The Valaam Monastery, or Valamo Monastery, is a stauropegic Orthodox monastery in Karelia, which is a part of the territory fought over by the Soviet Union and Finland before the end of World War II. It is not clear when the monastery was founded on Valaam, the largest island in Lake Ladoga, itself being the largest lake in Europe. As the cloister is not mentioned in documents before the 16th century, different dates from tenth to fifteenth centuries have been expounded. Whatever the truth may be, the Valaam monastery was a western outpost of Eastern Orthodoxy against the heathens and, later, against the Catholic Christianity of Tavastia, Savonia and Swedish Karelia.
The power struggle between Russians and Swedes pushed the border eastwards in the 16th century; in 1578 monks and novices were beaten to death by the then Lutheran Swedes. The monastery was desolate between 1611 and 1715 after another attack, the buildings being burnt to the ground and the Karelian border between Russia and Sweden being drawn through Lake Ladoga. In the eighteenth century the monastery was magnificently restored, and in 1812 it came under the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland.
In 1917, Finland became independent, and the Finnish Orthodox Church became autonomous under the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, as previously it had been a part of the Russian Orthodox Church. Valaam was the most important monastery of the Finnish Orthodox Church. The liturgical language was changed from Church Slavonic to Finnish, and the liturgical calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. These changes led to bitter decade long disputes in the monastic community of Valaam.
Due to the Winter War, the monastery was again evacuated in 1940 when 150 monks settled in Heinavesi in Finland. This community still exists as New Valamo Monastery in Heinavesi. Having received evacuees from the Konevsky and Petsamo monastries, it is now the only monastery of the Finnish Orthodox Church. From 1941 to 1944, during the Continuation War an attempt was made to restore the monastery buildings at Old Valaam, but later the island served as a Soviet military base. Those attempts were persued later and Valaam Monastery was meticulously restored in 1989.
