The life of St Philaret of Moscow
In 1808 he was tonsured a monk and took the name Philaret, after Philaret the Merciful, and within a decade he had risen to the rank of bishop, serving in turn at Tver and at Yaroslavl.
He was made Archbishop of Moscow in 1821 and raised to Metropolitan of Moscow in 1826, a position he held for more than forty years until his death. He held it his particular duty to teach: he preached constantly, wrote at length on the Christian life as he had received it from the Church Fathers, and composed a catechism in 1823 that shaped the instruction of Russian believers for generations afterward. He remained active to the very end, serving the Divine Liturgy for the last time on the nineteenth of November, 1867, and dying that same day. Long after his repose, in 1995, the Russian Church numbered him among the saints.
