Michael III of Kiev

Michael III was metropolitan of Kiev in the 1170s, known from historical Church sources. Our sources do not, however, clearly show that he was canonized or that he has an established commemoration in the Church calendar, so we cannot speak of a saint's life in the full sense, only of what is known of the man.

In the synodal decision of the patriarch of Constantinople of 24 March 1171, concerning the oath of loyalty to the emperor Manuel I Comnenus and his son Alexius II, born in 1169, among the twenty-⁠four metropolitans present, the twelfth, in the proper order, appears as Michail Rosias. In pre-⁠revolutionary historiography this testimony was not taken into account, because it was believed that Constantine II had held the see until at least 1174. Moreover, the Michael named in it is unknown to the Russian sources.

The new metropolitan Michael III (from January 1170, according to the source) patronized monasticism and enjoyed its support, being an opponent of the union, and he had every reason to keep peace in the Russian Church and to encourage the monastery steadfast in Orthodoxy. For this reason its abbot received precedence over the other abbots of Russian monasteries; it may be that at that time the Caves Monastery received the name of lavra. It can be supposed that the title of archimandrite, in which Polycarp appears publicly for the first time at the celebrations of July 1171, was granted by the new metropolitan, who would have arrived in Kiev about June 1171. How long Michael III held the see is not clear.

A Ukrainian source speaks of a Michael, there called the Second, bishop of Yuriev (Poros, Kaniv), who probably headed the metropolia of Kiev in the 1170s. He was an ascetic at the monastery of the Holy Archangel Michael on Zverynets hill, and his name is among the eight dwellers of that monastery recorded in the synodikon on the wall of the cave. Later he became bishop of Yuriev and is mentioned as bishop in 1171 and 1173. The commemoration of this hierarch, according to that source, is on 19 September (6 September old style). The sources do not say clearly whether it is the same person.