 Ivan, as a leading member of the Romanov family, was a serious candidate for the throne.This was particularly so because his elder brother, Feodor Nikitich Romanov, Patriarch of Moscow, was at that time a captive of the Polish-Lithuanian monarch Sigismund III Vasa; Feodor's wife and children were living at the Ipatievsky Monastery in remote Kostroma.Nevertheless, the Grand National Assembly unanimously elected the captive Feodor's underage son, Mikhail Fedorovich, as the new Tsar, even though Mikhail was not even present there at that time.