Isaakios of Obnora

Holy Venerable Martyr Isaakios of Obnora was one of the monks of the Holy Trinity Pavlo-⁠Obnorsk monastery in Komela, killed by the Kazan Tatars in January 1538. He is commemorated on 11 July (new style, a movable day), in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda.

In January 1538, when the Kazan Tatars invaded the land of Vologda, many monasteries suffered, especially in the south of the region, in the Komela and Obnora districts. One of the first to be laid waste was the Innocent Transfiguration monastery of Komela, not far from the Pavlo-⁠Obnorsk monastery. Some peasants managed to flee and told the monks of Obnora, and nearly all left the monastery. Ten remained: elders and those who "out of faith to the venerable one did not wish to leave that holy place". They gathered together and prayed to be delivered from the attack.

The aged recluse monk Ephraim, who had spent seventy years in that monastery in fasting, prayers and labours, never leaving his cell, in great stillness, dozed and saw in a dream Venerable Paul of Obnora, who foretold to him the devastation of the monastery, the martyric death of three monks and the later rebuilding of the monastery. Ephraim told others of the vision and a few more inhabitants fled into the forest, but toward midday they returned, hoping that the Tatars would not attack that day.

During the evening reading of the hours in the refectory, the elder Daniel saw mounted Tatars approaching the monastery. The monks bade each other farewell and began to put on the schema. Dionysius, who had run out of the refectory, was beheaded by the Tatars. Two monks hid in the refectory under the stove, and the monk Therapont came out of the refectory unnoticed. Five monks were savagely beaten in the church, where they had taken shelter. Then the Tatars began to search the cells for loot. In one cell were Ephraim and two monks, probably his cell attendants, Menas and Mitrophan. After long torment Ephraim's neck was cut through, Mitrophan was killed and Menas had his head pierced. Lay people who had tried to hide within the monastery walls also suffered. The Tatars plundered and burned the monastery, leaving only the Trinity church and the stone Dormition cathedral that was then under construction.

According to the Life of Venerable Paul of Obnora, the monastery was attacked on 14 January. Ephraim died ten days after the raid, and after him the elders Gerasimus and Isaakios died of their wounds. Menas recovered after a long illness. There is an inconsistency in the account: in the vision Paul spoke, besides Ephraim, of the death of only two others, while in fact at least four monks died as martyrs. According to the prediction of Venerable Paul, the monastery was soon rebuilt.

The martyric death of the monks of Obnora is told in many copies of the Life of Venerable Paul of Obnora of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, in the twentieth miracle, "On the invasion of the barbarians and the capture of the venerable one's monastery". According to Archimandrite Leonid (Kavelin), the commemoration of the martyrs buried at the Pavlo-⁠Obnorsk monastery was kept "on 10 January, together with Venerable Paul". The canonization of Dionysius, Ephraim, Gerasimus (under the name Jerome) and Isaakios was effected by the inclusion of their names in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vologda.