On the date of birth of patriarch Hadrian of Moscow and all Russia

The Russian historiographic sources recognize three probable birth dates of Hadrian, the last Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia in 17th century, i.e.1627, 1637 and 1639. The fourth date, 1636, is not widely recognized. Two epitaphs to the Patriarch Hadrian, both written by Karion Istomin, a major court poet of that time, serve as the main source of information about the life of the head of the Russian Church. The first epitaph is prosaic, mounted on his tomb in the shrine of the heads of the Russian Church in the Assumption Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, and the second is poetic, preserved in the papers of the poet. . This paper establishes that the cause of chronological differences were errors in reading and interpreting the date of the Patriarch's death in the prosaic epitaph, which were made in historical studies of the 19th - early 20th century and without cross-checking with the gravestone inscription were reproduced in various publications...