Gerasim of Perm

Saint Gerasim was the third bishop of Perm, successor of Bishop Isaac, and was killed in 1443 (the Russian source gives the day as 24 January 1443, the Serbian one and our record the year 1447). The Russian Church honours him among the hierarchs. His commemoration is on 24 January (6 February by the new calendar) and on 29 January (11 February).

He zealously continued the work begun by Saint Stephen of Perm, of spreading Christianity in his diocese. He made numerous missionary journeys. In 1441 he took part in the Moscow council which condemned Metropolitan Isidore for union with the Catholics, and he was present also at the council which decided that metropolitans should be appointed by a council of Russian bishops.

On 24 January 1443, during another round of the diocese, not far from Ust-⁠Vym, he was killed by a Vogul whom he had once taken into his care. According to the account reflected in the painters' guide, he was "strangled by his household" with his own omophorion. About the motive of the murder the Vychegda-⁠Vym Chronicle says that Bishop Gerasim of Perm was killed a few stadia from the episcopal town, in the place called Mys, by zemstvo officials, for something, that is for the earthworks at the episcopal town for the building of a church, and for a dispute over lands.

The beginning of the veneration of Saint Gerasim dates from the early seventeenth century: in 1607, by order of Tsar Vasily Shuisky, an icon of the saints of Perm was painted, and soon after a common commemoration of them was established.