Sabbatius of Solovki

Saint Sabbatius of Solovki was a Russian monk, one of the founders of Solovki Monastery with Saint Zosimas. He fell asleep on 27 September 1435. The Russian Church has venerated him since 1547. He is commemorated on 27 September, and on 8 August, with Saint Zosimas, the day of the translation of their relics, in 1566.

He was a monk at Kirillo-⁠Belozersky Monastery, in the time of Metropolitan Photius. Learning that in the land of Novgorod there was Valaam Monastery, where the monks led a stricter life, he moved there. He astonished the brethren by his patience and humility and sought a place of complete solitude and silent prayer. He learned that two days' sail from the shore in the White Sea there was a large uninhabited island, and he left Valaam. First he settled by a chapel on the Vyg river, where he met the monk German, who lived alone in the forest and agreed to accompany him to the island. In 1429 the two elders reached the island safely by boat and, thirteen kilometres from the site of the present monastery, set up a cross and a tent beside a lake. Then they chose a better place for a cell, a verst from the sea, on the lake shore, by the high Sekirnaya mountain. After a time German left the island, and two years later Sabbatius set out for the Vyg, where he received communion from Abbot Nathanael and fell asleep. Gradually, after Sabbatius's death, other hermits settled on the island and the monastery named Solovetsky arose.

His relics were moved to Solovki Monastery in 1465, under Abbot Zosimas, and laid in the ground behind the altar of the Dormition Cathedral, where they remained until 1566. In that year, on 8 August, they were moved with those of Saint Zosimas to a side chapel of the Transfiguration Cathedral dedicated to these saints. The council at Moscow, in the time of Metropolitan Macarius, in 1547, decided to commemorate him on 27 September. From 1861 to 1925 the relics were in the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the monastery. From 1992 they were in the Annunciation church of Solovki, in an ornamented shrine, then in Philip's church, and in summer in the Transfiguration Cathedral. Since 2016 the relics of Sabbatius, Zosimas and German of Solovki have rested in a church of the monastery.