Editing Feodor I of Russia (section)

==Early life==
Feodor was born on 31 May 1557 in Moscow, the third son of [[Ivan the Terrible]] by his first wife [[Anastasia Romanovna]].{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=75}}{{sfn|Madariaga|2006|page=131}} He was baptized at the [[Chudov Monastery]] and his godfather was [[Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow|Macarius]], the metropolitan of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]].{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=75}} Although he was the sixth and youngest child of his mother, he grew up with only one older brother, [[Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich of Russia|Ivan Ivanovich]], because all his other older siblings had died in infancy.{{sfn|Madariaga|2006|page=131}} His mother also died by the time Feodor was three years old, and her death greatly affected his father, who had been very attached to his wife.{{sfn|Madariaga|2006|page=142}} He also took a series of other wives, but Feodor's only surviving half-sibling, [[Dmitry of Uglich]], was born on 19 October 1582 to the tsar's last wife.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=75}}

Feodor therefore grew up in the shadow of a distant father, with no mother to succor him, and only his older brother Ivan Ivanovich for family solidarity. He grew to be sickly of health and diffident of temperament. He was extremely pious by nature, spending hours in prayer and contemplation. He was very fond of visiting churches, and would often cause the bells to be rung according to a [[Russian Orthodox bell ringing|special tradition]] in the Russian Orthodox Church. For this reason, he is known to history as Feodor the Bellringer. He is also listed in the [[Synaxarium|Great Synaxaristes]] of the Orthodox Church, with his feast day on [[January 7 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)|7 January]] (O.S.).<ref>[[Synaxarium|Great Synaxaristes]]: {{in lang|el}} ''[http://www.synaxarion.gr/gr/sid/1653/sxsaintinfo.aspx Ὁ Ἅγιος Θεόδωρος ὁ Πρίγκιπας].'' 7 Ιανουαρίου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ.</ref>
<!--Overall, he was considered a good-natured, simple-minded man who took little interest in politics. By some reports and by one of the possible translations of his nickname (Блаженный) he may have had either an [[intellectual disability]] or a [[learning disability]]. He has been characterized as feeble-minded, possibly due to congenital syphilis, a disease that was ravaging Europe at the time.<ref>Sean Martin - A Short History of Disease- Plagues, Poxes and Civilisations (2019, p. 113)</ref>-->

In May 1562, as Ivan&nbsp;IV went on a campaign against the [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania]], he left both [[tsarevich]]es in Moscow and ordered Ivan Ivanovich “to write in his name to the commanders in all the towns about taking care of things and ordered all affairs of the land to his son Tsarevich Ivan".{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=95}} Upon his return in the autumn, the two tsareviches met the tsar on the [[Arbat Street|Arbat]], along with the metropolitan.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=95}} During the next military campaign in the following year, the two sons were not given any formal responsibilities, and at the end of 1564, Ivan&nbsp;IV took his sons with him in the procession to [[Alexandrov, Vladimir Oblast|Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda]], where he would stay for most of the remainder of his reign.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=96}} In 1577, Feodor was left by his father in [[Novgorod]] with the boyars Dmitry and [[Boris Godunov]] and others, including a tutor.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=103}}

Feodor did not play any role in foreign affairs, whereas his brother is mentioned as a participant in military campaigns and political discussions in ''[[razriady (books)|razriady]]'' every year from 1567 until his death.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|pages=97–98}} Despite this, Feodor was selected as a candidate for the Polish throne in 1572–1573 and 1574–1576, besides his father himself.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=98}} Feodor and his brother were not given a new title by their father, and in August 1581, the papal envoy in Russia, [[Antonio Possevino]], was ordered to be told by the tsar that Russian documents did not need to be written in the name of both the tsar and the tsareviches because "my son Ivan has not yet been honored with the name of sovereign and my son Fyodor has not attained the age when he can rule the state with us".{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=101}} In the testament of Ivan&nbsp;IV, which has only survived in an 18th-century copy and is dated by historians to the 1570s, Feodor's brother was blessed with the tsardom along with most of the tsar's personal domain, with Feodor being given an [[appanage]]; however, the testament lost its validity following the sudden death of Ivan Ivanovich.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=102}}
[[File:Fedor I's coronation order (1584, RGADA) by shakko.jpg|thumb|Coronation order of Feodor, 1584]]

On 9 November 1581, Ivan Ivanovich died, with Antonio Possevino asserting in his 1586 book that he had been killed by his father in a fit of rage.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=102}} His death left only Feodor and Dmitry as the remaining sons of the tsar.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=102}} Feodor became tsar not only because of his brother's death, but also because his brother did not have any children, despite being married three times.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=94}} He lived very differently to his elder brother due to his physical weakness and possible mental deficiencies.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=103}} According to the metropolitan, Feodor was blessed by his father to succeed him, "to be anointed and crowned with that crown and diadem of the tsars ... [as] your father's heritor [''otchichem''] and your grandfather's heritor [''dedichem''] and the heir [''naslednik''] of the Russian tsardom".{{sfn|Gruber|2012|page=78}}

In the spring of 1583, Feodor accompanied his father's army on a military campaign against rebels around [[Kazan]], along with two ''dyadki'' (servants).{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=103}} The two were not important boyars, but the first one belonged to the clan of Boris Godunov and would achieve the rank of boyar and ''dvoretsky'' shortly after Feodor ascended the throne, while the second one was another supporter of the Godunovs who would be promoted from ''dumny dvoryanin'' to ''[[okolnichy]]'' in 1586.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=103}} Around the same time, Ivan&nbsp;IV was looking for his eighth wife in England and consulted his physician [[Robert Jacob (physician)|Robert Jacob]] about relatives of Queen [[Elizabeth&nbsp;I]] who would be suitable.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=105}}{{sfn|Madariaga|2006|page=343}} Jacob suggested [[Lady Mary Hastings]], and Ivan told Elizabeth that if the two were to have sons, they would be given appanages "according to their sovereign rank" (''po ikh gosudarskomu chinu'') and be treated "equally in degree with Fyodor" (''v rovenstve po stepeni so tsarevichem Fedorom'').{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=105}}{{sfn|Madariaga|2006|page=344}} However, the plan did not go anywhere.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2021|page=105}}