Sabbas of Valaam

Holy Venerable Martyr Sabbas 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. Only his name is kept from his life.

Valaam, the monastery near the border of Novgorod with Sweden, was many times laid waste by the Swedes. After the Reformation brought to Sweden by King Gustav Vasa, in the time of his son John III, a group of newly converted Lutherans, pursuing the Orthodox Karelians, crossed the ice to the island and attacked the monastery. Eighteen elders and sixteen novices were killed for steadfastness in the 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; there the monk Sabbas is named.

A Valaam monk of the nineteenth century saw, near the hermitage of Abbot Nazarius, a procession of unknown monks in black robes, with shining faces but sprinkled with blood and covered with wounds, singing funeral hymns; the grass did not bend under their steps. With the blessing of Abbot Damascene, on the day of their martyrdom, 20 February (4 March in the new style), the Liturgy for their eternal repose was served every year at Valaam. They were canonized at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000.

St Sabbas 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.