Uriel

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.

Uriel's scriptural standing depends entirely on which church's canon is being consulted, which makes him a clear case study in how canon boundaries shape which angels count as biblical at all. He does not appear in the Hebrew Bible or in the New Testament accepted by any major Christian tradition. His prominence instead comes from two other bodies of literature: the Book of Enoch, where he appears among the named archangels with responsibility over the world and the underworld, and the text often called Second Esdras or Fourth Ezra, where he serves as the angel who answers Ezra's questions about divine justice. Both works occupy an unusual middle position in different traditions.

The Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches include the Book of Enoch as part of their biblical canon outright, making Uriel a canonical scriptural figure there in a way he is not for Catholic, most Orthodox, or Protestant Christians, for whom Enoch and Second Esdras are apocryphal or, in some editions, placed in a separate appendix rather than the main canon.

A Western church council convened under Pope Zachary in the eighth century specifically addressed devotion to named angels beyond the three, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, attested in texts that council accepted as canonical, treating further named angels including Uriel with active suspicion rather than simple neglect.