Gurius of Pechenga

Holy Hieromartyr Gurius was abbot of the Holy Trinity Monastery at Pechenga in the Russian north, and received a martyr's death on 9 December 1589. He is venerated in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kola and in that of the saints of Novgorod. What is known of him comes from the tradition of the monastery and the Life of Saint Tryphon of Pechenga.

Nothing is known of his life before he became abbot. The earliest document to mention his name is the charter of Tsar Ivan the Terrible of 21 November 1556, by which the monastery received large holdings and privileges. The Life of Saint Tryphon says that he appeared before the tsar not alone but accompanied by a monk of Solovki. Abbot Mitrophan (Badanin) supposed that this monk was Gurius, presented for confirmation as head of the Pechenga monastery. But obvious anachronisms, both in the text of the charter and in the Life of Tryphon (it mentions a conversation with Theodore, son of Ivan the Terrible, who in 1556 was not yet born), call for caution about this supposition. A. I. Andreev does not consider him the first abbot at all and points out that his name does not appear in early documents. In the monastery's documents Abbot Gurius is not mentioned before 1579.

In the time of Abbot Gurius the monastery became a great centre of activity in the Russian polar region: it produced salt and fish, including whaling, had shipyards, mills and cattle yards, and was a centre of Russo-⁠Dutch trade in the North.

Venerable Tryphon, before his death on 15 December 1583, had foretold that the brethren would perish by the sword. Six years later, on 9 December 1589, a band of Finns from Ostrobothnia, subjects of the king of Sweden, plundered and burned the monastery and killed all who were in it, ninety-⁠five in number. When the Finns burst in, they slaughtered the monks and laymen in the monastery and surrounded the church of Saints Zosimas and Sabbatius, where the Liturgy was being served. The brethren asked the abbot to organize resistance in the church itself. Venerable Gurius, remembering the prophecy of his teacher and unwilling to go against the will of God, commanded that the service continue. The attackers entered the church and killed all who were in it. The abbot and Hierodeacon Joseph, who looked after the monastery treasury, were tortured for a long time to learn where the monastery's money was hidden. The martyrs told nothing and were cut down by the enraged Finns. Then the attackers set fire to the monastery.

After the Finns left, the surviving members of the community buried the remains of the martyrs outside the burnt monastery.

When the Pechenga monastery was restored at the end of the nineteenth century, a decree of the Holy Synod began the local veneration of Abbot Gurius and the brethren killed with him. Later the name of the hieromartyr was commemorated in the Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod. For veneration throughout the Church, Abbot Gurius and the others killed in the monastery were canonized on 15 October 2003 in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kola.