Simon of Moscow

Holy Hierarch Simon of Moscow, called Chizh, was metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia and fell asleep in the year 1511. From 1490 he had been hegumen of the Holy Trinity-⁠Saint Sergius Monastery.

His election

He was nicknamed Chizh (the Siskin), as the Typographic Chronicle reports. On 6 September 1495 he was elected and named metropolitan of Moscow, and on 20 September 1495 he was consecrated bishop with elevation to metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia. His installation had a new and complex ceremonial: the grand prince himself gave him the pastoral staff and greeted him with a speech; after the consecration Metropolitan Simon rode around the city on a donkey, led by a boyar of the grand prince. He blessed to the grand princedom first Dimitri, grandson of Ivan III, then his son Vasily Ivanovich.

His ministry

In his time councils were convened several times, mostly on his initiative and under his presidency, to resolve weighty questions of church life. A council for the good order of the Orthodox Church drew up a council's answer to Ivan III on monastery landholding. He was a like-⁠minded man and a patron of Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk († 1515, commemorated on 9/22 September), took an active part in the Council of 1504 against the heresy of the Judaizers, and his support was decisive in the quarrel between Hegumen Joseph of Volokolamsk and Archbishop Serapion of Novgorod († 1516, commemorated on 16/29 March). Shortly before his death Metropolitan Simon, "at the grand prince's word", asked Serapion's forgiveness. He was a man of blameless life, of great humility, adorned with all the virtues.

On 26 April 1511 he fell ill and fell asleep on 30 April 1511; by other accounts, in the spring of 1511 he left the metropolia and withdrew to the Trinity Monastery, where he died on 12 January 1512. He was buried in the church of the Archangel in the Chudov Monastery, and later his remains were moved to the Dormition cathedral in the Kremlin, where they rest to this day.

Scholar and icon painter

Metropolitan Simon was a widely read man, who knew Holy Scripture and canonical literature well, as his own writings and the epistles addressed to him by Archbishops Gennadius and Serapion of Novgorod and by Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk attest. Manuscripts given by him survive: an Explanatory Apostle at the Trinity Monastery, a Zlatostruy and an Aprakos Gospel at the Dormition cathedral in Moscow. He was also a good icon painter; an icon of the Vladimir Mother of God painted by him is known.

He is commemorated on 5 September, a movable date, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.