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Biography

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Ilya, known in the church as John, was a twelfth-century Orthodox hierarch and the first archbishop of Novgorod. Surviving chronicles do not record his year of birth, parentage, or place of origin. Before his elevation he served as a priest at the Church of Saint Blaise in Novgorod. In 1165, after a vacancy following the death of Bishop Arkady, the people of Novgorod chose Ilya as bishop. He was consecrated in Kiev by the metropolitan of that see and in the same year received the title of archbishop, which raised the rank of the Novgorod church and was retained by later incumbents of the see.

His tenure from 1165 to 1186 fell in a period of princely conflict across Rus' and of assertive self-government in Novgorod, where the veche and local elites often determined which prince would rule. The episode most closely tied to his name is the siege of Novgorod in 1170 by troops associated with Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky of Vladimir-Suzdal. According to the Novgorod chronicles and later liturgical tradition, the archbishop had the icon of the Mother of God of the Sign brought from the Church of the Transfiguration on Elijah Street and carried in procession on the city walls; the failure of the siege was ascribed to the protection of the Theotokos, and the event became a major local commemoration. As archbishop he consecrated churches and took part in the ecclesiastical and civic life of the city, whose wealth rested on trade and whose church was among the most important in northern Rus'.

Ilya was succeeded by his brother Gabriel, who was tonsured with the monastic name Gregory and served as archbishop of Novgorod from the late 1180s until 1193. Archbishop Ilya died on 7 September 1186 and was buried in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, known as Saint Sophia, in Novgorod, the customary burial church of the city's hierarchs. Contemporary sources say little of his inner life or of any marriage or children; as a bishop of the Orthodox Church he belonged to the monastic episcopate.

Veneration of John as a saint and wonderworker of Novgorod developed in the local church. In the fifteenth century Archbishop Euthymius II of Novgorod was associated with the examination of relics in Saint Sophia and with the establishment of liturgical commemoration of Novgorod hierarchs, including John. A later medieval narrative, the tale of Archbishop John's journey to Jerusalem on a demon, belongs to fifteenth-century religious folklore rather than to twelfth-century chronicle evidence. The Russian Orthodox Church commemorates him on 7 September, the day of his repose. He is remembered as the first archbishop of Novgorod and as a defender of the city; details of his birth and family beyond his brother remain unknown.

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