This event was even recorded by the Chronicle, which eloquently presented the reasons for the prince's antipathy towards the new metropolitan: "In the same year [1183] the bishop of Polotsk, named Dionysius, died, and we will therefore talk about this.
Thus, in the autumn of 1186, the Novgorodians (people of the Great Novgorod) elected Gabriel (in monasticism Gregory, later glorified as a saint), the brother of Archbishop Elijah, who had died on September 7 of the same year, to the widowed see.
Similarly, in Kyiv Metropolitan Nicephorus II, on January 23, 1190, at the request of Prince Vsevolod Yurievich of Suzdal, appointed his confessor Jona as Bishop of Rostov, who took over the see after the death of Luka.
On December 10, 1193, Metropolitan Nicephorus II ordained Bishop Martyrius, surnamed Rushanin, to Novgorod, who was chosen by lot from three candidates for the archbishopric after the death of Gabriel.
Also in 1190, with the support of the Kiev prince, Metropolitan Nicephorus II managed to establish a new, twelfth (12th) diocese of the Ruthenian Orthodox Church, the bishopric of Ryazan.