John of Valaam

Holy Venerable Martyr John of Valaam, another novice of this name, suffered at the Valaam monastery on 20 February 1578, together with thirty-⁠three other brothers. The monastery, on the border of the lands of Novgorod with Sweden, was attacked by a band of Swedish soldiers, recently Lutheran, who were pursuing the Orthodox Karelians. They crossed the ice and killed eighteen elders and sixteen novices for their steadfastness in the Orthodox faith.

The synodikon kept at the Vasilievsky monastery lists their names with the note "killed by the Germans on Valaam, elders and servants". The second John among the novices stands at the end of the list, after Theodore, and before him is another novice John, from which it is seen that the list of novices contains two bearers of this name. The page has no further details about him.

The sorrowful memory of the martyrs stayed alive in the monastery: a monk of the nineteenth century saw near the hermitage of the elder Nazarius unknown monks, full of wounds and blood, advancing in two rows with burial chants. From that day, on 20 February (4 March in the new style), the Liturgy for their repose and then a general memorial service were served at Valaam. The Council of Bishops of August 2000 numbered them among the saints of the Russian Church. He is commemorated on 5 March, on a movable day, on 3 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Karelia, and on 22 August, on a movable day, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Valaam.