Hierarchs The Three Hierarchs of Perm: Gerasim, Pitirim, and Jonah

IMPORTANT COMPOSITION CORRECTION: it was initially assumed the group included St. Stephen of Perm — this is incorrect. Direct verification of the source image (pravicon.com/icon-2690) confirmed the trio of hierarchs in the icon is Gerasim, Pitirim, and Jonah, three DIRECT SUCCESSORS of St. Stephen on the Ust-Vym see (Stephen himself has his own separate commemoration, April 26 O.S., and is not part of this specific "Three Hierarchs" grouping). The previously empty date has been filled in (January 29/February 11).

The Three Hierarchs of Perm — Gerasim (d. 1441), Pitirim (d. 1455), and Jonah (d. 1470) — were successive bishops of Great Perm and Ust-Vym who continued the missionary work of St. Stephen of Perm among the Zyrians (Komi).

Gerasim, the third bishop, strengthened the faith among newly baptized Zyrians and was, by tradition, strangled with his own omophorion by a pagan Vogul servant in 1441. His successor Pitirim, a learned archimandrite, continued pastoral labors amid raids by pagan Voguls and was killed by them in 1455. Jonah completed his predecessors' work, converting the last pagans of Great Perm (the Cherdyn land) and firmly establishing Orthodoxy in the region.

Their relics rested together in the Annunciation church at Ust-Vym. A common church-wide glorification and joint feast were established in 1607 by Patriarch Hermogenes under Tsar Vasily Shuisky, with a joint icon commissioned that year; a common liturgical service was composed in 1678 by deacon Gregory Gilev of the Lalsk church.