Theodosius, Metropolitan of Moscow

In 1454, when Theodosius was still archimandrite of the Moscow Kremlin's Chudov Monastery, he was promoted to the office of Archbishop of Rostov.

[1] Theodosius's appointment marked a new period of actual independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from the patriarch of Constantinople.

Theodosius' appointment was, however, eventually blessed by Philippi, Metropolitan of Caesarea, on behalf of the patriarch of Constantinople in April 1464.

[2] Since his first days as a metropolitan, Theodosius sought to eradicate unscrupulousness among the priests and educating the clergy in his province.

Theodosius also had to contend with a metropolitanate in Lithuania which threatened to take the western eparchies of the Province of Moscow, most notably Novgorod the Great, and was suspected of Latinizing, in which case these western regions would not only be lost to the Moscow metropolitan, but would go over to Catholicism and be lost to Orthodoxy altogether.