Ephraim of Obnora

Holy Venerable Martyr Ephraim of Obnora was an enclosed elder of the Holy Trinity Pavlo-⁠Obnorsky Monastery in the Komel district of the Vologda province, and received a martyr's death in January 1538 from the Kazan Tatars, together with the monks Dionysius, Gerasimus and Isaac. He is counted among the venerable martyrs of Obnora, honoured in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda.

In January 1538, at the invasion of the Kazan Tatars into the Vologda lands, many monasteries suffered, especially in the south of the region, in the Komel and Obnora districts. Among the first to be plundered was the Saint Innocent Transfiguration Monastery of Komel, near Pavlo-⁠Obnorsky. Some peasants escaped and warned the Obnora monks, and almost all left the monastery. Ten remained, elders and those who, as the source says, would not leave the place of the Venerable out of faith. They gathered together and prayed to be delivered from the invasion.

The old Ephraim, an enclosed monk, who had spent seventy years in the monastery in fasting, prayer and labours, never leaving his cell, in great silence, dozed off and saw in a dream Saint Paul of Obnora, who foretold the plundering of the monastery, the martyr's death of three monks and the rebuilding of the monastery. Ephraim told the others, and several went into the forest, but at midday they returned, hoping that the Tatars would not attack that day.

During the reading of the hours in the refectory, the elder Daniel saw Tatar horsemen approaching. The monks took leave of one another and began to put on the schemas. Dionysius, who ran out of the refectory, was beheaded by the Tatars. Two monks hid in the refectory under the stove, and Ferapont managed to leave without being seen. Five monks were cruelly beaten in the church where they had taken shelter.

Then the Tatars began to search the cells for plunder. In one was Ephraim with two other monks, probably his disciples Mina and Mitrofan. After long torture, Ephraim's neck was cut through, Mitrofan was killed, and Mina's head was struck. Laymen who had tried to shelter within the monastery walls also suffered. The Tatars plundered and burned the monastery; only the Trinity church and the cathedral of the Dormition, then under construction, survived.

According to the Life of Saint Paul of Obnora, the monastery was attacked on 14 January. Ephraim died ten days after the raid, and after him the elders Gerasimus and Isaac died of their wounds; Mina recovered after a long illness. There is an inconsistency in the life narrative: in the vision Paul spoke to Ephraim of the death, besides himself, of two others, yet in fact at least four monks received martyrdom. According to Saint Paul's foretelling, the monastery was soon rebuilt.

Reports of the martyrdom of the Obnora monks are found in many copies of the Life of Saint Paul of Obnora of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, in the twentieth miracle. According to Archimandrite Leonid Kavelin, the commemoration of the venerable martyrs of Obnora, buried at the Pavlo-⁠Obnorsky Monastery, was kept on 10 January, together with Saint Paul. The canonization of Dionysius, Ephraim, Gerasimus and Isaac was made by the inclusion of their names in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda, commemorated on 11 July.