John of Valamo
Schema-Igumen John, canonized as St. John of Valamo, was a monk in both Old Valamo and New Valamo and the head of the Petsamo Monastery. Some of his letters, containing many pieces of spiritual advice have been published in English in a book called Christ in Our Midst. Letters from a Russian Monk.
Origins and early monastic life
Early life
Fr. John was born to a peasant family in Russia in the Tver Guberniya on 26 February 1873, and his lay name was Ivan Alekseevich Alekseev. The family consisted of the parents and a sister and two brothers, in addition to Ivan.Young Ivan learned to read, taught by a tailor who visited his house and worked on furs there. In his own memoirs, he said he was not a very good student and that his sister learned the Russian letters before him, but in the end he, too, learned to read. Ivan soon developed a liking to reading and acquired Lives of the Saints, published as small booklets. Together with his parents, he often visited e.g. the famous Volokolamsk Monastery. There he idea took root in his mind that he, too, would come to live in a monastery.
A hard school for future life
At the age of thirteen, Ivan Alekseev left home and went to St. Petersburg and began to work in a bar owned by his elder brother; there he would see the dark side of the human nature in all its wretchedness. He said much later, that for a future spiritual guide, there would not have been a better place to get acquainted with the joys and sorrows of human life, especially with its agony and anxiety.In St. Petersburg he bought many new books.
The call of the monastic life prevails
From St. Petersburg, life took young Ivan through the Konevets Monastery to the Valamo Monastery, where in 1889 at the age of 16, he became a novice. He stayed there for four years, but then he was conscripted to the Russian Army, where he spent four years serving in a sharpshooter battalion. After that he lived with his father for two years and then returned to Valamo in 1900.In 1907 he became a member of the brotherhood, and in 1910 he was tonsured a monk and given a new name, Brother Iakinf, after the Greek martyr Yakinthos.
Brother Iakinf served the monastery eagerly, but a two-year assignment to the monastery's podvor’e in St. Petersburg was difficult for him, but he took it with obedience, and when he returned to Valamo, he was given a reward: he was assigned to the St. John the Baptist Skete, of which he had dreamed, a place known for its strenuous life of fasting and profound prayer. There he spent six years, working hard and praying, as an assistant to the hermit monks and as their fellow prayer.
Iakinf was happy at the skete, as he loved its peace and quiet. He also appreciated the guidance in spiritual life written by holy fathers who had contended through the centuries. This literature was his favourite reading, most of all Philokalia. The peace of the skete provided a good setting for immersing oneself in these writings.
The Independence of Finland and the Controversy concerning chronology in the Finnish Orthodox Church did not affect this place of calm and prayer.
A hard and difficult assignment in the far north
On 19 October 1921 Brother Iakinf was assigned to the Pechenga Monastery, as its igumen. The choice of Brother Iakinf was surprising, as he was an ordinary monk. In the space of a short time, he was consecrated as a deacon and then a priest. He was given two weeks to prepare for the new assignment and to learn how to conduct the divine services.This task was a hard and a difficult one, but Igumen Iakinf stayed there for ten years, without a murmur. Compared to Valamo, the monks in Petsamo were quite uneducated, and spiritual guidance and teaching literacy were the most challenging tasks of the new igumen. However, Iakinf would find that the brethren were hard working and diligent, but spiritual life had remained somewhat alien to them, which could be seen in their missing services and in their lack of knowledge of spiritual literature. Iakinf pointed these things out to the brethren and was able to achieve a change in these things.
However, in 1924 he experienced problems, due to which he considered leaving the monastery. He reprimanded the brethren, when the monk Aleksei had told him he should not have a Lapp man live at the monastery. He also called to their attention that monk Anatoli had sworn during haymaking and that the latter had told his father confessor to shut up when he had reprimanded him. In addition to this, he had to call to the attention of the brethren that they missed services regularly and that various sales and building projects had been initiated without his blessing. He thus considered that his position as the head of the monastery had been undermined and that he was unworthy to lead it, and he therefore announced that he would return to Valamo. However, all of the brethren begged him to stay, which he ended up doing.
Living in the far north he was still very far from the controversy concerning chronology, which did not really concern the Petsamo Monastery at all, since the monastery had already earlier decided to use the Gregorian calendar.
Returning home
In October 1931, Fr. John asked to be relieved of his position in Petsamo, and he was now able to return to Valamo, where he was tonsured to the Great Schema and given a new name: he was now known as Schema-Igumen John.The new Schema-Igumen was allowed to return to his beloved St. John the Baptist Skete to continue his monastic life. Even there he was not totally alienated from the world: one summer he had an assistant there, a young novice by the name of Georgi, who later became a hieromonk and in 1955 vicar bishop, and finally in 1960, Archbishop of Karelia and All Finland. The old hermit and the young novice became fast friends.
Father John was able to rejoice and see his young friend become a vicar bishop, but not rise to the office of archbishop, although he could anticipate it – every Orthodox Christian in the country could see that the old and frail Archbishop Herman was preparing his young protégé to become his successor, only this was not being talked about.
The number of the monastics was dwindling in Valamo, as it was cut off from Russia and no new members of brethren could come from there. He now had to move to the main monastery for the winters, acting there as an assistant to the father confessor from 1937 on. In this position he made some friends for life. The most memorable of these confession children was Jelena Armfelt from Helsinki, with whom he then had an extensive correspondence.
In exile
Taking new root
The difficult days of the Winter War arrived in Valamo, including the people of the St. John the Baptist Skete. They all had to be evacuated from Valamo. When the monastery was being bombed during the war, Fr. John had sat calmly in his cell and read the Gospel, not minding the windows being broken and the doors swinging open due to the blasts from exploding bombs. During the hasty evacuation, he took along mainly spiritual literature, and later he lamented not having been able to take with him the two icons on his wall, one of which he had received from his parents.The elderly hermit showed an example to his younger monastic brethren, and he helped to make the difficult time easier for them. Later father confessor, Hieromonk Savva, who had been appointed responsible for the evacuation, said in the 1970s that Fr. John's quiet dignity made it easy to lead the evacuation. The Vuoskoski school at Kannonkoski was the first destination for the evacuated monks; while living there six of the old monks died. A monument was erected for them at the Kannonkoski cemetery.
A new and permanent home for the elderly monks was found in Papinniemi, Heinävesi. This was a deserted mansion that belonged to a company called Saastamoinen, which was purchased for the monastery.
Fr. John became very fond of the new home in exile, and he condemned any longing for Lake Ladoga as "temptation to sin". In a letter to one of his confession children he said that he no longer even thinks of Valamo.
In New Valamo in Heinävesi he was made an elder, to whom were sent the rare new novices and others who needed guidance and spiritual help. He was given his own room in a large barrack like building, in its eastern end, upstairs, and there he lived almost to the end of his life.
After his death, the same room became the permanent residence of the father confessor, until the new house for the monks was completed. During three decades, many hundreds of people coming to confessions knocked on its door and said the Jesus prayer and thus asked for permission to enter, which they were granted when they heard the word "Amen" from the room.
Difficult moments
In the summer of 1947, the head of the monastery who had led it during the evacuation, Igumen Hariton was tonsured to the Great Schema, but his time in this capacity was short, as he was ill with an advanced form of cancer, which claimed him in October the same year.Fr. John was appointed the new head of the monastery, but the church administration did not confirm the appointment, as a person tonsured into the Great Schema could not be elected a head of a monastery. This position was given to Hieromonk Ieronim, who died five years later. His successor was Hieromonk Nestor, before this the treasurer of the monastery, who held this position for 15 years.
Spiritual counsel
In 1948, the last father confessor of Old Valamo, Schema Igumen Yefrem, who had lived in the Smolensk Skete, died, and now Fr. John was given this position, in which he stayed until his death in 1958.Fr. John had a lively correspondence with this confession children, and for many of them his letters were a source of great comfort in the midst of grief, trials and tribulations. During the days of need after the war, these people sent him food, for which he was deeply grateful.
One of these confession children was Tito Colliander, who describes his confessor in the book Ateria, which appeared in 1975. In the book one can find a grim picture of what it meant to be an Orthodox monk in the post-war Finland.