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TheValaam Monastery (Russian:Валаамский монастырь;Finnish:Valamon luostari) is astauropegicOrthodox monastery in RussianKarelia, located onValaam, the largest island inLake Ladoga, the largest lake in Europe.
It is not clear when the monastery was founded, as the cloister is not mentioned in documents before the 16th century. Dates from the 10th to the 15th centuries having been suggested. According to one tradition, the monastery was founded by a 10th-century Greek monk,Sergius of Valaam, and his Karelian companion,Herman of Valaam.Heikki Kirkinen dated the foundation of the monastery to the 12th century.[1][2] Contemporary historians consider even this date too early. According to the scholarly consensus, the monastery was founded at some point towards the end of the 14th century.[3] John H. Lind and Michael C. Paul date the founding to between 1389 and 1393 based on various sources, including the "Tale of the Valamo Monastery",[4] a sixteenth-century manuscript discovered in 1989, which has the monastery founded during the archiepiscopate ofIoann II of Novgorod.[5]
The monastery was a northern outpost of theEastern Orthodox Church against pagans and, later, a western outpost against theCatholic Church fromTavastia,Savonia andKarelia Province. The power struggle betweenRussians andSwedes pushed the border eastwards in the 16th century; in 1578 the monastery was attacked and numerous monks and novices were killed by theLutheran Swedes. The monastery was left desolate between 1611 and 1715 after another attack by the Swedes, with buildings being burned to the ground and the Karelian border between Russia and Sweden being drawn through Lake Ladoga. In the 18th century the monastery was magnificently restored, and in 1812 it came under the RussianGrand Duchy of Finland.
In 1917,Finland became independent, and theFinnish Orthodox Church became autonomous under theEcumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople; previously, it had been a part of theRussian Orthodox Church. Valaam was the most important monastery of the Finnish Orthodox Church. The liturgic language was changed fromChurch Slavonic toFinnish and the liturgic calendar from theJulian to theGregorian calendar. These changes led to bitter decades-long disputes in the monastic community of Valaam.
The territory was fought over by theSoviet Union andFinland duringWorld War II. Due to theWinter War, the monasterywas evacuated in 1940, when 150 monks settled inHeinävesi inFinland. This community still exists asNew Valamo Monastery inHeinävesi. Having received evacuees from theKonevsky Monastery andPechenga Monastery, it is now the only monastery of the Finnish Orthodox Church, alongside theLintula Holy Trinity Convent located just 14 km away. From 1941 to 1944, during theContinuation War, an attempt was made to restore the monastery buildings at Old Valaam, but later the island served as a Soviet military base.
Since the original Valaam Monastery was bequeathed back to the Orthodox Church in 1989, it has been enjoying the personal patronage ofPatriarch Alexy II of Moscow, who frequented the cloister as a child. The monastery, whose buildings have been meticulously restored, has gained significant legal power over the island in a push to return to a state of spiritual seclusion. After years of fruitless legal proceedings with the monastery, many residents of the island chose to leave, though a few still remain. The present Father Superior of the community is Bishop Pankraty (Zherdev) of Troitsk.
The monastery of Valaam has a unique tradition of singing,[6] called the Valaam chant, that combines some features ofByzantine andZnamenny chants.
As in Byzantine chant, the singing is always in 2-parts, comprising a melody and anison, but, as in Znamenny chant, the scale structure is alwaysdiatonic. Theornamentation is simplified in comparison with Byzantine chant, and the melodies are more similar to that of ancient Znamenny Chant, at the edge of being considered a local variety of this tradition.[7] This relative simplicity became one of the reasons for the experimental introduction of Valaam chanting in various parishes across Russia by the end of 20th century.
The monastery has a professional five-strong male-voice choir which tours the world to raise money for the ongoing restoration of the buildings. Some of its music can be heard at the monastery's website.[8]
On the morning of 1 May 2016, Pascha (Orthodox Easter Sunday), a blaze covering 800 square metres erupted on the monastery's property, inside the “Winter Hotel", a national heritage site constructed in the 1850s. Belonging to the Valaam monastery, the building is located immediately adjacent to the monastery's main cathedral. Emergency services reported no casualties from the incident.[9]
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61°23′20″N30°56′49″E / 61.38889°N 30.94694°E /61.38889; 30.94694
