The Fire of God, the Archangel of Light

Uriel, the name means "fire of God" or "light of God", is honoured in the Eastern Orthodox tradition as the fourth of the archangels named in the Synaxis of the Bodiless Powers, and is associated with divine light, illumination, and wisdom. He is shown in iconography holding a flame or a fiery sword. Unlike Michael and Gabriel, he is not named in the books received as canonical by most Christians; his prominence rests on the apocalyptic and apocryphal literature, above all 2 Esdras, where he is the angel sent to instruct the seer Ezra, answering his questions about the ways of God and the end of the age, and the Book of Enoch, where he is one of the holy watchers set over the luminaries and the ordering of the heavens. Because his authority derives from these non-canonical books, his standing has varied: prominent in Orthodox and folk devotion, more marginal where the scriptural canon is drawn narrowly. He remains the archangel of enlightenment, the bringer of the light of understanding.