Gelasius of Valaam

Holy Venerable Martyr Gelasius of Valaam was a monk of the Valaam Monastery and received the crown of martyrdom on 20 February 1578, together with thirty-⁠three other brethren, killed by the Swedes.

Valaam, the monastery near the border between Novgorod and Sweden, was plundered by the Swedes many times. In the time of King John III, son of Gustav Vasa, a band of recently converted Lutherans, who, in the words of Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov, still burned with a fanatical love for their new faith, pursued the Orthodox Karelians and crossed the ice to the island. Then the killings took place: eighteen elders and sixteen novices were put to death for steadfastness in Orthodoxy. Their names were entered in a synodikon, with the note beaten by the Germans on Valaam, elders and servants, which later reached the Vasilievsky Monastery. Among the elders the monk Gelasius is named, beside the hieromonk Titus, the schemamonk Tikhon and the monks Sergius, Barlaam, Sabbas, Conon, Silvester, Cyprian, Pimen, John, Samon, Jonah, David, Cornelius, Niphon, Athanasius, Serapion and a second Barlaam, while the novices are Athanasius, Anthony, Luke, Leontius, Thomas, Dionysius, Philip, Ignatius, Basil, Pachomius, a second Basil, Theophilus, John, Theodore and a second John. Of Gelasius nothing else is said.

In the nineteenth century a monk of Valaam saw, near the hermitage of Abbot Nazarius, unknown monks who came in two rows out of a green grove full of light and sang funeral prayers, with radiant faces and eyes full of gentleness, yet spattered with blood and covered with wounds, without treading down the grass. On the day of the martyrdom, 20 February (4 March in the new style), the Liturgy for their repose was served at Valaam every year, with the blessing of Abbot Damascene, with a common memorial service. The Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000 numbered them among the saints for the whole Russian Church. The Azbyka page also commemorates Gelasius on 3 June.