Jonah and Vassian

Venerable Jonah and Vassian were monks of the Solovki monastery, disciples of Saint Philip the hierarch, venerated as wonderworkers at Solovki and at Pertoma. In the Russian Church they are commemorated among the venerable saints, by the old calendar, on 5 June, for the finding of the relics, and on 12 June.

In 1561, while the katholikon of the Solovki monastery was being built, Jonah and Vassian were sent to the mainland for lime. On the return, at the mouth of the Northern Dvina into the White Sea, a storm caught them and they drowned. Their bodies, which by tradition were found incorrupt, were buried by the local peasants. In 1599 a chapel was raised over the relics, around which the Pertoma monastery was later founded, where the relics lay beneath the ground. In 1864 a new reliquary was made for them, the work of Verkhovtsev.

The Serbian source says that they drowned and were cast ashore in 1651, but this year does not fit with the other reports. According to that source, a sign appeared over their grave and for that reason a church was built at the place, and then the Pertoma monastery arose. Once the tsar Peter the Great, saved from a storm, spent three days there, made a cross and set it on the shore.