The life of St Aleksy, Metropolitan of All Russia
When the Khan of the Golden Horde asked him to come and heal his wife Taidula of a blindness that had troubled her for years, Alexis went, praying only that the same God who had opened blind eyes in the Gospel might act once more through him; after he prayed over her and sprinkled her with holy water, her sight returned, and the goodwill this earned did much to ease the burden the Horde placed on Russia's church and people in the years that followed. He later supported Dmitry in his contest with rival princes, at one point sending Sergius of Radonezh to suspend church services in opposing territories until the dispute was settled, and in the 1360s founded several monasteries in Moscow, among them the Chudov in the Kremlin and the Andronikov on the Yauza.
He reposed in 1378, remembered as one of the five great hierarchs whose shepherding shaped Moscow across the centuries, and was canonized after his relics were found incorrupt decades later.
