Herman of Pechenga

Venerable Herman, martyr, was a monk of the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Pechenga, killed on 2 December 1589, during an attack by the Swedes. He is venerated in the Synaxis of the saints of Kola and in that of the saints of Novgorod. He was canonized for veneration throughout the Church in 2003, together with another one hundred and sixteen martyrs killed in December 1589. He is commemorated on 2 December (15 December by the new calendar).

The reports about him come from the tradition of the monastery and from the life of Venerable Tryphon of Pechenga. Almost nothing is known about the venerable martyr Herman. The monastery's tradition says that he was a rasophore monk of the Pechenga monastery and that he performed the duties of church reader and sacristan.

He received the death of a martyr on 2 (15) December 1589, at the time of the attack of a Swedish band on the monastery. According to the monastery's tradition, the saint was killed during the Liturgy, while he was serving with the hieromonk Jonah in the church of the Dormition in the wilderness, by Tryphon's stream. Death found the monk as he was coming down from the bell tower. Both martyrs were buried beside the grave of Venerable Tryphon.

The veneration of Herman of Pechenga was for a long time local. Herman is mentioned in the "Description of Russian Saints" (from the end of the seventeenth or the eighteenth century). The canonization of the venerable martyr is confirmed by the inclusion of his name in the Synaxis of the saints of Novgorod.