St Michael, First Metropolitan of Kiev.

Commemorated September 30 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

He was sent by the Patriarch of Constantinople to Russia at the request of the great Prince Vladimir, to baptise the pagan people and to establish and organise the Church. St Michael baptised the people in Kiev. Novgorod, Rostov and many other towns and villages, set the Church in order, establishing the episcopate and priesthood, laid the foundations of the monastery of St Michael in Kiev, and sent missionaries to the Bulgars and Tartars, bringing many of them to Christ. This saint accomplished all this and much else in a mere four years. He entered peacefully into rest in 992, and his relics are preserved in the Monastery of the Caves.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK