a Russian boyar who after temporary disgrace rose to become patriarch of Moscow as Filaret, and became de facto ruler of Russia during the reign of his son, Mikhail Feodorovich. On the death of the childless tsar, he was the popular candidate for the vacant throne; but he acquiesced in the election of Boris Godunov, and shared the disgrace of his too-powerful family three years later, when Boris compelled both him and his wife, Xenia Shestova, to take monastic vows under the names of Filaret and Martha respectively.
