Q4331817

Patriarch Job (Iov), the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', was born in the town of Staritsa in the Tver lands of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the first half of the sixteenth century. His baptismal name was Ivan. As a youth he entered the Dormition Monastery in Staritsa and was tonsured with the monastic name Job. He became known for ascetic discipline and was later called to Moscow, where he served as archimandrite of the Simonov Monastery and then of the Novospassky Monastery, houses closely tied to the Muscovite court. In 1581 he was consecrated bishop of Kolomna. He was raised to archbishop of Rostov in 1586 and to metropolitan of Moscow in 1587, then the highest rank in the Russian Church.

The establishment of a Russian patriarchate, long sought by Muscovite rulers, was accomplished in 1589 when Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople, present in Moscow, consecrated Job as Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'. This act placed the autocephalous Russian Church on a footing with the ancient Eastern patriarchates. Job organized the new patriarchal administration, created additional dioceses, and encouraged missionary work in the Volga region and Siberia. He remained a firm supporter of Boris Godunov and performed Godunov’s coronation as tsar in 1598 after the end of the Rurikid line.

The Time of Troubles destroyed this stability. After Boris Godunov’s death in 1605 the pretender False Dmitry I entered Moscow. Job refused to recognize him as the true tsarevich Dmitry and would not offer allegiance. He was seized in the Dormition Cathedral, publicly stripped of his patriarchal vestments, and exiled to the Staritsa monastery of his original tonsure. He remained there under confinement until his death on 19 June 1607 and was buried in the monastery church.

In 1652, during the patriarchate of Joseph, Job’s relics were found incorrupt and were transferred with ceremony to the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, where they remain. The Russian Orthodox Church numbers him among the saints and commemorates him on 19 June (the day of his repose) and 5 April, as well as in the Synaxis of the Hierarchs of Moscow. He is remembered as a confessor who would not legitimize an impostor and as the hierarch who first occupied the patriarchal throne of Moscow.