Mikhail was the only known son of Vsevolod IV of Kiev by Anastasia, a daughter of Prince Casimir II of Poland. From 1216 he was a prince of Pereyaslavl'. In 1223 he participated in the fateful Battle of the Kalka River, where his uncle Mstislav Sviatoslavich was killed, leaving Chernigov to him. In 1225 and 1229 he was documented as the prince of Novgorod. From 1229 to 1332 he feuded with Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and in 1235 he conspired with King Béla IV of Hungary and took Galich (modern Halych) from his brother-in-law Daniel. Two years later, he left Galich to his son Rostislav Mikhailovich and occupied Kiev.

At that time Batu Khan of the Golden Horde, who was devastating Vladimir-Suzdal, sent his envoys to Mikhail and demanded his unconditional submission. Mikhail ordered the envoys to be killed and escaped to Hungary and then to Poland. He returned to a devastated Kiev in 1241 and lived on the nearby island, after the Mongol hordes had passed westward. Due to the wedding of his son Rostislav to the daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary, Mikhail went to Hungary again and stayed there for several years.

In 1245 he returned to Chernigov. The Mongols, however, viewed him with suspicion. In order to gain their diploma (yarlik) for Chernigov, Mikhail went to the court of Batu Khan. He was ordered by the Mongols to worship fire, and, refusing to take part in a pagan ritual, was stabbed to death on September 20, 1246.

Initially buried in Chernigov, his relics were moved to Moscow in 1572 when the Russian Orthodox Church declared him saint. In 1774 they were placed to the silver reliquary in the Archangel Cathedral of Moscow Kremlin. The reliquary was stolen during the Napoleon's invasion (1812) and later replaced by a bronze one.