Ephraim of Rostov

Saint Ephraim, hierarch, was archbishop of Rostov, Yaroslavl and Beloozero and died on 29 March 1454. He was ordained bishop on 13 April 1427 by Metropolitan Photius. He is commemorated on 23 May.

In the same year, 1427, he founded the Holy Trinity Saint Sergius monastery at Varnitsa. In the feudal war of the second quarter of the fifteenth century, when Rus was torn between princes, Ephraim supported Vasily II. He took part in the admonitory epistle of the Russian hierarchs to Dmitry Shemyaka and in the council of 1441 that discussed the “Latin heresy” of Metropolitan Isidore.

In December 1448 he took part in installing Jonah, bishop of Ryazan, as metropolitan, and Jonah raised him to the rank of archbishop. In lists of Russian bishops he was often placed first. In 1451 he was in Moscow, besieged by the tsarevich Mazovsha.

He died on 29 March 1454 and was buried in the Dormition cathedral at Rostov. It should be borne in mind that there was at Rostov another bishop of the same name, Ephraim.