The life of St Tryphon of Kola
He made his way to the Kola Peninsula and settled along the Pechenga River, first trading among the local people so that he might learn their language and their beliefs before he ever attempted to preach to them.
His early efforts met deep suspicion, and he endured years of hardship, hostility, and outright violence before his patience and gentleness began to win a hearing. In 1532 he founded the Trinity Monastery of Pechenga for those the mission had begun to draw toward monastic life in that remote country, a house that later received support from Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Before his death he foretold that the monastery would one day be destroyed, and this came to pass some years after his repose, when Swedish raiders killed a hundred of its monks and laborers; the community was rebuilt afterward on the Kola Peninsula. Tryphon spent the better part of his long life among the people he had set out to reach, and reposed in 1583, remembered since as the one who first brought the Christian faith to Lapland.
