Metropolitan Philip II

3/4/13 “He alone can in truth call himself sovereign who is master of himself, who is not subject to his passions and conquers by charity.” Born Theodore Kolychev, Metropolitan Phillip II of Moscow, a saint of the Orthodox Church, took the name Philip when he was tonsured a monk at the monastery of Solovki in northern Russia, on an island in the White Sea. Though his father had been a minister in the court of Basil III, he chose instead the life of a monk at one of Russia’s most remote monasteries. Having advanced to the point of living as a hermit in the nearby forest, Philip succeeded the abbot Alexis as head of the monastery at the latter’s request.