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 Philotheus, which threatened to divide the Russian Church into two. He held the regency of the principality of Moscow in place of the minor Demetrius and was a great friend of St Sergius of Radonez, the reformer of monasticism. A. founded the monastery of St Andronicus in Moscow. Russian dissidents venerate A. as the second patron of the city of Moscow.
BIBL.: A. M. Ammann, Storia della Chiesa russa, Torino 1948, pp. 82-135.