Pachomius of Valaam

Saint Pachomius of Valaam, a venerable martyr, was a novice at Valaam Monastery and is named in the memorial book of the thirty-⁠four monks killed there by the Swedes on 20 February 1578. The Azbyka page says nothing about him individually; the name Pachomius appears in the list of the novices.

Throughout its history the monastery, lying near the border of Novgorod with Sweden, was ravaged several times by the Swedes. In the time of King John III, a detachment of newly converted Lutherans, pursuing the Orthodox Karelians, crossed the ice from the mainland to the island and attacked the monastery. On 20 February 1578 eighteen elders and sixteen novices were killed for their firmness in the Orthodox faith. Their names, marked as killed by the Germans on Valaam, elders and servants, were entered in a synodikon later found in the Vasilievsky Monastery: the hieromonk Titus, the schemamonk Tikhon and other monks, then the novices, among them Pachomius.

In the nineteenth century a monk of Valaam had a vision: unknown black-⁠robed monks, in two rows, came out of a green grove filled with sunlight, singing funeral prayers in the old chant; they were sprinkled with blood and covered in wounds, but the grass did not bend beneath their steps. With the blessing of Abbot Damascene, each year on 20 February (4 March, new style) the Divine Liturgy for their repose was served at Valaam, followed by a memorial service.

They were canonized for general veneration by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000. Saint Pachomius is commemorated on 5 March (a movable date), on 3 June in the Synaxis of the Saints of Karelia and on 22 August (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Valaam, in the new style.