Theophilus of Valaam

Holy Venerable Martyr Theophilus of Valaam was a novice of the Valaam Monastery and received the crown of martyrdom on 20 February 1578, together with thirty-⁠three other brethren, killed by a band of Swedish soldiers.

In its long history the Valaam monastery, lying near the border between the lands of Novgorod and Sweden, was many times laid waste by the Swedes. Under King Gustav Vasa (1523-1560) Sweden had gone through the Reformation, and in the time of his son John III a detachment of newly converted Lutherans, who, in the words of Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov, still burned with a fanatical fondness for their newborn faith, pursued the Orthodox Karelians and crossed over the ice from the mainland to the island. On 20 February 1578 eighteen elders and sixteen novices were killed for their steadfastness in the Orthodox faith. Their names were entered in a synodikon, with the note: beaten by the Germans on Valaam, elders and servants.

The list includes the hieromonk Titus, the schemamonk Tikhon, the monks Gelasius, Sergius, Barlaam, Sabbas, Conon, Silvester, Cyprian, Pimen, John, Samon, Jonah, David, Cornelius, Niphon, Athanasius, Serapion and a second Barlaam, and among the novices Athanasius, Anthony, Luke, Leontius, Thomas, Dionysius, Philip, Ignatius, Basil, Pachomius, a second Basil, Theophilus, John, Theodore and a second John. About Theophilus the page says nothing in particular. On Valaam there is no stone that has not been marked by the blood of the ascetics.

In the nineteenth century a monk of Valaam, near the hermitage of Abbot Nazarius, received a vision of unknown black-⁠robed monks who walked in two rows out of a green grove bathed in sunlight, singing funeral prayers in the old chant. They walked with hands folded on their breasts, radiant in countenance and with eyes of ineffable gentleness. When the procession drew near the monk he saw that all were spattered with blood and covered with wounds, yet the grass was not trodden where they passed. They vanished as they had come, into the green thicket, and faint echoes of the funeral chant hung long in the air.

With the blessing of Abbot Damascene, on the day of the martyrdom, 20 February (4 March in the new calendar), the Divine Liturgy for their repose was served at Valaam each year, with a common memorial service. The saints were numbered among the saints of the Russian Church for veneration throughout the whole Church by the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000. The Azbyka page also gives 3 June for Theophilus.