Cornelius of Valaam

Holy Venerable Martyr Cornelius of Valaam was one of the thirty-⁠four monks of the Valaam monastery put to death for the Orthodox faith on 20 February 1578. In their synodikon he is written "the monk Cornelius".

The Valaam monastery lay near the border between Novgorod and Sweden and had been plundered several times by the Swedes. Under King Gustav Vasa (1523-1560) the Reformation had been carried out in Sweden, and in the time of his son John III a band of soldiers, recent Lutherans, still full, in the words of Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov, of a fanatical passion for their newborn faith, pursued the Orthodox Karelians, crossed the ice to the island and fell upon the monastery. Eighteen elders and sixteen novices were put to death as martyrs for their steadfastness in Orthodoxy.

Their names were entered in a synodikon that later came to the Vasilievsky monastery, with the note "beaten by the Germans at Valaam, elders and servants". Among them are the priest-⁠monk Titus, the schemamonk Tikhon, the monks Gelasius, Sergius, Barlaam, Sabbas, Conon, Silvester, Cyprian, Pimen, John, Samon, Jonah, David, Cornelius, Niphon, Athanasius and Serapion, and many novices. In the nineteenth century a monk near the hermitage of Abbot Nazarius saw in a vision unknown monks walking in two rows out of a sunlit grove and chanting funeral prayers; only when they drew near did he see that all were sprinkled with blood and covered with wounds, and that the grass was not crushed beneath their steps, and they vanished into the thicket.

With the blessing of Abbot Damascene, on 20 February (4 March in the new style) the Liturgy for their repose was served at Valaam, with a common memorial service. At the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000 the martyrs were numbered among the saints of the Russian Orthodox Church. Saint Cornelius is commemorated on 5 March, in the new style, and by movable observance also on 3 June, with the saints of Karelia, and on 22 August, with the saints of Valaam.