Dionysius of Valaam

Holy Venerable Martyr Dionysius of Valaam was a novice of the Valaam Monastery and is counted among the thirty-⁠four monks killed by the Swedes on 20 February 1578 for their steadfastness in the Orthodox faith. In the monastery's synodikon his name stands among the novices, beside Athanasius, Anthony, Luke, Leontius, Thomas, Philip, Ignatius, Basil, Pachomius, Theophilus, John and Theodore.

The Valaam Monastery lay near the border of the lands of Novgorod with Sweden and was plundered more than once by the Swedes. In the time of King John III a company of soldiers, newly made Lutherans, who were pursuing the Orthodox Karelians, crossed the ice from the mainland to the island and attacked the monastery. Eighteen elders and sixteen novices were killed for the faith. Their names were entered in the synodikon with the note that they were struck down by Germans on Valaam, elders and servants, and the synodikon later came to the Vasilievsky Monastery.

It is told that in the nineteenth century a Valaam monk, near the hermitage of Abbot Nazarius, saw a procession of unknown monks walking in two rows out of a sunlit grove and singing funeral prayers in the old chant of the Church. Their faces were bright and their eyes gentle, but their clothes were stained with blood and wounds. The grass was not trampled under their steps, and they vanished into the thicket.

With the blessing of Abbot Damascene, on the day of the killing of the thirty-⁠four a Liturgy was served each year at Valaam for their repose, together with a memorial service for the whole company.

They were numbered among the saints of the Russian Church for veneration throughout the Church at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000. They are commemorated on 20 February (4 March, new style) and in the synaxes of the saints of Karelia and of Valaam.