O, amazing island of Valaam
The visit to the monastery of Father
Ignaty Bryanchaninov in 1846

he reconstruction of the monastery was a slow and not successful process. It was uninhabited for a long time. Lovers of solitude weren't brought there because the cloister was rebuilt with the help of the monks who didn't know the monkhood enough. Solitude was not enough for moral and spiritual well-being of the cloister, though solitude is one of essential parts of this well-being. One needs spiritual supervision and instructions of the brotherhood, without them all the conveniences that solitude brings destroy. On the contrary, spiritual supervision and instructions bring the advantages of solitude in the cloister, situated among the settlements and crowded towns. Thus the monasteries inside and around Konstantinopol carried out the signed Fathers, who were equal in spiritual gifts with the Fathers the wards of futile deserts. (*)

Metropolitan of St.-Petersburg, Gavriil, noticed shrewdly the main need of the Valaam monastery. He challenged from Sarovskaya desert Nazary the old man, famous for his spiritual knowledge and experience; it was done in 1785 just to satisfy that need. Metropolitan took the sacred cloister into special Archipastor's patronage and helped it with the government orders and material funds. The monastery began to develop and to become filled with people, who had already taken or just wanted to take monkhood. The dormitory and the skete were settled, desertmen and hermits came. Even Nazary the hegumen had a cell; he moved there sometimes for some weeks to stare attentively at himself, to find out a man inside of him and then to instruct his disciples from his own experience and observations. Father Nazary, a ward of Sarovskaya desert, was filled with impressions about the cloister and turned them into life in the Valaam monastery. All buildings in the desert were made of stone - so he began to erect stone buildings in the Valaam monastery. The inside quadrangle was built by him, the outside - by his successors. Generosity of emperors Pavel Petrovich and Alexander Pavlovich provide material support to the monastery; it is ruled by a first-class hegumen, chosen by the brotherhood and approved by metropolitan of St.-Petersburg (**).

The monastery of Valaam is an exact copy from the monasteries of the primary Christian Church. It had monks of all types, has a dormitory, a skete, desertmen and hermits. The main monastery, which we talked about, holds the dormitory. The monks, who live there, take part in the common religion services, have the common identical clothes and participate in common and individual services. Let's count the services.

* Reverend Neil Sorsky. The foreword of the Words.
** Now the Saintest Patriarch.