Vladimir (Dimitry) Konstantinovich of Uglich

The right-⁠believing Prince Vladimir (Dimitry) Konstantinovich (1214-1249) was prince of Uglich, the third son of Grand Prince Konstantin Vsevolodovich and the father of the holy princes of Uglich Andrei and Roman. He died on 27 December 1249. He is venerated as a local saint; he is commemorated on 26 October and 27 December.

The son of the holy Grand Prince Konstantin Vsevolodovich and Princess Agafia Mstislavna, he was the younger brother of the martyr Prince Vasily (Vasilko) of Rostov and of the right-⁠believing Prince Vsevolod (John) of Yaroslavl. He became ruler of the principality of Uglich, it seems, not long before 1226, when he took part with Grand Prince George (Yuri) Vsevolodovich and his brothers in an expedition against Prince Oleg Igorevich of Kursk. In 1228, in a conflict between Prince Yaroslav (Theodore) Vsevolodovich and Grand Prince George, he sided with the former. Reconciliation came in the same year at the assembly of princes at Suzdal, where the Konstantinovich brothers, "setting right all the ill-⁠feeling between them," "all bowed to Yuri," acknowledging him "father and lord." In 1230, at the initiative of him and his brothers, Saint Cyril II was installed as bishop at Rostov, and the princes were present at the enthronement. In 1231-1232 he went again with an army into the Chernigov land, and in 1232 he married Eudoxia, daughter of Prince Ingvar Igorevich of Ryazan.

In the autumn-⁠winter of 1237-1238 he came with his brothers to Vladimir to help Grand Prince George Vsevolodovich repel the Mongol-⁠Tatar invasion. At the beginning of January 1238, learning from the right-⁠believing Prince Vsevolod (Dimitry) Georgievich of the defeat of the Russian army by Khan Batu at Kolomna, he left Vladimir with the grand prince and his brothers for the river Sit to gather a new army. There, on 4 March 1238, he took part in the battle, tragic for the Russian host, against the army of the Mongol noyon Burundai and survived. In 1239, together with the other princes, he took part in the transfer of the remains of Grand Prince George, who had died on the Sit, from Rostov to Vladimir. At the assembly of princes there his old inheritance, Uglich, was confirmed to him. In 1244 he led the journey of the princes of the house of Rostov to Batu, who confirmed them on their thrones; in 1245-1246 he repeated the journey to the Horde. At the end of 1249 he took part in the assembly of princes at Vladimir and soon died. He was buried in the Transfiguration cathedral at Uglich; the funeral was led by Bishop Cyril II of Rostov, who brought the prince's body from Vladimir to Uglich.

His local veneration at Uglich began rather late, apparently in the eighteenth century, and was tied to the veneration of his sons, above all Prince Roman Vladimirovich, whose relics were found in 1486 during the building of the new Transfiguration cathedral. In the tsars' charters to Uglich neither he nor his elder son Andrei is mentioned until the end of the seventeenth century; their images are absent from the icon of the saints of Uglich of the end of the same century. News of the "right-⁠believing and Christ-⁠loving prince" appears in the Uglich Chronicle, known in copies from the second half of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, on the basis of data taken from the life of Prince Roman and from local traditions.