ALESSIO PLEŠČEJEV. – Dissident Metropolitan of Kiev and all Russia from 1354 to 1378. He was one of the most celebrated metropolitans of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. In 1361 he succeeded in eliminating the Lithuanian metropolitanate, founded in 1354 by the Byzantine patriarch Filoteo, which threatened to divide the Russian Church in two. He served as regent of the principality of Moscow in place of the underage Demetrio and was a great friend of s. Sergio di Radonez, the renewer of monasticism. A. founded the Monastery of S. Andronico in Moscow. The Russian dissidents venerate A. as the city of Moscow’s second patron.
BIBL.: A. M. Ammann, Storia della Chiesa russa, Turin 1948, pp. 82–135. Alberto M. Ammann