Pimen of Valaam

Holy Venerable Martyr Pimen of Valaam was one of the thirty-⁠four monks and novices of the Valaam Monastery killed by the Swedes on 20 February 1578 for their Orthodox faith. Of him as a person only the name is kept.

The Valaam Monastery, near the border of Novgorod with Sweden, was many times laid waste by the Swedes. After the Reformation carried out in Sweden under King Gustav Vasa, in the time of John III, a band of newly converted Lutherans, pursuing the Orthodox Karelians, crossed on the ice from the mainland to the island and attacked the monastery. Eighteen elders and sixteen novices were killed for their steadfastness in the Orthodox faith. Their names, with the note “slain by the Germans on Valaam, elders and servants”, were entered in a synodikon that later came to the Vasilievsky Monastery. Among the monks the synodikon names the monk Pimen.

In the nineteenth century a monk of Valaam, near the hermitage of Abbot Nazarius, had a vision: unknown black-⁠robed monks came in two rows from a sunlit grove and sang funeral prayers in the ancient chant. They had shining faces and eyes of unspeakable gentleness, but were sprinkled with blood and covered with wounds. The grass did not bend under their steps, and they vanished as they had come. With the blessing of Abbot Damascene, on the day of their martyrdom, 20 February (4 March in the new style), the Divine Liturgy “for their eternal repose” was served each year at Valaam, with a common memorial service.

They were canonized for veneration throughout the Russian Church at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000. St Pimen 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.