Athanasius, Metropolitan of Moscow

[1][2] He was the eleventh metropolitan in Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had been the norm.

From 1549 to 1550, he was appointed the archpriest of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Moscow Kremlin and became Ivan the Terrible's personal confessor.

[3] Athanasius accompanied the tsar during his military campaign against Kazan in 1552 and held a service during the laying of the foundation stone of the Annunciation Cathedral in that city.

Athanasius participated in the church sobors of 1553 and 1554 as a witness with regards to the restoration of icons and frescos in the Kremlin cathedrals after the fire of 1547.

Also, he wrote the Life of Daniel of Pereyaslavl (Russian: Житие Даниила Переяславского; 1556–1562) and supposedly the Book of Royal Degrees (between 1560 and 1563).