Daniel, the fourth and youngest son of Prince Alexander Nevsky—famous in the history of the Russian State and the Russian Orthodox Church—and his second wife, Princess Vassa, was born in 1261 in Vladimir, the capital of the Great Vladimir-Suzdal principality.
One of the most junior princes in the House of Rurik, Daniel is thought to have been named after his celebrated relative, Daniel of Galicia.
His father died when he was only two years old.
Of his father's patrimonies, he had received the least valuable, that of Moscow.
When he was a child, the tiny principality was being governed by tiuns (deputies), appointed by his paternal uncle, Grand Prince Yaroslav III.
Daniel has been credited with founding the first Moscow monasteries, dedicated to the Lord's Epiphany and to Saint Daniel.
On the right bank of the Moskva River, at a distance of five miles from the Moscow Kremlin not later than in 1282 he founded the first monastery with the wooden church of St. Daniel-Stylite, which is today the Danilov Monastery.