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'''Isidore the Apostate''', also known as '''Isidore of Kiev''' or '''Isidore of Thessalonica''', (Greek: Ἰσίδωρος τοῦ Κιέβου; Russian: Исидор; Ukrainian: Ісидор) was the Metropolitan of Kiev and Moscow during the time of the [[Council of Florence]] in the fifteenth century. He advocated union with the [[Roman Catholic Church]] at the council and after return to Russia. Denounced by the rulers and people for his unionist stand, he was arrested and then fled his [[see]].
==Life==
Through these times, Isidore received many honors from the Latin church. After the council, Pope Eugene IV made him a cardinal-presbyter and a papal legate for the provinces of Lithuania, Livonia, Russia, and Galicia. His appointment as cardinal is one of the few times that a person not of the Latin rite was so appointed.
On his return to Moscow after the council had approved reunion, Isidore issued in Budapest, in March 1440, an encyclical calling on all the Russian [[bishop]]s to accept the union. On arrival in Moscow on Pascha 1441, he served his first [[divine liturgyDivine Liturgy]] in the [[Dormition Cathedral (Moscow Kremlin)|Cathedral of the Dormition]] in the Moscow Kremlin carrying a Catholic cross in front of the procession, naming Pope Eugene IV during the prayers of the liturgy, and then proclaimed the union in the [[cathedral]]. He read to the faithful the decree of unification and later passed a message from Rome for Prince Basil requesting that he, the [[metropolitan]], be assisted in spreading the union in Russia. Basil II of Moscow, the [[clergy]], and the people would have nothing to do with his proclamation. Three days later, at Prince Basil’s direction he was arrested and a [[synod]] of six [[bishop]]s [[deposition|deposed]] Isidore and shut him away in the [[Chudov Monastery]] as a prisoner.
Two year later in September 1443, Isidore escaped his imprisonment and fled first to Tver, then to Lithuania, and then finally to Rome. Graciously received in Rome, Pope Nicholas V sent him as a legate to Constantinople in 1452 to negotiate again a reunion. He was in [[Fall of Constantinople|Constantinople]] when the Ottoman Turks broke the defenses of the city on [[May 29]], 1453. He escaped capture by dressing a dead body in his cardinal’s robes. While the Turks were occupied cutting off the head of the dead body, he was shipped off to Asia Minor, as a slave, with a group of insignificant prisoners. Escaping captivity, Isidore returned to Rome where he was made Bishop of Sabina.
[[Category: Bishops]]
[[Category:15th-century bishops]]
[[Category: Patriarchs of Moscow]]
