Foundation of Valaam
The monastery stands on the island of Valaam in Lake Ladoga, in the Karelia region of what is now northwestern Russia. By tradition Sergius first settled in the caves of the island, which had been a site of older pagan worship, and preached the Gospel to its inhabitants; the community he began was first known as the Holy Trinity Monastery and was later renamed for the Transfiguration. According to the recension followed here, Sergius and Herman settled on the island in 1329 and gathered a community of brethren around them.
The sources differ widely on when the monastery was founded. A traditional account dates it as early as the tenth century, while other reckonings place the founding in the twelfth century or as late as the fourteenth; because the monastery does not appear in surviving records before the sixteenth century, the question remains unresolved. Whatever the precise date, the founders are remembered for establishing the monastic life on the island and for directing the community's missionary energy outward toward the surrounding peoples. The monastery they began became, in later centuries, one of the principal monastic centers of the north, controlling a number of smaller sketes by the early twentieth century.