his constant "grief" over the disgrace of courtiers and church dignitaries. His independent-mindedness induced a number of attempts to dislodge him. In the summer of 1544, Macarius escaped a sure death in the fire raging in the Moscow Kremlin. Three years later, he took part in removing Ivan's maternal relatives, the Glinskys, from the Russian government. Upon becoming one of the closest advisers of Ivan the Terrible, Macarius arranged his coronation on 16 January 1547. That year, he blessed the tsar's marriage with Anastasia Zakharyina-Yuriyeva. Macarius was an active participant at the zemsky sobors of 1547, 1549, and 1550, advocating conciliation between the opposing boyar groups. During the synod of 1542, Macarius achieved the excommunication of Maximus the Greek's associate Isaac Sobaka (archmandrite of Chudov Monastery). Curiously enough, Macarius would later correspond with the exiled Maximus the Greek and include some of his essays in his the Great Menaion Reader, rejecting, however, his appeals for pardon. During Stoglav and other such synods (traditionally known as Macarius's synods in Russian historiography), Macarius carried out canonization of 39 all-Russian saints. In 1551, Macarius (together with the tsar) convened the so-called Stoglavi Sobor. He also blessed the Russian army before its departure to Kazan in 1552. During his Kazan campaign in 1559, Ivan the Terrible left Macarius in Moscow to "protect the tsardom", which made him a temporary head of state. In 1552 and 1554, Macarius completed the second and third editions of the Grand Menaion. During the church councils in 1553-1555, Macarius supported the accusations of heresy, aimed at a boyar son Matvei Bashkin, starets Artemiy, and monk Feodosiy Kosoy. However, he took the side of Silvester, a monk at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Moscow Kremlin, who had been accused by diak Ivan Viskovatyi in uncanonical wall-painting of the above-mentioned cathedral. When the tsar was away from Moscow, Macarius was in charge of diplomatic negotiations and dispatching messengers abroad with different deeds. The painting of the Saint Basil's Cathedral and Kremlin's Golden Chamber was carried out with his assistance. He also took part in compiling the Chronicle of the Beginning of Tsardom of Tsar and Grand Prince Ivan Vasiliyevich, i.e., an official chronicle of Ivan the Terrible's reign and the Regal Book, an illuminated manuscript about Ivan's reign and policies. Later years In his declining years, Macarius moved away from the affairs of the state. He supervised the creation