Isaiah of Valaam

Saint Isaiah of Valaam was a monk of Valaam Monastery, on the islands of Lake Ladoga, and he reposed in 1914.

A writer who visited Valaam, Nemirovich-⁠Danchenko, called it the kingdom of muzhiks, pointing to the peasant origin of its monks. In fact this hinted at the holiness of simple people who filled many monasteries with men of God. Such was Father Isaiah, hidden from the eyes of the world as a simple man but in truth a saint. He passed through the severe schooling of Valaam and, when ripe for God's work, withdrew to a remote cell of the skete. He did not wash the soot of the stove from his walls and had covered his windows, so that his cell resembled a cave or a tomb. There, in the silence of the dark cell, he became a partaker of the prayer of the mind.

Others saw him only in his severe self-⁠denial, as he endured cold, hunger and pain. After his repose it was discovered that his toenails had grown into his boots. This was not a deliberate self-⁠mortification but the result of a man wholly absorbed in visions from above, forgetful of things below. He is commemorated on 8 January, by the Orthodox calendar (for the Churches on the Old Calendar, 21 January in the civil calendar).