Suggest an Edit — Archangel Michael

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Patronage & Feast Day

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e.g. January 28, March 19

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Biography

Short Description

Archangel Michael (Hebrew Mīkhāʾēl, Who is like God?; Greek Michaēl) is a principal angelic figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He is venerated as a saint in Christian liturgy, but he is not a human being and therefore has no historically attested birth, death, burial, marriage, or earthly career. In the canonical Hebrew Bible he appears only in the Book of Daniel (10:13, 10:21, 12:1), where he is called one of the chief princes and the great prince who stands over the people of Israel, a heavenly protector in a conflict involving the prince of the kingdom of Persia. The Hebrew scriptures do not give him the later title archangel. Extra-biblical Jewish literature of the Second Temple period greatly expands the figure: in 1 Enoch he is among the four or seven leading angels; the Qumran War Scroll speaks of a Prince of Light who leads the sons of light; and later rabbinic tradition presents Michael as Israel’s advocate before God, sometimes as heavenly high priest, often contrasted with an accusing angel such as Samael.

The New Testament names Michael twice. The Epistle of Jude (verse 9) recounts that Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses and would not pronounce a reviling judgment but said, The Lord rebuke you—a tradition related to extra-biblical material associated with the Assumption or Testament of Moses. Revelation 12:7–9 describes a war in heaven in which Michael and his angels fight the dragon, who is thrown down with his angels and identified as the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. From these texts and from apocalyptic Judaism, early and medieval Christianity developed a cluster of roles: commander of the heavenly host; chief adversary of Satan; guardian of the Church; psychopomp who conducts souls; weigher of souls at judgment, a motif prominent in Byzantine and Western art; and healer. Constantine is associated with a shrine called the Michaelion at Sosthenion near Constantinople. In the Latin West, the sanctuary of Monte Sant’Angelo on Monte Gargano in Apulia, linked to an apparition tradition of the late fifth century, became a major pilgrimage centre; the island sanctuary of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, whose foundation legend belongs to the eighth century, likewise spread the cult. The Western feast on 29 September (Michaelmas) is attested by the sixth century; in the present Roman calendar it is the joint feast of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Eastern Orthodox churches keep the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers on 8 November. Other commemorations include 8 May for the Gargano apparition. Coptic and Ethiopian churches maintain especially strong popular devotion, including monthly commemorations in the Coptic calendar.

In Islam, Mīkāʾīl (Mikail) is one of the archangels. Qur’an 2:98 names him together with Gabriel; later Islamic tradition associates him with rain, nourishment, and mercy rather than with the warrior-dragon combat of Christian apocalyptic imagery. Because Michael is an angel, Christian churches never subjected him to beatification or canonization; his cult is primordial in Christian worship rather than the elevation of a deceased human. He held no earthly ecclesiastical office and belonged to no religious order. Traditional Jewish, Christian, and Islamic language refers to him with masculine pronouns and titles. Christian teaching that the blessed neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven is consistent with ascribing to him neither spouse nor children. Iconography typically shows a youthful winged warrior, often in armour, with sword or spear, sometimes with scales, standing over a dragon or Satan.

Medieval and modern patronage grew from these military, protective, and eschatological roles. Michael became patron of soldiers, knights, and later of police, security forces, mariners, and airborne troops; of grocers; of the dying and the sick; of radiologists in the twentieth century; and of numerous places, including Germany, Brussels, and Kyiv, whose arms and the Golden-Domed Monastery of Saint Michael reflect the dedication. He was historically associated with the Holy Roman Empire. Sanctuaries from Skellig Michael in Ireland to the Russian city of Arkhangelsk, together with countless parish churches, bear his name. Hagiography of Michael is therefore not the life of a man but the history of a biblical figure’s reception: a heavenly prince in Daniel, a warrior against the dragon in Revelation, and, across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a high angel whose feast days and patronages mark one of the most widespread cults in the Abrahamic world.

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