Michael is the one archangel named across the whole biblical tradition, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic, and always in the same role: the warrior-prince of the heavenly armies. In the Book of Daniel he is "the great prince who stands guard" over Israel; in the Epistle of Jude he disputes with the devil over the body of Moses; and in Revelation 12 it is Michael and his angels who make war on the dragon and cast Satan out of heaven.
From these texts he became, in Christian devotion, the chief of the archangels (archistrategos, "supreme commander"), the vanquisher of the rebel angels, the weigher of souls at the judgement, often depicted with scales, and the guardian of the dying in their last spiritual battle. His cult was immense in both East and West: mountain-top shrines dedicated to him (Monte Gargano in Italy, Mont-Saint-Michel in France, Skellig Michael in Ireland) trace a devotional geography across Europe. Patron of soldiers, of the sick, and of the Church itself in its warfare against evil, he is honoured in the Orthodox Synaxis of the Bodiless Powers and across Western Christianity as the archangel who leads the hosts of heaven.