Jonah of Pechenga

Holy Hieromartyr Jonah of Pechenga (in the world John) was a hieromonk of the Holy Trinity monastery of Pechenga, disciple of Venerable Tryphon of Pechenga, born around 1500 and killed on 15 December 1589 (the record gives 1590). He was canonized in 2003 as a hieromartyr, together with 116 other martyrs killed in the Finnish raid. He is venerated in the synaxes of the saints of Kola and of Novgorod. Previously he had been venerated locally; in an older commemoration he was called Venerable Martyr Jonah of Pechenga and with him 50 monks and 65 laymen, killed by the Swedes in the Tryphon-⁠Pechenga monastery. He is commemorated on 2 (15) December.

News of him is known from the monastery's tradition and from the life of his teacher, Tryphon of Pechenga. His origin and birth date are not known. As to his birthplace, it is supposed to be the Pomor village of Varzuga, on the Terek coast of the Kola Peninsula, on the basis of an entry in the old Synodikon of the Solovki monastery, in which are named together Hegumen Gurias, the monk Herman and the priest-⁠monk from Varzuga, Jonah. By all signs these are the names of monks of the Pechenga monastery killed in the attack of the Swedish Germans in 1589.

The first report of the saint is from 1533, when he became priest of the church of Saint Nicholas in the city of Kola: the first and only priest in Kola was on 6 December 1533. The church had been made from a chapel once set up by the monks of the Nikolo-⁠Korelsky monastery, and the priest John was its first rector. The later reports about Father John are not clear. Most sources say that the wife and daughter of the priest of Kola died, and that after this John went to the monastery of Venerable Tryphon and was tonsured with the name Jonah. But a manuscript of the Pechenga monastery says that his wife bore him a daughter, and the unbaptized infant fell gravely ill; after common counsel with his wife they baptized her, and for this reason he left his wife and daughter at home, went to the monastery and became his disciple. In other words, Father John was obliged to baptize his daughter together with his wife and so, bound to her by spiritual kinship, could no longer remain in marital relations with her; the situation falls under canon 53 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which says that spiritual kinship is weightier than the bond of the flesh.

So Father John went to the monastery of Venerable Tryphon and became there his closest disciple. Tryphon himself, guilty of the shedding of blood, could not receive priestly orders, and so his new disciple, now the hieromonk Jonah, began to officiate in the monastery. There is no reliable information about what Jonah did after, in 1548, Venerable Tryphon was forced to leave his monastery; most probably he left with his elder and shared his wanderings; with him and with Hegumen Gurias he returned in 1556 to the new Pechenga monastery. The holy hieromartyr Jonah died in December 1589, during the attack of a Swedish band on the monastery. According to the monastery's tradition, he was killed during the Liturgy that he was celebrating in the Dormition church in the wilderness, by Tryphon's stream. Death found him, at the age of 90, when he had come out with the Holy Gifts onto the solea. With him died the monk Herman, who served with him. Both martyrs were buried beside the grave of Venerable Tryphon.