Hermogenes of Moscow

Patriarch Hermogenes (also Germogen; secular name Yermolay) was Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' from 1606 until his death in 1612 and is venerated as a hieromartyr in the Russian Orthodox Church. Firm evidence for his birth year and birthplace is lacking; later tradition sometimes links him with Kazan or, in some accounts, with the Don Cossacks, but these claims are not securely documented. By the later sixteenth century he was a married parish priest in Kazan, serving at the church of St. Nicholas of the Gostiny Dvor. Contemporary and near-contemporary sources connect him with the 1579 appearance of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, of which he wrote a narrative account. After his wife’s death he received monastic tonsure and the name Hermogenes.

In 1589 he became archimandrite of the Saviour-Transfiguration Monastery in Kazan. After the establishment of the Moscow patriarchate that same year he was consecrated Metropolitan of Kazan, a leading see in the recently conquered Volga region. As metropolitan he promoted Orthodox church life and missionary work among Tatar and other non-Russian populations, oversaw church building, and gathered local historical and hagiographical materials. He held that office through the reigns of Feodor I and Boris Godunov and into the opening of the Time of Troubles.

In 1606, after the fall of the first False Dmitry and the deposition of Patriarch Ignatius, Hermogenes was elected Patriarch of Moscow. His tenure coincided with the deepest phase of the Time of Troubles: the reign of Vasily Shuisky, the second False Dmitry, famine, and Polish-Lithuanian intervention. He insisted that any foreign candidate for the throne, including Prince Władysław of Poland, must accept Orthodoxy, and he refused to bless a Catholic or uniate political settlement. In 1610–1611 he issued encyclical letters from Moscow urging cities and monasteries to resist the Polish garrison and to unite in choosing a native Orthodox tsar. Those letters helped stimulate the national militias, including the Second Volunteer Army associated with Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky.

The Polish-backed authorities in Moscow confined him in the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin. He continued to refuse demands that he order Russian forces to withdraw. According to contemporary and later accounts he was starved in prison and died there on 17 February 1612 (Old Style). He was buried at the Chudov Monastery; in 1652 his relics were translated to the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The Russian Orthodox Church glorified him as a saint in 1913. His principal commemorations are 17 February (repose) and 12 May (translation of relics and glorification).