Saint Metropolitan Mitrophan became famous as a talented preacher and ascetic, but at the same time - a strict persecutor of the Old Believers. An authoritative archpastor, revered by the Tsar himself, and at the same time an unmercenary person, Saint Mitrophan of Voronezh went down in church history as one of the most controversial figures in Russian church history in the second half of the 17th century. Until the age of forty, the future saint lived in the world: he was married and served as a parish priest in the village of Sidorovskoye near the city of Shuya. Widowed, priest Michael was tonsured with the name Mitrophan in the Zolotnikovsky monastery. In the 1670s, the future bishop was actively involved in the church reform, begun two decades earlier by Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Hegumen Mitrofan toured the villages, identified Old Believers and destroyed the ancient liturgical books. However, to fight the schism, he used not executions and torture as enlightenment in the Western Russian spirit. At the Moscow Council of 1681-1682, in order to fight against the Russian Old Believers and to improve Christian enlightenment, it was decided to increase the number of dioceses. Hegumen Mitrofan was summoned to the capital and on April 2, 1682 was ordained Bishop of Voronezh. With the accession of Peter I, Saint Metrophanes began to support the Tsar in his reforms, although he did not approve of such active Westernization. The saint worked at the Voronezh diocese until his death in 1703. His relics were found and translated in 1832.

Small Russian Finift Porcelain icon - St. Sergius of Radonezh and His Parents