By God’s mercy, this hallowed place in our Land is now reviving. Once more the icon-lamp has been lightened in the Holy-Transfiguration Valaam Monastery and once more, as in times of old, like before, pilgrims come here to get prayerful support from saint Sergius and Herman, to draw spiritual strength for their course of life, in this sacred monastery, which has undergone devastation, ravage more than once and quite recently was destroyed and defiled.

His Holiness the Moscow and All-Russia Patriarch Alexey II