Cyprian, Zamblak

CIPRIANO, ZAMBLAK. — Dissident metropolitan venerated as a saint by the Russian Church on 17 September, born in Tirnovo (Bulgaria), died in 1406. Having become a monk on Mount Athos, he was patriarch and was consecrated by Philotheus as metropolitan of Kiev and Lithuania, with the right of succession to the see of Moscow, which he obtained, not without obstacles, in 1390. He fought the Strigolniki, heretics of Novgorod who denied the resurrection of the dead, and, in the face of liturgical decadence and the growing nationalist sentiment, ensured the predominance of the Byzantine orientation. C. left dogmatic, juridical, and hagiographical writings, as well as a Church Slavonic version of Philotheus’s liturgy.