The Valaam Monastery, or Valamo Monastery is an 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 10th to 15th 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.
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