Cyprian of Valaam

Holy Venerable Martyr Cyprian of Valaam was one of the thirty-⁠four monks of the Valaam monastery, elders and brethren, put to death for the Orthodox faith on 20 February 1578. In their synodikon his name appears simply as "the monk Cyprian".

The Valaam monastery lay near the border between the lands of Novgorod and Sweden and had been laid waste by the Swedes several times. In the time of King Gustav Vasa (1523-1560) the Reformation had been carried out in Sweden, and under his son John III a band of soldiers, newly turned Lutherans, as Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov writes, still burning with zeal for their newborn faith, pursued the Orthodox Karelians, crossed the ice from the mainland to the island and fell upon the monastery. Eighteen blessed elders and sixteen novices were put to death as martyrs for their steadfastness in the Orthodox faith.

Their names, with the note "beaten by the Germans at Valaam, elders and servants", were written in a synodikon that later came to the Vasilievsky monastery. Among them are the priest-⁠monk Titus, the schemamonk Tikhon, and the monks Gelasius, Sergius, Barlaam, Sabbas, Conon, Silvester, Cyprian, Pimen, John, Samon, Jonah, David, Cornelius, Niphon, Athanasius and Serapion, and the novices Athanasius, Anthony, Luke, Leontius, Thomas, Dionysius, Philip, Ignatius, Basil, Pachomius, Theophilus, John and Theodore. The Swedish attacks went on, and on Valaam there is no stone not marked by the blood of ascetics.

In the nineteenth century a Valaam monk, near the hermitage of Abbot Nazarius, received a vision of unknown black-⁠robed monks: they were walking in two rows out of a green grove bathed in sunlight and chanting funeral prayers in the old znamenny melody. Their arms were crossed on their breasts, their faces were full of light and their eyes of unspeakable gentleness. Only when the procession drew near the monk did he see that all the monks were sprinkled with blood and covered with wounds. Where they passed, the grass was not trodden down. They vanished as they had come, into the green thicket, and the faint echo of the chant lingered long in the air.

With the blessing of Abbot Damascene, on the day of the martyrdom of the thirty-⁠four, 20 February (4 March in the new style), the Divine Liturgy "for their eternal rest" was celebrated at Valaam each year, with a common memorial service. The saints were numbered among the saints of the Russian Orthodox Church for veneration throughout the Church at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000. Saint Cyprian is commemorated on 5 March, in the new style, and by movable observance also on 3 June, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Karelia, and on 22 August, with the Synaxis of the Saints of Valaam.