Cyril, Metropolitan of Moscow

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Cyril, Metropolitan of Moscow
Metropolitans of Moscow and all Russia
ChurchRussian Orthodox Church
SeeMoscow
Installed1568
Term ended1572
PredecessorPhilip II, Metropolitan of Moscow
SuccessorAnthony, Metropolitan of Moscow
Personal details
Born1492
Died8 March 1572

Cyril IV (Russian: Кирилл) (died 8 February 1572) was the Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus' from 1568 to 1572. He was the fourteenth Metropolitan in Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had been the norm.

There is not much information on Metropolitan Cyril and his deeds. In 1566, Cyril was appointed archmandrite at the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra. On 11 November 1568 he was elected metropolitan in favor of the recently deposed Metropolitan Philip. During Cyril's term, Ivan the Terrible's fierceness reached its climax. In 1571, a Crimean Khan Devlet I Giray attacked Moscow and ravaged the city. Metropolitan Cyril had to hide in the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Moscow Kremlin to avoid death. It was Cyril who had asked Ivan IV not to execute Ivan Mstislavsky, accused of bringing the Tatars to the capital.

Metropolitan Cyril died on 8 February 1572 and was interred at the Novinsky Monastery.

Eastern Orthodox Church titles
Preceded by Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus'
1568–1572
Succeeded by