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Like the princes ofVladimir, the metropolitans attempted to accommodate the Golden Horde. In 1261, Metropolitan Kirill arranged for a new bishopric to be established at Sarai. Shortly after Mangu Temir became khan, he issued special privileges to the Church, relieving its personnel from tax obligations and military service. Clergy, in return, prayed for the khan, and thereby acknowledged him as the legitimate suzerain of their people.[62] In the 1340s, Metropolitan Feognost was obliged to deal with alterations in Church privileges made by KhanJanibek.[63]

But unlike the north-eastern Russian princes, who reduced their interaction with western and south-western Russian principalities and reoriented their political focus to northern Russia and the Golden Horde, Maksim and his successors, Petr (1308-25), Feognost (1328-53) and Aleksei (1354-78), became preoccupied with preserving the integrity of their ecclesiastical realm. Attempts to divide the Rus' metropolitanate were initiated soon after Maksim vacated Kiev. The first challenge to the see's unity came from Galicia c.1303, when a metropolitanate was created for the bishoprics in south-western Rus'.[64] It was short-lived. When Prince Iurii L'vovich of Galicia, Danylo's grandson, proposed Petr as his nominee to become the second metropolitan ofthat see, his candidate was selected instead to succeed Maksim (d. 1305) as the metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus'. The Galician metropolitanate dissolved and with Galicia's candidate at its head the metropolitanate of Kiev and all Rus' was reunited.[65]Petr maintained that unity. But the Galician challenge did not permanently disappear. Towards the end of Petr's life, the Galician metropolitanate was re-established (1325). The new Russian metropolitan Feognost, however, reclaimed the south-western bishoprics when he passed through Galicia on his way to Vladimir (1327). He successfully defeated yet another attempt to form a separate see for the Galician bishoprics by travelling to that region in 1331, just months after the metropolitanate was re-established, and then to Constantinople in 1332. In 1341 a Galician metropolitanate, which lasted until 1347, formed once again, prompting Metropolitan Feognost to continue to devote his energies to abolishing it.[66]

In addition to the recurrent threat that the Galician bishoprics would be detached from the Kievan metropolitanate, a second challenge arose from Lithuania. By the second quarter of the fourteenth century Lithuania was incorporating Orthodox lands that had been parts of Kievan Rus'. During the reigns of Gedimin (1316-41) and Ol'gerd (1345-77) Lithuania extended its authority over Smolensk, Chernigov, and Kiev itself. After Iurii II of Galicia and Volynia died in 1340, Volynia also fell under Lithuanian control. Lithuania, which had provided Novgorod with Prince Narimunt in 1332, was exercising influence not only over Novgorod, but also Pskov and Tver'.[67] In conjunction with the extension of Lithuanian authority over the Orthodox populations of these principalities, a separate metropolitanate was created c.1315-19. When its metropolitan Theophilus (Feofil) died in 1330, no successor was named. Feognost, who was in Constantinople in 1332, may have influenced the decision to leave the post vacant.[68] In 1352, on the eve of Feog- nost's death, Lithuania urged the renewal of its own metropolitanate. When its appeals met little sympathy in Constantinople, the Patriarch of Trnovo (Bulgaria) consecrated Theodoret as metropolitan for Lithuania.[69] Theodoret claimed jurisdiction over all the Orthodox bishoprics within the lands ruled by Ol'gerd, including Kiev. Although Theodoret was formally deposed and excommunicated by the Patriarch of Constantinople, he continued to function as metropolitan in the Lithuanian see until 1354, when Constantinople confirmed Aleksei as metropolitan of Rus' and also named a new metropolitan, Roman, for Lithuania (1355).[70] Roman included Kiev, which recognised Lithuanian suzerainty, in his ecclesiastical realm as well. Aleksei undertook intensive efforts to recover the Lithuanian bishoprics. They included trips to Constantinople and Kiev, where he was detained for two years. The metropoli- tanate of Kiev and all Rus', nevertheless, remained divided until Roman died in 1362.[71]

Thus, while the princes of Moscow were challenging Prince Mikhail Iaroslavich and his sons for the Vladimir throne and ingratiating themselves with the khan at Sarai to overrule the dynastic traditions guiding seniority and succession, the metropolitans were reaffirming the Kievan Rus' heritage as a basis for maintaining the unity of their see and were appealing to the patriarchs of Constantinople to support their position.

Although not necessarily motivated by the same goals as the Daniilovichi, some actions undertaken by the metropolitans aided the princes of Moscow in achieving political dominance in north-eastern Russia. In a general way the metropolitans' recognition of the Mongol khan as the suzerain of the Russian lands obliged them to accept the khans' decrees, including their choice of prince for Vladimir. Petr, who became metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus' when the patriarch selected him over the candidature of Prince Mikhail of Tver', is frequently regarded as a partisan of the Moscow princes.[72] Tensions between Petr, on the one hand, and Mikhail of Tver', who had also recently become the grand prince of Vladimir, and Andrei, the bishop of Tver', were intense. They reached a peak when Bishop Andrei brought charges of simony against Petr at a Church council, attended by a representative of the patriarch and the bishop of Rostov, in late 1310 or early 1311.[73] Petr's preference for Moscow was evident in his unofficial transfer of the metropolitan's seat to Moscow[74] and, most visibly, in his collaboration with Ivan Daniilovich in the construction of the church of the Dormition (1325), where he was buried.[75] When, soon after his death (December 1325), he was recognised as a saint, Moscow became the centre of his cult.[76] There is no record, however, as N. S. Borisov has pointed out, that Petr gave assistance to the Moscow princes between 1315 and 1325, the height of their conflict with the Tver' princes.[77]

Feognost's activities also contributed to Moscow's success at the expense of Tver'. When Prince Aleksandr fled to Pskov after the Tver' uprising in 1327, the metropolitan excommunicated the Pskov population for giving sanctuary to Aleksandr. His decision to take action against Aleksandr may have been motivated by Tver''s close ties to Lithuania, where his rival Metropolitan Theophilus claimed jurisdiction over the south-western Russian bishoprics.[78]His action nevertheless added the Church's approval to the khan's removal of the Tver' prince from the grand-princely throne. It thus provided another base of legitimacy to the transfer of that position to the Daniilovichi. By 1354, when Moscow formally became the seat of the metropolitanate, the city was rapidly becoming the ecclesiastical centre of north-eastern Russia.