He was the seventh metropolitan in Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had been the norm.
He was selected by Grand Prince Vasily III on July 27, 1511 and consecrated Metropolitan on August 3, 1511.
He was of the Non-possessors, those who opposed ecclesiastical land-ownership, although that group had been defeated at earlier church councils.
In 1515, Varlaam consecrated the main church of the Khutyn Monastery just outside Novgorod the Great, with the archiepiscopal see being vacant from 1509.
As a result, the Grand Prince deposed Varlaam was removed from office on December 17, 1521.