, Izyaslav Davidovich, was driven out of Kyiv by the sons of Izyaslav Mstislavich. Disagreements then began between Rostislav of Smolensk and his nephews about the metropolitan of Kyiv. In the end it was decided to remove from the see both former metropolitans, Clement and Constantine, and to ask the patriarch for a new primate for Rus'. When Kyiv was taken by Mstislav Izyaslavich, Constantine withdrew to Chernihiv, to Bishop Anthony, where he died in 1159. Before his death he left a strange instruction: that his body not be buried but dragged out to a waste place and left to the street dogs. The next day, however, the body was taken up and buried with honour. The new metropolitan requested by Rostislav from the patriarch, Theodore, reached Kyiv in August 1161.