Vassian of Pertominsk

Holy Venerable Vassian of Pertominsk was a monk of the Solovki monastery and a disciple of Saint Philip, the future Metropolitan of Moscow. He was drowned in 1561, together with Saint Jonah, while bringing building materials for the monastery, and their relics were found incorrupt on the shore of Una Bay.

Vassian and Jonah were monks of the monastery of the Transfiguration on Solovki, disciples of Abbot Philip, later Metropolitan of Moscow (died 1570; commemorated on 9/22 January). The labor of the brotherhood was heavy at that time. In 1561, during the building of the monastery's cathedral, the two were sent to the mainland for lime. On the return, their ships were caught in a storm where the Northern Dvina flows into the White Sea, and Vassian and Jonah were drowned.

The Lord glorified them after death, for their bodies were untouched by corruption on the sea floor. The waves carried them to the eastern shore of Una Bay, where peasants found and buried them. Soon the venerable ones appeared in a dream to the elder Mamant of the Trinity-⁠Sergius Lavra, who managed the salt works in the settlement of Una. In 1599 he raised a chapel over the graves. Because of the many healings at their tombs, the hieromonk Jacob founded a monastery there in 1623, called Pertominsk, and with gifts from the tsars a church of the Dormition of the Mother of God was built.

The saints are commemorated twice a year, old style: on 5 June (the finding of the relics, 18 June new style) and on 12 June (25 June new style). In the new style the calendar also remembers them on 11 July (movable) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod, on 22 August in the Synaxis of the Saints of Solovki and on 1 November in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Arkhangelsk Metropolis.