Venerable Michael the Fool-for Christ, of the Klops Monastery in Novgorod

Michael lived in the 15th century at the Trinity monastery of Klopsko on the river Veryazha, about fifteen versts from Novgorod. His Life tells that one summer he was found in a locked cell copying the Acts of the Apostles by candlelight, and to every question only repeated the abbot's words, like a holy fool. Nobody knew who he was until Prince Konstantin Dmitrievich, visiting the monastery, recognized him as "Michael, son of Maxim".

He served as reader in church and at meals, ate only bread and water once a week and slept on the ground. According to his Life, during a three-year drought a spring broke out near the monastery at his prayer, and in the famine that followed he persuaded the abbot to feed all the hungry. It also says he foretold the fall of Novgorod. He died c. 1453–1456.