Herman of Solovki

Saint Herman of Solovki (died 1479) was one of the founders of the Solovetsky Monastery, together with Saints Savvatiy and Zosimas. He lived on the northern islands, then the most remote place known, for about fifty years.

According to the Life of Saint Savvatiy, Herman was of Karelian stock and had no schooling. Some sources say he was born at Totma, in the Novgorod land. In 1428 or 1429 he went with fishermen to the shore of the White Sea, visited Solovetsky Island, and then settled near a chapel on the river Vyg. There he met Savvatiy, a monk of Valaam Monastery, who was also looking for a desolate place far from crowds. The two went together to Solovetsky Island, built a cell and lived in it for nearly six years.

In 1435 Herman went to Onega for supplies, and in his absence Savvatiy died. The following year, 1436, he met the young hermit Zosimas, who had made himself a cell half a verst from his. They returned to the islands together, and gradually other hermits gathered there, so that the Solovetsky Monastery was founded. It was subject to the diocese of Novgorod, and Zosimas became abbot.

In 1479, after Zosimas died, the new abbot, Arseny, sent Herman to Novgorod on the monastery's business. There he reposed in the same year, in the monastery of Saint Anthony the Roman. The monks wished to take his body to Solovki, but because of the spring thaw they buried him beside a chapel in the village of Khavronina on the river Svir. In 1484, under Abbot Isaiah, his relics were brought to the Solovetsky Monastery and placed on the right side of the altar of the church of Saint Nicholas, beside the relics of Saint Savvatiy.

His veneration began locally. In 1690 Archbishop Athanasius of Kholmogory, at the request of the Solovki monks, allowed him to be honoured as a servant of God but did not permit a service with all-⁠night vigil. Patriarch Joachim confirmed local veneration in 1692. For the veneration of the whole Church, his name was included in the Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod (1831), of Karelia (1974) and of Solovki (1993).

After the monastery was closed and the Solovki camp was created, the relics of Herman, Zosimas and Savvatiy were taken away and returned to the faithful only in 1990. Until 1992 they were kept in the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and in August of that year, during the visit of Patriarch Alexy II to Solovki, they were returned to the monastery. Herman is commemorated on 30 July (the finding of the relics) and 8 August (the translation of the relics), in the old calendar.