FATHER SERAPHIM ROSE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

Damascene Hieromonk | 1142 pages | 01 Sep 2003 | St Herman Press, US | 9781887904070 | English | United States Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works eBook - Hieromonk Damascene - Google Books

The interview that follows is part one of the three part series, this one with Fr. If you would like information on the books published and distributed by St. Herman of Alaska Monastery, their website is. Now we take you directly to Fr. Kevin: Fr. Damascene, thank you first of all for being my guest on The Illumined Heart radio program. Seraphim Rose in his actual cell, which is now your actual cell. It looks like an old Russian forest, and the cell is about 12 by 10 feet. Damascene: Yes, it was hand built by Fr. Thank you for having us. Before we begin discussing your first and obviously pivotal and significant meeting with Fr. Seraphim Rose in , just a little bit about your background. You write that you were raised a Christian in the loose sense of the word. Damascene: Yes, I was raised in and out of Protestant churches growing up. My parents would take me to church sporadically. My best experiences of Christianity growing up and the most meaningful for me were at a YMCA camp near my hometown of Fresno where the Christian faith was imparted to me by the counselors. That was during the early 70s, during the Jesus Movement, when some of these young people were very much on fire with preaching the gospel and so on. So that was my most meaningful experience of Christianity. But in high school, I turned away from Christianity, partly through the influence of a zoology teacher who was very anti-Christian and very pro-evolution. I began to delve into other religions, and I started looking into Eastern religions. I got involved in Zen Buddhism. I was practicing Zazen meditation regularly. Then by the time I was in my first year of college, my foray into Zen Buddhism was really reaching a dead end. I really felt unfulfilled, empty inside, and I was looking for something more. I found it too superficial, too worldly. It lacked an ancient tradition, a mystical practice and discipline. Then I encountered Orthodoxy in college through a group of students on the campus who had an Orthodox fellowship, most of whom were converts. It was these students who invited Fr. Seraphim Rose to the campus. Among the students in that college student fellowship were Abbot Gerasim, our current Abbot of our monastery, and also Abbot Jonah of the Monastery of St. John in Manton. Kevin: You were about nineteen or twenty at that time when you first encountered Orthodoxy and Fr. Damascene: Yes, I remember. In fact they have been recorded and published—both of them. In fact my lovely Protestant, evangelical sister-in-law reads that book regularly. Were these lectures well-attended? Damascene: Yes. Of course the Orthodox people on the campus attended, but also Orthodox people from other parts of California came and other non-Orthodox people came for the lecture as well. I first encountered Orthodoxy in that class. Damascene: I was an undeclared major, but, yes, Religious Studies was my main subject, my main interest. Kevin: You were searching for something—the connection to the ancient Christian faith, the deeper, more mystical, experiential faith. I had been attending Orthodox services before meeting Fr. I would go to church with them, but I was still sitting on the fence. I had not made a final decision to become Orthodox. Kevin: Were you still involved with Zen right then? Were you going to these services and then going back and sitting Zazen, or did that end and you were now searching? Damascene: I was searching but I still had some baggage left over from the past and still kind of working through some of these things. The highest understanding of the absolute was an impersonal absolute. I was still working through that idea. He has revealed himself as I AM. That helped me, but I had still not worked everything through. Secondly, I had not found a spiritual father, somebody that could guide and led me into the faith. I had found peers in college, but I had not found a person I could look up to as a spiritual father. In Fr. Seraphim, I found both things that I was looking for—both a person who had experienced both Eastern religions, even Zen in particular, and also Orthodoxy. He spoke about Eastern religions and Zen as a person who knew about them and as a person who had been on the inside. I needed a person. Seraphim was that person. Also, in Fr. Seraphim, I found that spiritual father that I was looking for. I want to come back to the impersonal God, because you had a question or questions that you had asked Fr. We want to hear the answer to that. But I do have a question I want to ask first. Did these lectures hit you like a ton of bricks or was it an accumulation process where it started with these lectures where God was leading you and evolved, or were these lectures in your initial encounter with Fr. Seraphim world and life-changing from the get go, so to speak? I had already had some background and attended some services. The one really pivotal experience in my life, of course, was my first attendance of an Orthodox service. I had read some Orthodox books, but it was only in attending the Orthodox service that I sensed the otherworldliness, the ancientness, the antiquity, the mystical reality of the Orthodox Church and its worship. I had had these experiences, but meeting Fr. Seraphim and attending those lectures—it did hit me as a ton of bricks in the sense that at that point I made my final decision to become Orthodox. After meeting Fr. Seraphim, there was no turning back. I knew. In fact, I remember that night after I had attended the first lecture, when I first met him, I remember running to my friend on the campus. He was in the same dorm that I was, and I had met him my first day at Santa Cruz. He was a follower of Yogananda. Damascene: Yes, Self-Realization Fellowship. He was from a Catholic background. He was practicing the Korea yoga and I was doing my Zen. We were fellow-seekers on the path. We had both come from Christian backgrounds, but we were looking at Eastern religions. I remember that night, after Fr. You have to meet this man. Seraphim] had on me. Kevin: What was it about him that stood out so much? You mentioned that this was someone for you who knew the insides of some of the areas where you were struggling—the Eastern and the impersonal God. But he was a man, he was flesh and blood, what was it about him that stood out? Damascene: There were a few things. I wrote about this in Fr. In fact, many of my references of Fr. Seraphim are in the biography. I just talk in the third person and mention things he told me. Damascene: His life and works, right. A few things struck me. He was not putting himself forward. He was like a selfless person, a selfless servant. He was only imparting Christ. I remember he was sick at the time. He was sniffling, he was tired, but you had the sense that he was a man who was sacrificing himself, not just because he was sick, but it was the whole impression that he made. He was a man who had totally sacrificed himself for Christ. I was a spiritual seeker at U. Santa Cruz in , so you can imagine that I had already seen many different religious teachers. I had met Sufis, I had met Tibetan Buddhists. But Fr. Seraphim stood out, and also he stood out in terms of Christian people, because there was something very special about him. The second thing I sensed about him was that he had this tremendous wisdom, this piercing discernment that I had never encountered in anyone before. He just kind of cut through everything and gave a clear, insightful answer. He was without any extreme. He was very balanced. But besides that, I sensed that he had this wisdom from God. He was very humble, presenting things very clearly and simply for everybody. And I sensed that he was as intelligent as or more intelligent than any college professor I had, but he had this spiritual wisdom that I had never encountered with anyone. Kevin: Do you think he was of genius level mentality? Had it ever been tested? Damascene: Yes, I definitely say he was a genius. In fact, that was what he was known as in high school. He was a genius, but the amazing thing about it was that, when he became Orthodox, as he said himself, he said that he crucified his mind. He wrote on a level that everybody could understand, and he really avoided any kind of academic or high-sounding, academic prose. He was…. Damascene: Yes, actually at the end of his life, he was very encouraged by the fact that just the common man in America was becoming Orthodox. When he became Orthodox, when he was becoming Orthodox, in the 50s and early 60s, the only converts were intellectuals. They were the ones that kind of penetrated the ethnic barrier and get into there and learn other languages. Kevin: Or seekers like you that were used to dealing with and getting through foreignness to something that was important. Damascene: A lot of those intellectual converts were just that. They were intellectuals. It was all in the head. So at the end of his life, Fr. Of course intellectuals are still coming into the faith, but now it was also everybody. He thought that was a very positive development. Kevin: Getting back to what you were saying about the impersonal God, you told us a little about what some of the challenges were that you were dealing with—feeling that perhaps the impersonal God was higher knowledge and so on. You had read something from Archimandrite Sophrony that put that in context. What was it about the concept and the way that Fr. Seraphim explained it that spoke directly to your heart, which is how you have described in your book what happened? What did he say? Damascene: Well, we actually have it on tape. He could have given me a very verbose, learned answer. Kevin: Would you say that that broke the spell of the impersonal God after he said that? It was Fr. Seraphim himself. It was everything together. Kevin: Did Fr. Seraphim actually catechize you? I believe you became Orthodox actually after his repose, no? Kevin: Tell us what that was like. Not everyone gets catechized by a Fr. But I would come up to the monastery as often as I could when I was going to college, any break I could get. I would come and talk to him in this cell or elsewhere. We would just talk about things. I would talk about the papers that I had written, and he would read the papers and discuss those. He would ask me questions, finding out how I was coming along in my preparation to become Orthodox. Again this goes back again to how Fr. Seraphim gave up his intellectual elitism. Before he was Orthodox, he was definitely an intellectual elitist. When I was in college I was something of an intellectual snob myself. I remember I gave Fr. Seraphim a paper on Immanuel Kant and his philosophy on religion. Later I asked Fr. It was a little bit over my head. Damascene: Then I asked him about Kierkegaard, because I had written a paper on Kierkegaard, and I was ready to discuss this big philosopher like you do in college—this big, deep philosophical discussion with somebody. Of course, Fr. Seraphim knew Kierkegaard, and he knew his philosophy. He was a person who was really seeking something deeper in Christianity, but he was in Lutheran Denmark. So he could only go so far. I think he was really unfulfilled. Damascene: Exactly. Damascene: You have to sacrifice. And before you become Orthodox, you need to count the cost. Kevin: You know, his illness and his death came not very long after you met him at U. Santa Cruz. How long actually was it? Damascene: I met him on May 14th, , and he reposed on September 2nd, So that would have been a little less than a year and a half. Damascene: Well, even Fr. Alexi Young who knew Fr. Seraphim better than most people said that there were many things about Fr. He was a bit of a mystery in some sense. But I think that, considering the fact that I knew him for about a year and a half, I would say that I knew him fairly well. Every time I would come up here, he was my spiritual father, he was going to be my godfather, and he was the one who was preparing me for baptism. I asked him about himself. I asked him questions about himself. For example, I asked him how he became Orthodox. In Eastern religions, like in Sufism, they say that you are God, and you just realize your own Godhood. Damascene: Yes, certain forms of Hinduism. So I was talking with Fr. Seraphim about that. He said that even before becoming Orthodox he had experimented with that idea—not that he was God, but that he was the sole existent reality, called Solipsism I believe. And there are certain letters that he wrote where he brings that idea out. Damascene: Yes, he was kind of experimenting in that realm. He was trying to break through, because before encountering the truth he was in despair. He was trying to break through to the other side. Kevin: Which is a very Nietzschean way to pursue that which, of course, does lead to insanity and self- deification and self-glorification. Damascene: Yes, and he was very much involved with the philosophy of Nietzsche. Kevin: Which we will get to in our next interview on his work. So his illness I understand, actually from one of the other brothers here when we were walking around, that he actually was not a well man, that he struggled with various physical illnesses. Is the illness that finally caused his repose—the intestinal problem—did that come on suddenly? Damascene: It came on suddenly, yes. Now he did tell our former Abbot, Fr. Herman, that when he was younger he had some kind of stomach malady, and he thought he was going to die from it. He prayed to the Mother of God, and he was healed. Actually, what occurred was a clotting of blood to the intestines. And I was here at the time, when he got sick and the whole period of his illness and his repose. Damascene: Yes, right about the time he got sick. I came up here to be baptized by him on the Feast of Dormition. Justin Popovich wrote that "the Church is Michael Pomazansky stated: "The life of the Church in its essence is mystical; the course of its life cannot be entirely included in any 'history. As all the members of our body comprise a full and living organism which depends upon its head, so also the Church is a spiritual organism in which there is no place that the powers of Christ do not act. I n viewing the Church as a God-human organism headed by Christ, Fr. Seraphim was able to look above and beyond the errors and sins of the Church's human members. Following the Scriptural injunction to trust not in princes, nor in the sons of men Psalm , he instead put trust in Christ Who welcomes sinful men and women into His Body and offers to save them from sin. In a passage from Orthodox Dogmatic Theology which Fr. Seraphim translated into English, Fr. Michael Pomazansky wrote: "The sanctity of the Church is not darkened by the intrusion of the world into the Church, or by the sinfulness of men. Everything sinful and worldly which intrudes into the Church's sphere remains foreign to it and is destined to be sifted out and destroyed, like weed seeds at sowing time. The opinion that the Church consists only of righteous and holy people without sin does not agree with the direct teaching of Christ and His Apostles. The Saviour compares His Church with a field in which the wheat grows together with the tares, and again, with a net which draws out of the water both good fish and bad. In the Church there are both good servants and bad ones Matt. In a letter of , Fr. To an American convert who was angry when he saw church leaders acting like petty organizational men, Fr. Seraphim counseled:. If anything, their great temptation lies in taking the 'organization' side of the Church too seriously and thereby sometimes 'quenching the spirit' of some members of the Church's organism. If we thereby sometimes suffer misunderstandings and offenses from each other and we are all guilty of this, not just bishops! If he has placed himself in mistaken positions, it was doubtless from sincere motives, which were nonetheless potentially harmful because they were political, i. Frankly, Vladika John during his lifetime was not understood even by many of his fellow bishops, precisely because he was always first and foremost living in the organism of the Church and never let the organization take precedence. That is his testament to us all, and don't worry if you think you don't understand it right now; it can't really be 'understood,' but only experienced and suffered through as you grow in the Church and her tradition. God will send you occasions for 'understanding' it in your heart. I do not believe that the 'logical' ones will be with Christ and His Church in the days coming upon us; there will be too many 'reasons' against it, and those who trust their own minds will talk themselves out of it. In a letter of , addressing the problems created in the Church by the super-correct faction, Fr. Seraphim again expressed his hope in the Church which transcends human errors and passions: "Deep down we are peaceful about all this, for we know the Church is stronger than any of those who have been deceived into thinking they are the Church, and they always fall away, making those who remain in the Church more sober thereby. During a lecture at the St. Herman Pilgrimage, Fr. Seraphim spoke about how God is leading the Church:. You begin to see that there are many wise things which in the beginning you might have thought were not so wise. Even if the people involved in these things are not wise themselves, nevertheless God is guiding the Church. We know that He is with the Church until the end, and therefore there is no reason to go off the deep end, to fall into apostasy and heresy. In , when writing an article about Fr. Michael Pomazansky, Fr. Seraphim affirmed what both Fr. Michael and Archbishop John had taught him about how the Church is preserved from extremes both on the right and on the left:. This self-preservation and self-continuity of the Orthodox tradition is not something that requires the assistance of 'brilliant theologians'; is is the result of the uninterrupted 'catholic consciousness' of the Church which has guided the Church from the very beginning of its existence. Finally, at the Pilgrimage, Fr. Countering what he called "the worldly opinion Seraphim said we are called "to a deeper awareness of Christ's Church and of how our 'formal membership' in it is not enough to save us. George Calciu about what it means to be in the Church:. In her we move and have our being, through Christ Who is her Head. In Him we have full freedom. In the Church we learn of truth, and the truth will set us free John You are in Christ's Church whenever you uplift someone bent down in sorrow, or when you give alms to the poor, and visit the sick. You are in Christ's Church when you cry out: 'Lord, help me. You are in Christ's Church when you pray: 'Lord, forgive him. Do you not see, therefore, young friend, how close the Church of Christ is? You are Peter and God is building His Church upon you. You are the rock of His Church against which nothing can prevail Let us build churches with our faith, churches which no human power can pull down, a church whose foundation is Christ Feel for your brother alongside you. Never ask: 'Who is he? He is the Church of Christ just as I am. Seraphim concluded, "let us begin really to belong to the Church of Christ, the Orthodox Church. Outward membership is not enough; something must move within us that makes us different from the world around us, even if that world calls itself 'Christian' or even 'Orthodox. If we truly live the Orthodox worldview, our faith will survive the shocks ahead of us and be a source of inspiration and salvation for those who will still be seeking Christ even amidst the shipwreck of humanity which has already begun today. B ecause he trusted in the power of Christ to heal His Church, Fr. Seraphim cherished hopes for the future healing of the wounds of the Orthodox Church in Russia. Being caught in the early years of the anti-Christian Soviet experiment, Bishop Damascene was a sign in advance for Orthodox Christians who will one day be caught in the reign of Antichrist. He stood up against Metropolitan Sergius' capitulation to the Soviet regime, and for this reason he was arrested and sent into exile. Seeing the Sergian deviation as only a wound in the Body of Christ which would one day be healed, the exiled bishop sent beautiful epistles to console and strengthen his persecuted flock. In one of them he wrote:. After a short time of rest from the Lord perhaps even the time when the darkness will imagine that its work has already been completed , the lamps will be revealed, will come together, will ignite a multitude of others which had been put out, will pour together into a great flame of faith which, when efforts are made to put it out, will burn yet brighter May this not be! No matter how few we might be, the whole power of Christ's promises concerning the invincibility of the Church remain with us. With us is Christ, the Conqueror of death and hell. The history of Christianity shows us that, in all the periods when temptations and heresies have agitated the Church, the bearers of Church Truth and the expressors of it were few, but these few with the fire of their faith and their zealous standing in the Truth have gradually ignited everyone The same thing will happen now if we few will fulfill our duty before Christ and His Church to the end. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom Luke In , the thousandth anniversary of the Baptism of Rus, the fervent prayers of believers both in Russia and abroad were answered by God, and the situation in Russia began to change. In , within months after the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov were revealed and carried in procession to Diveyevo Monastery, the totalitarian atheist regime fell, thus changing the situation that produced the spiritual disease of Sergianism. In the decade that followed, through the heavenly intercessions of St. Seraphim and the host of Russian Saints, Russia has experienced what has been called the largest religious revival in history. In Russia's Catacomb Saints, Fr. Seraphim predicted that when the godless regime in Russia falls, "the Sergianist church organization and its whole philosophy of being will crumble to dust. For those who view the Church as an invincible theandric organism as did Bishop Damascene and Fr. Seraphim, it is clear that Sergianism as an organization and a "whole philosophy of being" is indeed being replaced by something else, as the Church organism is healed and corrected by Christ with the cooperation of its members. Clear proof of this is found in the fact that, in the year , the Sobor of Bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, responding to the fervent desire of the people who comprise the Body of Christ, canonized 1, New Martyrs and Confessors, including numerous bishop-martyrs who protested against Metropolitan Sergius' bowing down to the anti-Christian authorities. Among the newly canonized hierarchs was none other than Bishop Damascene. During his lifetime, Metropolitan Sergius' policy of capitulation appeared victorious, but in the end it was not him but the suffering, outcast Bishop Damascene who was proclaimed a saint by the Orthodox Church. This consideration provides a valuable lesson in what the Orthodox Church of Christ actually is, and how "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" even if, for a time, some church leaders succumb to temptation and pressure from the world. W ith his hope in the future healing of the Russian Church, Fr. Seraphim hoped in the future restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to liturgical communion with the main body of the Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia, the Moscow Patriarchate. In this he was of one mind with the best tradition of the Russian Church Abroad; as will be remembered, it had been Archbishop John who had first instilled such hope in him. She offers up prayers for her, preserves her spiritual and material wealth, and in due time she will unite with her, when the reasons for their disunity shall have vanished. Together with Archbishop John, Fr. Seraphim understood that the division between the two Russian Churches, though real, was only on an organizational level, and did not touch the deeper unity which existed in the Church organism. Thus, when outward circumstances changed in Russia, this unity should be affirmed outwardly. Writing as a member of the Church Abroad, Fr. Seraphim stated in a letter: "Our Church has no communion with Moscow. But our Church recognizes this as a temporary situation, which will end when the Communist regime comes to an end. Dimitry Dudko, who belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate, Fr. Seraphim affirmed that "Once the political situation in Russia that produced 'Sergianism' will have changed, a full unity in the faith will be possible with such courageous strugglers as Fr. With the changes in Russia, culminating in the canonization of the New Martyrs and Confessors in Moscow, the path is now open for Fr. Seraphim's hope to be realized. If liturgical communion is restored between the two Russian Churches, they will be following the example already set by the two Serbian Orthodox Churches which have entered into communion again after decades of separation during the Communist era. O ften when divisions prevail in the Church, this is due to lack of faith in the Church and in Christ's power to heal its members. An understanding of the Church as a God-human organism helps us to be more patient when we notice human error in the Church, and less desirous of seeing divisions persist. We will be more accepting of God's Providence, which, as He Himself has told us, allows tares to grow alongside the wheat until the Last Judgment. In times of tribulation we will be able to remain steadfast and faithful to the traditions and teachings of the Church, without ourselves contributing to any schism or ill-will among members of the Church. For Fr. Seraphim, this understanding of the Church as a living organism grew and deepened over time. With this deepening, Fr. Seraphim was at the same time able to rise above jurisdictional divisions in the Church, which were after all on an organizational level. By the end of his life, he distanced himself considerably from the isolationism that many wished to see prevail in his own Russian Church Abroad. Alexey Young describes well the change that occurred in Fr. Seraphim over the years:. Seraphim was a very strict isolationist about other jurisdictions in the first several years roughly —75 I had contact with him. This changed rather abruptly, however, as he began to see 1 the effects of isolationism on the Synod Abroad, and 2 the increasingly shrill fanaticism of the [super-correct] 'party' in the Synod. He was at first uncomfortable, and then openly appalled at the utter lack of charity on the part of the so-called 'zealots. Near the end of his life he once said to me: 'I regret many of the "pro-zealot" articles we published in The Orthodox Word in the earlier years: we helped to create a monster, and for that I repent! Seraphim often told me that he had begun to commune lay men and women from other jurisdictions that came to him. He said: 'I know this would be frowned upon, but these people come and they are hungry for spiritual guidance and nourishment and Turn them away? Seraphim, while respecting outward rules and regulations, always tried to penetrate to the inward 'spirit. Thus, while avoiding at least the appearance of scandal, and not trying to 'provoke' anyone in any way, he nonetheless cast the nets far and wide. And, as we know, he caught many 'fish. What Fr. Alexey says is borne out by Fr. Seraphim's letters and Chronicle entries. In , when people from Antiochian Orthodox churches in California began making pilgrimages to the monastery, Fr. Seraphim expressed his joy at seeing the fervency of their faith. In time three of the lay pilgrims from the Antiochian Church would be ordained as priests. In December of , Fr. What the end will be, jurisdictionally speaking, I don't know. In another letter, Fr. Seraphim responded to the questions of one of his spiritual sons, who, being in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, wanted to marry a woman in the "rival" Orthodox Church in America Metropolia. The woman's priest, being devoted to his own jurisdiction, refused to marry the couple until the young man left the Russian Church Abroad. In this dilemma of nuptial happiness vs. Seraphim wrote to his spiritual son: "I think he [the priest] is being overly dramatic about the whole matter. The question of 'jurisdictions' in the case of the O. Seraphim wrote a conciliatory letter to the priest. Seraphim also maintained that jurisdictional divisions should not prevent one from receiving Holy Communion. In his talk at the St. Herman Pilgrimage, "Orthodox Christians Facing the s," he related an example from Russia which he had read in the writings of Fr. Dimitry Dudko: "Fr. Dimitry says he talked to one person in the Catacomb Church. This person was totally cut off from the Sacraments because in his area the Catacomb Church was totally absent. Unproofread text

I'd like to mention here just three of those who have something to say to us: two of them died in the last few years, and some of you here knew them; another is still alive. All three are bound up with Russia which is now undergoing the terrible trial of atheist rule, and that also has something to say to us. Wherever he was -- in Russia, Germany, or America -- he strove to establish an atmosphere of Christian warmth where other seekers could find the peace he had found. He saw that most of our Christian life is outward and cold, and he strove always to awaken the true inward life and warmth of Orthodoxy when it is deeply understood and practiced. He hated the "hothouse" Christianity of those who "enjoy" being Orthodox but don't live a life of struggling and deepening their Christianity. We converts can easily fall for this "hothouse" Orthodoxy, too. We can live close to a church, have English services, a good priest, go frequently to church and receive the Sacraments, be in the "correct" jurisdiction -- and still be cold, unfeeling, arrogant and proud, as St. Tikhon has said. In this way we will not grow because we don't have the sense of urgency and struggle that Vladika Andrew talked about. Once, when he only suspected that one of his spiritual children was growing comfortable in his Orthodoxy, he took him by the shoulders and literally shook him and told him: "Don't you be a hypocrite! You can read further about Archbishop Andrew and his Orthodox philosophy of life in a booklet published several years ago: "The Restoration of the Orthodox Way of Life. He was a refined and philosophical thinker, but most of all he had an Orthodox heart, and he grieved most of all at seeing how few Orthodox people seem to care deeply for God and their faith and their fellow men. In his article "Weep," after describing how a young mother in New York City brutally killed her infant son, he addresses the Orthodox people: "All for one and one for all are guilty Let each one think of himself What were you doing on that evening when this unbelievable but authentic evil deed was performed? Perhaps it was your sin, your immoral deed, your malice, which turned out to be the last little drop which caused the vessel of evil to overflow. This is the way we must reflect, if we are Christians Weep, brothers and sisters! Do not be ashamed of these tears Let your tears be a fount of a different energy, an energy of good that fights against the energy of evil Let these tears also awaken many of the indifferent. Andreyev's burning concern shows us that we must have a deeply-feeling heart , or else we are not Christians. Actually, if you take seriously what Orthodox teachers like Archbishop Andrew, Andreyev, and Father Dimitry are saying, you can come to think there isn't much hope for us -- we're too soft, too unaware, too shallow, too outward. Well, it's good to think like that -- it might make us begin to wake up and struggle. Let the words of these fervent souls be a warning for us. First of all, perhaps many of you don't know that there are many contacts now between people in Russia and people outside. We can become informed of what is going on there. Read Fr. Dimitry Dudko's books, or his little newspaper. There are also Western sources which give fresh information on what is happening to Orthodox Christians in Russia -- Fr. Find out about these suffering people and pray for them. Do you know about Nun Valeria, arrested and placed in a psychiatric hospital for selling belts with the Ninetieth Psalm embroidered on them? About Alexander Ogorodnikov, imprisoned for holding a Christian discussion group? About Vladimir Osipov, the Russian patriot and samizdat publisher? About Fr. Gleb Yakunin, Fr. We have to start praying for these people who are suffering for their faith. And we can help them: we have their prison addresses and can send them letters. Even if they don't receive them, the prison officials do, and the treatment of prisoners with "friends abroad" noticeably improves. Through "Orthodox Action" you can send literature in regular envelopes. There are even ways of getting books through. You can write to Fr. Dimitry Dudko -- some letters get through, and and he even replies. Everyone can do something, and every bit helps. In the West we've grown too passive -- now is the time when we can express our care and concern. Have you ever asked yourself, for example, the question how you will survive if you are placed in prison or concentration camp, and especially in the punishment cells of solitary confinement? How are you going to survive? You will go crazy in a very short time if your mind has nothing to occupy itself with. What will you have in your mind? If you are filled with worldly impressions and have nothing spiritual in your mind; if you are just living from day to day without thinking seriously about Christianity and the Church, without becoming aware of what Orthodoxy is, and you are placed in a situation like solitary confinement where there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, no movies to see, just staying in one spot facing four walls -- you will scarcely survive. The Rumanian Protestant pastor, Richard Wurmbrand, has a tape devoted to this subject which is very interesting. In a crisis situation like that, when all our books and outward props are taken away, we can depend on nothing except what we've acquired within ourselves. He says that all the Bible verses he knew didn't help him much; abstract knowledge of dogmas didn't help much -- what is important is what you have in your soul. You must have Christ in your soul. If He is there, then we Orthodox Christians have a whole program which we could use in prison. We can remember the Orthodox Calendar -- which saints and feasts are commemorated when. We don't have to know the whole Calendar, but from our daily life in the Church we will remember the milestones of the Church year; whatever we have stored up in our hearts and minds will come back to us. Whatever prayers and hymns we know by heart will help us, we will have to sing them every day. You will have to have people to pray for. The world-wide dispersion of our Russian Church Abroad is ideal for this. You can go over the whole globe in your mind, one country or continent at a time, and pray for those you know, even if you can't think of their names -- bishops and abbesses, parishes and priests both Russian and missionary, the monasteries in the Holy Land, prisoners in Russia and Rumania and other lands under the atheist yoke, the missions in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa where it is very difficult, the monks of Mt. Athos, the suffering Old Calendarists of Greece. The more of these you are aware of and praying for now, the better it will be for you when you have to suffer yourself, the more you will have to take with you into prison. As Andreyev says, it is "one for all and all for one" -- we are involved in practicing our Christianity in a world that has become atheist, whether or not open persecution is going on. The state of contemporary converts, however, was far from hopeless. Toward the end of his life Fr. Seraphim noticed that the older generation of converts, which had largely been attracted to Orthodoxy as an opportunity for legalism and intellectual pretension, was being replaced by a much more promising generation. Today we see a rising number of such converts who, as Fr. The same old convert pitfalls are still there, and there will always be people falling into them, no matter how many warnings they receive. But the warnings of Fr. Seraphim, found throughout his writings, have not been in vain. Seraphim Rose. Most of the letters of Fr. Seraphim cited in this book were preserved in carbon copy by Fr. Seraphim himself; some were sent by their recipients to the author for publication in this book. In some of the references to letters the names of the recipients have been abbreviated, and in others the names have been omitted altogether in order to protect the privacy of living persons. The book Letters from Fr. Seraphim by Fr. Alexey Young includes many letters that were not preserved by Fr. Seraphim in carbon copy. When we have quoted these letters directly from this book, references to the book have been given. Seraphim was thinking of priests like Fr. Grigori Kravchina of the church of St. Seraphim in Seaside, the first Orthodox priest he had talked to. Macarius the Great, Homily Jerome, Letters and Select Works. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. Eerdmans, , p. Herman Summer Pilgrimage, August Alexey Young to the author, Oct. Herman Press , pp. Copyright by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, California. Used with permission. Advertise Contact About. Subscribe to Our Mailing List Would you like to be notified when new articles are posted, books are published, etc? First Name. Last Name. Converts - Chapter 88 from Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works by Hieromonk Damascene As many as are made partakers of the Spirit of Christ, see that you do not behave contemptuously in anything, small or great, and do not offend the grace of the Spirit, that you may not be excluded from the life of which you have already been made partakers. Macarius the Great 1 Christians are not born but made. A double axe: broadness on one hand, narrowness on the other. How do you do this? You begin by accepting certain basic Orthodox principles: 1. Seraphim wrote: What can I say? The explanatory phrase in brackets was added by FSR, the translator. LFSR to —, June 18, Arriving clerics bow deeply and cross themselves before entering the main body of the church, which is open, with no pews. Some cross themselves and bow twice before certain icons, touching the right hand to the floor, before moving forward to kiss the icons. The lips may not touch the face depicted on the icon, only the feet or hands or clothing. In the December chill and the flickering light of the lampadas, the black-robed priests and monks sing of suffering and redemption and everlasting life. After the service, they gather at a long, thick wooden table in the nearby refectory, warmed by a wood-burning stove, for a supper of vegetable stew with bread, accompanied by the reading of a spiritual text. They will rise well before dawn for the Matins service. Eugene Rose is buried on the slope that rises from the middle of the compound. Over his grave is a rectangular wooden platform with roughly hewn benches and handrails. When some pious Orthodox visit the grave, they leave with a piece of wood from rotting boards or a handful of dirt or a few drops of oil from the lamp. In the Orthodox tradition, holy relics and remains of saints are objects of veneration. Rose was pronounced dead Sept. For days he had endured agonizing stomach pain and had kept to his cell, resisting entreaties that he go to a doctor. When his condition worsened, monks drove him to the emergency room. It was found during surgery that a blood clot had blocked a vein leading from the intestines, parts of which had become gray and gangrenous. He lingered for a week in intensive care. Alexey Young was at his bedside near the end. As we sang, we saw two tears come down his cheeks. And we wept also, knowing that soon he would hear this hymn sung not by mortal men and women, but by angels. Almost immediately, there were reports of visions and miracles. A woman whose son had received spiritual guidance from Rose said that, the day before Rose died, she received a visitation. Suddenly, time stopped, and in front of me I saw Father Seraphim all shining, wearing glittering, silvery vestments—these are the closest words I can use to describe the light. I will make no interpretation of this event, at this time or later. I felt comforted, and I hope that this event comforts you also. Many who knew Rose, and some who have only read his works, say he was a saint. Whether he will be approved for canonization in the Orthodox Church is another matter. The path to glorification begins when the faithful turn from praying for the soul of the deceased to requesting his intercession before God. The extent of this veneration, including the writing of icons, is a factor, as are verified miracles. Uncovering of the remains and transfer of the relics to a holy site have been a tradition of the glorification ritual since ancient times. If the remains are well preserved or the bones emit a sweet fragrance, it is often considered a sign the deceased has found favor with God. I think he was lonely. I think he was close to God. Most people keep on looking, but Eugene stopped. I think what we missed is the degree of suffering that was within him. His outward personality kind of obscured the inner desperation he must have felt to have embraced such a rigid system. His example was a reproach to us all. He had been a lost but searching sinner, and in converting to Orthodox Christianity, he truly repented. I have lost nothing, but gained everything. Laurence McGilvery cherishes a different sort of memory. Well before Rose left the world to become an ascetic monk, he and McGilvery were lunching in San Francisco. My plate had a pickle, and his did not. More than 30 years later, McGilvery still has the note. Although the daily rhythms of monastic life remained the same, there were changes at Platina in the years after Rose was buried there. Herman continued to serve as a cleric under a non-canonical bishop. Last fall, he retired from active involvement in the brotherhood. He lives in seclusion not far from Platina. In November, after existing for more than a decade outside ecclesiastically sanctioned Orthodoxy, the brotherhood was accepted into a diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Gerasim Eliel, a priest-monk who has lived at the monastery since , was appointed by the Serbian Orthodox Church as the new abbot. The tiny cell that Rose constructed in the woods and named Optina, after a famous Russian hermitage bloodily suppressed under communism, is still in use. Damascene stays there now. Google Tag Manager. Story Date: April 13, Story By: Michael Balchunas. Classic PCM Stories. Social Media Hub. Mailing Address: N. Orthodoxy in America -- By Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

Seraphim counseled his spiritual children not to trust in or get carried away by their imagination, especially in prayer. Alexey Young recalls how, when he was still a Roman Catholic preparing to become Orthodox, he was given an important lesson by Fr. Seraphim about meditation, which my wife and I, still under the influence of our Roman Catholic background, had made part of our regular routine of morning prayer. We did not yet realize that the Orthodox understanding of meditation is quite different from the Western Christian view. In conversation, Fr. In a similar way, Fr. Seraphim warned against placing absolute trust in emotions. W e have seen how Fr. To an Orthodox catechumen he wrote:. All these things are good and helpful, but if one overemphasizes them one will enter into troubles and trials. You are coming to Orthodoxy to receive Christ, and this you should never forget. Remember that your survival as an Orthodox Christian will depend very much on your contact with the living tradition of Orthodoxy. You yourself have had enough experience in life to avoid these temptations, which are actually those of the young and inexperienced; but it is good to keep them in mind. Seraphim received a letter from an African-American woman who, as a catechumen learning about Orthodoxy, was struggling to understand the uncharitable attitude that some Orthodox Christians showed to those outside the Church, an attitude which reminded her of how her own people had been treated. I find them offensive because as a person of a race which has been subjected to much name-calling I despise and do not wish to adopt the habit of name-calling myself. They do not know about Orthodoxy or they do not understand it. Yet they believe in and worship Christ. Am I to treat my friends and relatives as if they have no God, no Christ? Or can I call them Christians, but just ones who do not know the true Church? Innocent of Alaska as he visited the Franciscan monasteries in California. He remained thoroughly Orthodox yet he treated the priests he met there with kindness and charity and not name-calling. This, I hope, is what Orthodoxy says about how one should treat other Christians. Now nearing the end of his short life and having thrown off his youthful bitterness, Fr. Seraphim answered as follows:. I will set forth briefly what I believe to be the Orthodox attitude towards non-Orthodox Christians. Orthodoxy is the Church founded by Christ for the salvation of mankind, and therefore we should guard with our life the purity of its teaching and our own faithfulness to it. The Orthodox Church alone is the Body of Christ, and if salvation is difficult enough within the Orthodox Church, how much more difficult must it be outside the Church! However, it is not for us to define the state of those who are outside the Orthodox Church. But until they are united to the Orthodox Church they cannot have the fullness of Christianity, they cannot be objectively Christian as belonging to the Body of Christ and receiving the grace of the sacraments. Paul says: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling [Phil. But almost all of the religious Christmas carols are all right, and they are sung by Orthodox Christians in America some of them in even the strictest monasteries! Dimitry Dudko is indeed used too frequently nowadays. In the end, I think, Fr. There is no reason why we cannot call them Christians and be on good terms with them, recognize that we have at least our faith in Christ in common, and live in peace especially with our own families. A harsh, polemical attitude is called for only when the non-Orthodox are trying to take away our flocks or change our teaching. Orthodoxy does not require you to accept any prejudices or opinions about other races, nations, etc. T o those people who wrote to the St. Although, as some of the previous letters indicate, Fr. Seraphim could take a stern tone when he felt someone was in serious spiritual danger, he scrupulously avoided overstepping the bounds of his spiritual authority. Seraphim was extremely humble, brilliant though he was. Those who asked him for advice were led more to find the solution to their problems themselves through his gentle guidance rather than to follow declarations or commands. Unlike some others, he did not play guru or give orders he had spiritual children, not disciples. This meant that I was bound to make mistakes, but he knew that I would learn from the consequences of those mistakes. This is an indication of spiritual health as opposed to the cult-like behavior of those who always think they know better. Elsewhere Fr. Seraphim repeatedly pointed out that real elders are extremely rare, that we do not deserve such spiritual guides and would not know how to treat them even if we did have them in our midst. A s a counselor or spiritual father, Fr. Seraphim relied on his experience in the monastery and on his reading of the Holy Fathers. Seraphim Rose. Most of the letters of Fr. Seraphim cited in this book were preserved in carbon copy by Fr. Seraphim himself; some were sent by their recipients to the author for publication in this book. In some of the references to letters the names of the recipients have been abbreviated, and in others the names have been omitted altogether in order to protect the privacy of living persons. The book Letters from Fr. Seraphim by Fr. Alexey Young includes many letters that were not preserved by Fr. Seraphim in carbon copy. When we have quoted these letters directly from this book, references to the book have been given. Seraphim selected and translated from the book of Saints Barsanuphius adn John, published after Fr. In this article, Fr. Even when it is worded in a theologically correct manner, this attitude is spiritually wrong and helps to drive away from the Orthodox Church many who would otherwise be attracted to it. Priest Vladimir Derugin, Ieromonakh Serafim: ukhod pravednika Hieromonk Seraphim: the passing away of a righteous one , p. Informal talk by Agafia Prince at the St. Herman Monastery on the 20th anniversary of Fr. Herman Press , pp. Copyright by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, California. Used with permission. Advertise Contact About. Subscribe to Our Mailing List Would you like to be notified when new articles are posted, books are published, etc? John of Kronstadt; "Unseen Warfare" by St. Abba Dorotheos; the Homilies of St. Macarius the Great; the Orthodox service books, several of which are now in English; the "Lausaic History" and the Lives and Sayings of the Desert Fathers, which are just as fresh now as when uttered 1. If you have a spark of Christian fervor in you, you will be surprised how much your soul will be refreshed by reading books like these; they will give you a taste of that other-worldliness without which the Christian soul withers and dies, especially in our worldly times. This is a basic pitfall. One can think about living in the desert, while right in front of one there may be an excellent opportunity to practice Christianity -- someone may be in trouble, and with our high ideas we may not even think of helping him. Or, with these same high ideas in our mind, we may begin to criticize others and be lacking in the basic Christian love without which all our high ideas are empty. Through experience we must learn how to apply the writings of the Holy Fathers and the Scripture itself to our own level and circumstances. Our spiritual life is not something bookish or that follows formulas. Everything we learn has to become part of our life and something natural to us. We can be reading about hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer, for example, and begin to say it ourselves -- and still be blind to our own passions and unresponsive to a person in need right in front of us, not seeing that this is a test of our Christianity that comes at a more basic level than saying the Jesus Prayer. We have to read Orthodox books that are on our level -- the ones I mentioned above are more for beginners -- and we have to read them very humbly, realizing the nature of our times when worldly influences are present everywhere and affect our thinking even when we aren't aware of it, and never dreaming that we are on any level but that of raw beginners. But especially in our days, the spirit of worldliness is so strong, and there is obviously so much wrong in our church life -- that there is a strong temptation to make "correctness" a way of life, to get stuck in it. And this is not only a disease of converts; one of the best bishops of the Old Calendar Greeks, Bishop Cyprian of Sts. Cyprian and Justina Monastery near Athens, has written that this spirit of "correctness" has already done untold damage to Orthodoxy in Greece, causing fights and schisms one after the other. Sometimes one's zeal for "Orthodoxy" in quotes can be so excessive that it produces a situation similar to that which caused an old Russian woman to remark of an enthusiastic American convert "Well, he's certainly Orthodox all right -- but is he a Christian? To be "Orthodox but not Christian" is a state that has a particular name in Christian language: it means to be a pharisee, to be so bogged down in the letter of the Church's laws that one loses the spirit that gives them life, the spirit of true Christianity. In saying this my aim is not to be critical or to point to anyone in particular -- we all suffer from this -- but only to point out a pitfall which can cause one to fail to take advantage of the riches which the Orthodox Church provides for our salvation, even in these evil times. Even when it is not fanatical, this spirit of "correctness" for its own sake turns out to be fruitless. As an example, I can tell you of a very good friend of ours, one of the zealot fathers of Mt. He is a "moderate" zealot, in that he recognizes the grace of New Calendar sacraments, accepts the blessings of priests of our Church, and the like; but he is absolutely strict when it comes to applying the basic Zealot principle, not to have communion not only with bishops whose teaching departs from Orthodox truth, such as the Patriarch of Constantinople, and not only with anyone who has communion with him, but with anyone who has communion with anyone who in any remote way has communion with him. Such "purity" is so difficult to attain in our days our whole Russian Church Abroad, for example, is "tainted" in his eyes by some measure of communion with the other Orthodox Churches that he is in communion with only his own priest and ten other monks in his group on the Holy Mountain; all of the rest of the Orthodox Church is not "pure. Perhaps there are only ten or twelve people left in the world who are perfectly "strict" and "pure" in their Orthodoxy -- this I really don't know; but it simply cannot be that there are really only ten or twelve Orthodox Christians left in the world with whom one can have true oneness of faith, expressed in common communion. I think that you can see that there is some kind of spiritual dead-end here; even if we had to believe such a narrow view of Orthodoxy according to the letter, our believing Christian heart would rebel against it. We cannot really live by such strictness; we must somehow be less "correct" and closer to the heart of Orthodox Christianity. In smaller ways, too, we can get carried away with "correctness':' we can like well-done Byzantine icons which is a good thing , but we go too far if we are disdainful of the more modern style icons which are still in many of our churches. The same goes for church singing, architecture, the following of correct rules of fasting, of kneeling in church, etc. While striving to be as correct as we can, we must also remember that these things belong to the outward side of our Orthodox faith, and they are good only if they are used in the right spirit of the true Christianity St. Tikhon talks about. Vladimir Soloviev, in his Short Story of Antichrist, ingeniously suggests that Antichrist, in order to attract Orthodox conservatives, will open a museum of all Christian antiquities. Perhaps the very images of Antichrist himself Apoc. Our Orthodox faith comes down to us through tradition. This means it isn't something we just read about or rediscover through books -- it is something passed on from father to son, from one generation to the next, which we see being practiced around us by our fathers and brothers in the faith. If we are in living contact with these people who are passing down the tradition, "correctness" will not be such a temptation for us; we will be "hooked up" with the tradition. This doesn't mean we must believe every opinion we hear from seemingly pious people -- we have the writings of the Holy Fathers and the whole tradition of the Church to guide us if there are doubts or perplexities. Some of those who pass on the Orthodox Faith have a special message for us. I'd like to mention here just three of those who have something to say to us: two of them died in the last few years, and some of you here knew them; another is still alive. All three are bound up with Russia which is now undergoing the terrible trial of atheist rule, and that also has something to say to us. Wherever he was -- in Russia, Germany, or America -- he strove to establish an atmosphere of Christian warmth where other seekers could find the peace he had found. He saw that most of our Christian life is outward and cold, and he strove always to awaken the true inward life and warmth of Orthodoxy when it is deeply understood and practiced. He hated the "hothouse" Christianity of those who "enjoy" being Orthodox but don't live a life of struggling and deepening their Christianity. We converts can easily fall for this "hothouse" Orthodoxy, too. We can live close to a church, have English services, a good priest, go frequently to church and receive the Sacraments, be in the "correct" jurisdiction -- and still be cold, unfeeling, arrogant and proud, as St. Tikhon has said. In this way we will not grow because we don't have the sense of urgency and struggle that Vladika Andrew talked about. Once, when he only suspected that one of his spiritual children was growing comfortable in his Orthodoxy, he took him by the shoulders and literally shook him and told him: "Don't you be a hypocrite! You can read further about Archbishop Andrew and his Orthodox philosophy of life in a booklet published several years ago: "The Restoration of the Orthodox Way of Life. He was a refined and philosophical thinker, but most of all he had an Orthodox heart, and he grieved most of all at seeing how few Orthodox people seem to care deeply for God and their faith and their fellow men. In his article "Weep," after describing how a young mother in New York City brutally killed her infant son, he addresses the Orthodox people: "All for one and one for all are guilty Let each one think of himself What were you doing on that evening when this unbelievable but authentic evil deed was performed? Perhaps it was your sin, your immoral deed, your malice, which turned out to be the last little drop which caused the vessel of evil to overflow. This is the way we must reflect, if we are Christians Weep, brothers and sisters! Do not be ashamed of these tears Let your tears be a fount of a different energy, an energy of good that fights against the energy of evil Let these tears also awaken many of the indifferent. Andreyev's burning concern shows us that we must have a deeply-feeling heart , or else we are not Christians. Actually, if you take seriously what Orthodox teachers like Archbishop Andrew, Andreyev, and Father Dimitry are saying, you can come to think there isn't much hope for us -- we're too soft, too unaware, too shallow, too outward. Well, it's good to think like that -- it might make us begin to wake up and struggle. Let the words of these fervent souls be a warning for us. First of all, perhaps many of you don't know that there are many contacts now between people in Russia and people outside. We can become informed of what is going on there. Read Fr. In the parlance of traditional Orthodox monasticism, a newly tonsured monk dies to the world and to his former life in order to find a new life in God. He forgets himself and leaves the world to seek true spiritual wisdom. Physical isolation helps the soul reject the worldly way of life. The first time Eugene Rose died was when he was made a monk on the mountainside above Platina in , at age He and another man committed to Orthodoxy, a Russian American named Gleb Podmoshensky, had by then been living ascetic on the mountain for two years. They had established a skete, or small brotherhood, not as large or formal as a monastery. They cooked their meals outside on a camp stove, sometimes in knee-deep snow, and hauled water up from the base of the mountain in an old pickup truck. They later bought a used Linotype machine and a generator to run it, and their flow of publications grew to include calendars and books. Rose grew vegetables, with mixed results, in the reddish soil. The monks ate no meat, but did eat fish. The skete was established not as a place of retreat but of seclusion and struggle. He is completely serious about his work, and his native intellectual ability is undoubtedly of the first order. Since his background was limited economically and intellectually prior to his college years, he is still exploring and trying to find his place in the academic world, but I feel that he is now very close to the specific area in which he may be able to make a significant contribution. He still has trouble with communication, but this should straighten itself out as he settles into his own area of specialty. While at Pomona, Rose and some friends, including McGilvery, heard a lecture by a former Anglican priest, Alan Watts, who had become a celebrity convert to Zen Buddhism. Rose was captivated. He valued traditional Chinese viewpoints and original classical texts over modern interpretations. Rose learned to read ancient Chinese so he could plumb the early Taoist texts. Equating newness with progress was wrong, he believed. The ultimate truth, he suggested, could be found in the wisdom of the ages. But when we wish to distinguish them by their special names, we call them passions. The passions are the following: love of riches, desire for possessions, bodily pleasure which comes from sexual passion, love of honor which gives rise to envy, lust for power, arrogance and pride of position, the craving to adorn oneself with luxurious clothes and vain ornaments, the itch for human glory which is a source of rancor and resentment, and physical fear. Where these passions cease to be active, there the world is dead Someone has said of the Saints that while alive they were dead; for though living in the flesh, they did not live for the flesh. Then you will know how far you are alive to the world, and how far you are dead to it. At Platina, Rose lived for years in an uninsulated shack without running water or electricity, with a tiny wood-burning stove for warmth. He built the cabin himself of salvaged lumber on land his parents helped him and Podmoshensky buy. In winter, the silent pine forest that pressed in on their outpost was often deep in snow. In summer, the heat could be stifling. The cabin, called a cell in the monastic tradition, was about 8 feet by 10 feet. Rose slept in a corner on a bed made of two boards. From this shadowy cell, lit with candles and oil lamps, came a torrent of writings that exalt an ancient, literal, traditionalist view of the Orthodox faith, one that is considered extreme, even fanatical, by some clerics. Hasten, therefore, to do the work of God. Those loyal to the Church Abroad contend that it is the true, free Church, preserver of the piety that existed before the Bolsheviks. They say that the Church hierarchy within Russia has been corrupted by decades of subservience to the Soviet regime. The Church Abroad, on the other hand, is regarded by its critics in Orthodoxy as a separatist group mired in very old, obsolete doctrines. After Rose died to the world and became a monk, and later a hieromonk, or priest-monk, he would still come out of the mountains about once a year to visit his mother. They maintained a loving correspondence until shortly before his second, bodily death in Once, while Rose was visiting his mother in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, he walked to a shopping center a few miles from her home. Rose strode through the suburban neighborhoods in his heavy wool cassock, a towering, mysterious figure, his graying beard curling in long tendrils over his chest. People stared. His sister, worried about him in the heat, went to pick him up in her car. On a cool late afternoon in June , while waiting for a train in Los Angeles, Eugene Rose, who was just shy of 22, wrote a letter to Laurence McGilvery. I am rather stupid for not having told you, to your face, certain things before. I have not quite been kicked out of the house, but I probably shall not return after September. I have hardly been a friend to you. Forgive me. It is perhaps not Claremont of which I was sick, but myself. McGilvery reassured Rose of their friendship. He never got the chance. After Rose became a monk, McGilvery never heard from him again. He sent Rose a Christmas card year after year, but there was never a response. Once, a mutual friend visited Rose at Platina and asked him whether he had gotten the cards. Rose said that he had, and the friend asked why he had not written McGilvery back. The signs of the times are so obvious that one might say that the world is crashing to its end.

Lives of a Saint | Pomona College in Claremont, California - Pomona College

The collective body of work that Fr. Seraphim published quickly proliferated throughout America upon Fr. As a layman in San Francisco, the future Fr. Seraphim developed a close relationship with his spiritual father and mentor, St. Although an American convert, Fr. In Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, Fr. Seraphim highlighted what he and others saw as dangerous trends in both the secular and ecclesiastical worlds—namely, modernism and ecumenism though the book mainly deals with religious movements invading America and outside Orthodoxy. It was during this time also that Holy Transfiguration Monastery Brookline, Massachusetts began to distort the official positions of the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad[citation needed]. Seraphim with his fellow monastic, Fr. Herman Podmoshensky , used their own tiny printing press to transmit what they regarded as the uncompromised teachings of the Church on a number of issues such as evolution, life after death, and pre-Schism western saints. One major issue of contention between Fr. Seraphim and Holy Transfiguration Monastery was the presence of grace within the allegedly Soviet-compromised hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate. Seraphim refuted the extremist views of this monastery and consistently affirmed that Moscow, though ailing, still had grace. Throughout his life, Fr. One of his more controversial books is The Soul After Death, which includes the teaching which had been passed on to Fr. This teaching has drawn criticism from some within the Orthodox Church, but has been defended by such noted theologians as Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos and Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov. After feeling acute pains for several days while working in his cell in , Fr. Seraphim was taken by his fellow monks to a hospital for treatment. Further, we must be not just aware of what our Church teaches and does -- we must be trying to saturate ourselves in it. Seraphim, in his spiritual instructions, says that the Christian must be "swimming in the law of the Lord" -- and this doesn't mean just making the Church a little part of one's life; it means going deeper and doing more. Of course, we start a little at a time. If you have been going to church just on Sundays, you can begin to go to the Vigil on Saturday night, and to feast-day services. If you've been trying to keep the fast of Great Lent, you can begin to go to more of the very moving services of Lent -- the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, the Praises of the Mother of God. Innumerable books exist for this purpose, both in Russian and English: first of all the Holy Scriptures and Orthodox commentaries on them. John of Kronstadt; "Unseen Warfare" by St. Abba Dorotheos; the Homilies of St. Macarius the Great; the Orthodox service books, several of which are now in English; the "Lausaic History" and the Lives and Sayings of the Desert Fathers, which are just as fresh now as when uttered 1. If you have a spark of Christian fervor in you, you will be surprised how much your soul will be refreshed by reading books like these; they will give you a taste of that other-worldliness without which the Christian soul withers and dies, especially in our worldly times. This is a basic pitfall. One can think about living in the desert, while right in front of one there may be an excellent opportunity to practice Christianity -- someone may be in trouble, and with our high ideas we may not even think of helping him. Or, with these same high ideas in our mind, we may begin to criticize others and be lacking in the basic Christian love without which all our high ideas are empty. Through experience we must learn how to apply the writings of the Holy Fathers and the Scripture itself to our own level and circumstances. Our spiritual life is not something bookish or that follows formulas. Everything we learn has to become part of our life and something natural to us. We can be reading about hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer, for example, and begin to say it ourselves -- and still be blind to our own passions and unresponsive to a person in need right in front of us, not seeing that this is a test of our Christianity that comes at a more basic level than saying the Jesus Prayer. We have to read Orthodox books that are on our level -- the ones I mentioned above are more for beginners -- and we have to read them very humbly, realizing the nature of our times when worldly influences are present everywhere and affect our thinking even when we aren't aware of it, and never dreaming that we are on any level but that of raw beginners. But especially in our days, the spirit of worldliness is so strong, and there is obviously so much wrong in our church life -- that there is a strong temptation to make "correctness" a way of life, to get stuck in it. And this is not only a disease of converts; one of the best bishops of the Old Calendar Greeks, Bishop Cyprian of Sts. Cyprian and Justina Monastery near Athens, has written that this spirit of "correctness" has already done untold damage to Orthodoxy in Greece, causing fights and schisms one after the other. Sometimes one's zeal for "Orthodoxy" in quotes can be so excessive that it produces a situation similar to that which caused an old Russian woman to remark of an enthusiastic American convert "Well, he's certainly Orthodox all right -- but is he a Christian? To be "Orthodox but not Christian" is a state that has a particular name in Christian language: it means to be a pharisee, to be so bogged down in the letter of the Church's laws that one loses the spirit that gives them life, the spirit of true Christianity. In saying this my aim is not to be critical or to point to anyone in particular -- we all suffer from this -- but only to point out a pitfall which can cause one to fail to take advantage of the riches which the Orthodox Church provides for our salvation, even in these evil times. Even when it is not fanatical, this spirit of "correctness" for its own sake turns out to be fruitless. As an example, I can tell you of a very good friend of ours, one of the zealot fathers of Mt. He is a "moderate" zealot, in that he recognizes the grace of New Calendar sacraments, accepts the blessings of priests of our Church, and the like; but he is absolutely strict when it comes to applying the basic Zealot principle, not to have communion not only with bishops whose teaching departs from Orthodox truth, such as the Patriarch of Constantinople, and not only with anyone who has communion with him, but with anyone who has communion with anyone who in any remote way has communion with him. Such "purity" is so difficult to attain in our days our whole Russian Church Abroad, for example, is "tainted" in his eyes by some measure of communion with the other Orthodox Churches that he is in communion with only his own priest and ten other monks in his group on the Holy Mountain; all of the rest of the Orthodox Church is not "pure. Perhaps there are only ten or twelve people left in the world who are perfectly "strict" and "pure" in their Orthodoxy -- this I really don't know; but it simply cannot be that there are really only ten or twelve Orthodox Christians left in the world with whom one can have true oneness of faith, expressed in common communion. I think that you can see that there is some kind of spiritual dead-end here; even if we had to believe such a narrow view of Orthodoxy according to the letter, our believing Christian heart would rebel against it. We cannot really live by such strictness; we must somehow be less "correct" and closer to the heart of Orthodox Christianity. In smaller ways, too, we can get carried away with "correctness':' we can like well-done Byzantine icons which is a good thing , but we go too far if we are disdainful of the more modern style icons which are still in many of our churches. The same goes for church singing, architecture, the following of correct rules of fasting, of kneeling in church, etc. While striving to be as correct as we can, we must also remember that these things belong to the outward side of our Orthodox faith, and they are good only if they are used in the right spirit of the true Christianity St. Tikhon talks about. Vladimir Soloviev, in his Short Story of Antichrist, ingeniously suggests that Antichrist, in order to attract Orthodox conservatives, will open a museum of all Christian antiquities. Perhaps the very images of Antichrist himself Apoc. Our Orthodox faith comes down to us through tradition. This means it isn't something we just read about or rediscover through books -- it is something passed on from father to son, from one generation to the next, which we see being practiced around us by our fathers and brothers in the faith. If we are in living contact with these people who are passing down the tradition, "correctness" will not be such a temptation for us; we will be "hooked up" with the tradition. This doesn't mean we must believe every opinion we hear from seemingly pious people -- we have the writings of the Holy Fathers and the whole tradition of the Church to guide us if there are doubts or perplexities. Some of those who pass on the Orthodox Faith have a special message for us. I'd like to mention here just three of those who have something to say to us: two of them died in the last few years, and some of you here knew them; another is still alive. All three are bound up with Russia which is now undergoing the terrible trial of atheist rule, and that also has something to say to us. Wherever he was -- in Russia, Germany, or America -- he strove to establish an atmosphere of Christian warmth where other seekers could find the peace he had found. He saw that most of our Christian life is outward and cold, and he strove always to awaken the true inward life and warmth of Orthodoxy when it is deeply understood and practiced. He hated the "hothouse" Christianity of those who "enjoy" being Orthodox but don't live a life of struggling and deepening their Christianity. We converts can easily fall for this "hothouse" Orthodoxy, too. We can live close to a church, have English services, a good priest, go frequently to church and receive the Sacraments, be in the "correct" jurisdiction -- and still be cold, unfeeling, arrogant and proud, as St. Tikhon has said. In this way we will not grow because we don't have the sense of urgency and struggle that Vladika Andrew talked about. Once, when he only suspected that one of his spiritual children was growing comfortable in his Orthodoxy, he took him by the shoulders and literally shook him and told him: "Don't you be a hypocrite! You can read further about Archbishop Andrew and his Orthodox philosophy of life in a booklet published several years ago: "The Restoration of the Orthodox Way of Life. He was a refined and philosophical thinker, but most of all he had an Orthodox heart, and he grieved most of all at seeing how few Orthodox people seem to care deeply for God and their faith and their fellow men. In his article "Weep," after describing how a young mother in New York City brutally killed her infant son, he addresses the Orthodox people: "All for one and one for all are guilty Let each one think of himself What were you doing on that evening when this unbelievable but authentic evil deed was performed? Perhaps it was your sin, your immoral deed, your malice, which turned out to be the last little drop which caused the vessel of evil to overflow. This is the way we must reflect, if we are Christians Weep, brothers and sisters! Do not be ashamed of these tears Let your tears be a fount of a different energy, an energy of good that fights against the energy of evil Let these tears also awaken many of the indifferent. Dimitry Dudko is indeed used too frequently nowadays. In the end, I think, Fr. There is no reason why we cannot call them Christians and be on good terms with them, recognize that we have at least our faith in Christ in common, and live in peace especially with our own families. A harsh, polemical attitude is called for only when the non-Orthodox are trying to take away our flocks or change our teaching. Orthodoxy does not require you to accept any prejudices or opinions about other races, nations, etc. T o those people who wrote to the St. Although, as some of the previous letters indicate, Fr. Seraphim could take a stern tone when he felt someone was in serious spiritual danger, he scrupulously avoided overstepping the bounds of his spiritual authority. Seraphim was extremely humble, brilliant though he was. Those who asked him for advice were led more to find the solution to their problems themselves through his gentle guidance rather than to follow declarations or commands. Unlike some others, he did not play guru or give orders he had spiritual children, not disciples. This meant that I was bound to make mistakes, but he knew that I would learn from the consequences of those mistakes. This is an indication of spiritual health as opposed to the cult-like behavior of those who always think they know better. Elsewhere Fr. Seraphim repeatedly pointed out that real elders are extremely rare, that we do not deserve such spiritual guides and would not know how to treat them even if we did have them in our midst. A s a counselor or spiritual father, Fr. Seraphim relied on his experience in the monastery and on his reading of the Holy Fathers. Seraphim Rose. Most of the letters of Fr. Seraphim cited in this book were preserved in carbon copy by Fr. Seraphim himself; some were sent by their recipients to the author for publication in this book. In some of the references to letters the names of the recipients have been abbreviated, and in others the names have been omitted altogether in order to protect the privacy of living persons. The book Letters from Fr. Seraphim by Fr. Alexey Young includes many letters that were not preserved by Fr. Seraphim in carbon copy. When we have quoted these letters directly from this book, references to the book have been given. Seraphim selected and translated from the book of Saints Barsanuphius adn John, published after Fr. In this article, Fr. Even when it is worded in a theologically correct manner, this attitude is spiritually wrong and helps to drive away from the Orthodox Church many who would otherwise be attracted to it. Priest Vladimir Derugin, Ieromonakh Serafim: ukhod pravednika Hieromonk Seraphim: the passing away of a righteous one , p. Informal talk by Agafia Prince at the St. Herman Monastery on the 20th anniversary of Fr. Herman Press , pp. Copyright by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, California. Used with permission. Advertise Contact About. Subscribe to Our Mailing List Would you like to be notified when new articles are posted, books are published, etc? First Name. Last Name. Seraphim [2] W hy do there seem to be so few miracles in our days? Seraphim wrote: About your trials: most of them are natural parts of life, and God allows several of them to pile up because you are capable of bearing them. Seraphim had similar things to say to a young man who was experiencing loneliness in the world while at the same time yearning to serve God as a priest: Fr. Seraphim wrote: Do not be depressed that there are people rising up against you in your parish. Here is what Fr. Seraphim wrote to the young catechumen: D. Seraphim wrote: We realize that raising your [children] is very difficult for you. Seraphim wrote: We understand very well your situation as you describe it in your letter. Only stay in contact with fellow Orthodox strugglers they do exist. To one person he wrote: About carnal warfare when bodily labors are impossible or difficult, St. Seraphim exhorted: Do not be afraid to confess the fleshly sins. Seraphim did not mince words: My child, you are deceiving yourself and going the way of perdition. May God save you from perdition. Do not deceive him further. To an Orthodox catechumen he wrote: As you prepare for Baptism, I would give you several words of advice: 1. I firmly believe that this is indeed what Orthodoxy teaches. Notes of FSR. LFSR to ———, Oct. LFSR to ———, May 25, LFSR to ———, Sept. LFSR to ———, March See The Northern Thebaid, p. LFSR to ———, June 22, LFSR to ———, July 24, LFSR to ———, June 23, LFSR to ———, March 20, LFSR to ———, Aug. LFSR to ———, March 25, Alexey Young, Letters from Fr. https://files8.webydo.com/9585749/UploadedFiles/FEAB8225-92E0-3A97-5EA4-D7750759DC9E.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9586729/UploadedFiles/417D81FD-9298-2410-36E3-0E9F531CEC7A.pdf https://uploads.strikinglycdn.com/files/3a757057-c0ef-4040-ab2f-3f0322b5c29e/florentinas-notizbuch-dinge-die-du-nicht-verstehen-wurdest- also-finger-weg-liniertes-notizheft-406.pdf https://uploads.strikinglycdn.com/files/970db9d0-3193-4c19-8c15-bb82834ca9c7/dehio-handbuch-der-deutschen-kunstdenkmaler- mecklenburg-vorpommern-764.pdf