Daniil

Born before 1492; died May 22, 1547. Moscow metropolitan from 1522 to 1539. Descendant of a Riazan family.

In 1515, Daniil became abbot of the Iosif-Volokolamsk monastery. He was a pupil of the prominent Russian clergyman Iosif Volotskii and was a representative of the militant church circles interested in alliance with the grand princes. From 1525 to 1531 he organized a series of church assemblies that condemned the “nonpossessing” group opposed to Iosif Volotskii. The group included Vassian Patrikeev and Maksim the Greek, among others. Evading church canons, Daniil sanctioned the divorce of Grand Prince Vasilii III from the childless Solomoniia Saburova (1525). During the struggle in 1538 of the Shuiskii princes against Prince I. F. Bel’skii, Daniil supported the latter; as a consequence, when the Shuiskii princes came to power. Daniil was stripped of the title of metropolitan. Daniil wrote many religious-polemical works, in which he condemned the heretics and the “non-possessors.”