Saint Andrey Bogolyubsky

Andrey I Yuryevich Bogolyubsky (Russian: Андрей Ю́рьевич Боголюбский, lit. 'Andrey Yuryevich of Bogolyubovo'; died 28 June 1174) was Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal from 1157 until his death. During repeated internecine wars between the princely clans, Andrey accompanied his father Yuri Dolgorukiy during a brief capture of Kiev in 1149. 20 years later, his son led the Sack of Kiev (1169). He was canonized as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1702. According to the Primary Chronicle (PVL), Andrey's parents married on 12 January 1108, as part of a peace agreement between the Rus' and the Cumans (Polovtsi). Andrey's father was Yuri Vladimirovich (Russian: Юрий Владимирович), Prince of Rostov and Suzdal commonly known as Yuri Dolgoruki (Russian: Юрий Долгорукий), a son of Volodimer II Monomakh, progenitor of the Monomakhovichi. Andrey's mother was an unnamed Cuman princess, a daughter of Aepa son of Osen'. From this marriage, Andrey Bogolyubsky was born in c. 1111. Yuri proclaimed Andrey a prince in Vyshgorod (near Kiev). Andrey left Vyshgorod in 1155 and moved to Vladimir, a little town on the river Klyazma founded in 1108. In doing so, he removed the Icon of the Blessed Mother of God from Vyshgorod to Vladimir (thereafter known as the "Virgin of Vladimir"), an action condemned as theft by the Kievan Chronicle, while the Suzdalian Chronicle made no judgement on it. In 1153 he was the Prince of Murom-Ryazan. After his father's death in 1157, Andrey ousted his younger brothers Mikhail "Mikhalko" Yurievich and Vsevolod "the Big Nest" from Rostov and Suzdal in 1162, thus uniting his father's patrimony in Vladimir-Suzdal under his sole rule (samovlastets). He expelled his four brothers to the Byzantine Empire together with their mother, Yuri's second wife. Andrey established for himself the right to receive tribute from the populations of the Northern Dvina lands.