Date: 2026-08-15T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Panegyric

The Glory of St Seraphim of Sarov

St Seraphim of Sarov

Royal Archives

2026

Copyright

The modern English translation and the cover design are © 2026 Royal Archives. All rights reserved.

The underlying source text is in the public domain.

Published by Royal Archives

First published 2026

Translated by Royal Archives

Source: Слава преподобного отца нашего Серафима Саровского чудотворца в свете Христовой веры православной церкви

Edition identifier: urn:royalarchives:slava-prepodobnogo-ottsa-nashego-serafima-sarovskogo-chudotvortsa-v-svete-hristovoj-very-pravoslavnoj-tserkvi:en:1

Introduction

The Authors

The four works gathered here were written about one man—Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1754/1759–1833)—and about the monastery and the great celebration that carried his name across Russia. They are accounts of him, and not words by him, and each of them has its own author, its own occasion, and its own distinctive cast of mind. Read together, they form a small chorus: a historian, an eyewitness bishop, an apologist, and a parish preacher, all circling the same figure from different distances.

The earliest of the four in origin is the collection of homilies. Archpriest Viktor Petrovich Gurev (1842–1912) was a Moscow priest of a long clerical line, rector of the Church of the Protection of the Mother of God at Fili, and one of the most industrious devotional writers of his generation. He is best remembered for the Prologue in Homilies for Every Day of the Year, a book still reprinted, and for parallel volumes drawn from the Kiev Caves Paterikon and the lives of individual saints. His method never varied: take a short episode or saying from a holy life, set it beside Scripture and the Fathers, and press home a single practical lesson for ordinary people. His homilies keyed to the life of Saint Seraphim belong to that lifelong project of popular preaching.

Aleksei Aleksandrovich Tsarevsky (born 1855) was a professor at the Kazan Theological Academy, where he held chairs in Slavonic philology and the history of Russian literature and contributed regularly to the academy’s journal, The Orthodox Interlocutor. A layman and a scholar rather than a pastor, he brought to his sketch of the Sarov Hermitage the habits of a historian: an eye for founding charters, abbatial succession, and the slow material growth of an institution.

The two remaining works were both written in the white heat of the summer of 1903, when Seraphim was solemnly numbered among the saints. Archimandrite (later Archbishop) Nikon (Rozhdestvensky) (1851–1919), in the world Nikolai Ivanovich Rozhdestvensky, was a monk of the Trinity–Sergius Lavra and, for decades, the editor of the Trinity Leaflets — cheap, plain, enormously popular tracts printed by the hundreds of thousands for the pilgrim crowds. He attended the Sarov festivities in person and set down his impressions while they were still fresh. Archpriest Ioann Solovev, author of the fourth piece, is the least documented of the four; his essay identifies itself as the work of a churchman writing for a journal, and it too responds directly to the events of July 1903. Where reliable biographical detail is lacking, this edition says no more than the text itself warrants.

By the house convention followed throughout this corpus, each writer is credited as the author of his own work, and none is presented as speaking for Seraphim himself. The saint is their common subject, received here as the Church has long received him—as the venerable elder and wonderworker of Sarov—with questions of critical dating left to the margins where they belong.

The Works: Occasion & Purpose

Saint Seraphim was born Prokhor Moshnin into a merchant family of Kursk; the sources give his birth as 1754 or 1759, and this edition does not force the choice. He came to the Sarov Hermitage as a young man in 1778, was tonsured with the name Seraphim in 1786, ordained hieromonk in 1793, and from 1794 withdrew by stages into the forest, into reclusion, and into the long silence out of which he emerged, near the end of his life, as a counselor to thousands. Along the way lie the episodes that the four writers return to again and again: the years of solitary labor in a forest cell, the beating by robbers in 1804 that left him permanently stooped and that he answered by begging mercy for his attackers, the thousand nights of prayer on a rock, the strict enclosure and unbroken silence, and finally the open door through which the sick and the sorrowing streamed to hear a word of consolation. He reposed on the second of January, 1833, found kneeling before the icon of the Mother of God in his cell. Seventy years later, in 1903, the Russian Church solemnly glorified him. That span of dates is the frame within which all four works stand.

They divide naturally by occasion. Gurev’s Homilies Guided by the Life of Blessed Elder Seraphim of Sarov (published in Moscow in 1904, and again, enlarged, in 1905) is a pastor’s book, built not around the anniversary but around the pulpit. Fifty short instructions each borrow a scene or a word from Seraphim’s life—his war on sleep, his rule of prayer for laboring people, his counsel to the fearful communicant, his vision of the heavenly dwellings—and turn it into a homily for the parish. Its purpose is formation, not commemoration.

The other three are all, in one way or another, occasioned by Sarov itself. Tsarevsky’s The Sarov Hermitage, Past and Present is a compact history of the monastery: how a chosen but forbidding place in the deep forest, once the site of a Tatar town, drew a succession of hermits and grew, against every human expectation, into one of the great houses of Russian Orthodoxy. Seraphim enters this account as its most luminous figure, but he enters late, as the crown of a long story of desert-dwellers, abbots, and holy fools. Nikon’s Sarov Pascha and Solovev’s The Glory of Our Venerable Father Seraphim of Sarov the Wonderworker, in the Light of the Christian Faith of the Orthodox Church are both fruits of the glorification of July 1903—the first a personal, on-the-ground report of those days, the second a longer essay that begins with the celebration and then reaches toward its dogmatic meaning.

None of the four should be mistaken for the saint’s own teaching. Seraphim’s words survive in distinct texts—above all the Conversation with Motovilov on the acquisition of the Holy Spirit and the Spiritual Instructions — which are preserved and read separately. What this volume offers is the tradition about him: the memory, the history, and the celebration that the Russian Church built up around his name.

Argument & Structure

Because the four works were composed independently, they are best approached one at a time, and their very unevenness of scale is part of what they teach.

Tsarevsky’s history moves in a single sustained chapter. It opens with the paradox of the place—a stronghold of Orthodoxy raised on the ruins of a Muslim Horde town—and then follows the thread of holiness through the first hermits: Theodosius, Gerasim, and Hilarion, each drawn to the Sarov hill by strange lights and midnight bells. With the hieromonk Isaac (later the schema-monk John) the solitary life becomes a community; a patriarchal charter of 1705 and a church consecrated in 1706 mark the monastery’s founding. Tsarevsky then surveys the abbots and ascetics—the long-suffering Ephrem, the reforming elder Nazarius, the recluse Mark—before arriving at Seraphim, whose life he sketches in swift, reverent strokes. He closes on the inner life of the house: its severe communal rule, its ten-hour services, and its open-handed charity in years of famine.

Nikon’s Sarov Pascha is eyewitness reportage shaped as testimony. He describes the roads to Sarov choked with pilgrims a week before the feast, the count swelling toward three hundred thousand, the campfires and Paschal hymns sung in high summer in fulfillment of Seraphim’s own prophecy. Its emotional center is the healing spring, where the author records scene after scene of the sick made whole, and its solemn climax is the uncovering of the relics, the first prostration before the newly glorified saint, and the pilgrimage of Tsar Nicholas II and the imperial family, who carried the coffin and communed among the people.

Solovev’s Glory is the most ambitious in design. It announces itself as falling into two parts—one narrative and descriptive, the other critical and apologetic—and so it does: a vivid account of the celebration and of the seventy-year growth of Seraphim’s popular veneration, followed by a section on “the dogmatic meaning and church-canonical significance” of the glorification, in which the author answers objections raised by “rationalism and unbelief.” It even reproduces the text of the Holy Synod’s Act of the twenty-ninth of January, 1903, the formal decree of glorification.

Gurev’s Homilies have the plainest structure of all: fifty numbered instructions, each self-contained, each titled with its lesson—on night vigil, on prayer for simple folk, on Communion and unworthiness, on the joy of the righteous, on conduct in church, on love of enemies, on the reading of Scripture, and much else. Each follows the same reliable pattern. Gurev opens with a question or a difficulty drawn from ordinary Christian life, answers it first from Scripture and the Fathers—Chrysostom and Ephrem the Syrian recur constantly—and then clinches the point with a scene from Seraphim’s life or a saying from his own lips: his war on sleep, his terror and rescue of a disciple who had broken the fast before Communion, his rapture into the heavenly dwellings. The final homilies turn directly to the events of 1903, on the occasion of the opening of the relics and on the saint’s love for his fatherland. The life supplies the illustration; the homily supplies the application.

Theological & Spiritual Significance

For all their differences, the four works converge on a single conviction: that holiness is not a legend of the distant past but a living power, visible and near. This is their common theological weight, and it takes different forms in each.

In Gurev, the significance is catechetical. His genius is to make Seraphim usable—to translate a towering ascetic into counsel a farmer or a soldier can follow. The saint’s rule of prayer for the unlettered (the Our Father, the Angelic Salutation, the Creed, then the Jesus Prayer through the working day) becomes, in Gurev’s hands, a whole spirituality for people who cannot read the long offices. Here the accent falls on humility, perseverance, frequent Communion, and trust in the mercy of Christ against the accusations of the enemy.

In Tsarevsky, the significance is providential. His history is written to show that Sarov arose and flourished not by wealth or patronage but by prayer, poverty, and the evident blessing of God—a “peasant monastery” that built its own cathedral without architects and fed the starving from its own granaries. Seraphim is the summit of that pattern, the proof that the desert still bears saints.

In Nikon and Solovev, the significance is at once devotional and apologetic, and here the modern reader meets the sharper edge of the period. Both men wrote in a Russia where the faith of the crowds at Sarov stood in open contrast to an educated, skeptical public, and both write to defend the reality of the miracles against unbelief. Solovev frames his second part explicitly as a theological answer to rationalist objection; Nikon, more polemically, laments the “schismatics”—the Old Believers—who held aloof, and the secular press that looked elsewhere on the day of the glorification. These passages are best read as what they are: the apologetic and confessional voice of their own moment, reported here as received tradition rather than adjudicated. This edition neither softens nor endorses their polemic; it lets the reader hear how the event sounded to those who lived it, and leaves the weighing to the reader.

What unites all four, finally, is the miracle at the heart of the Sarov story—the healings at the spring, the relics carried out on the shoulders of archimandrites and a tsar, the seventy years of unbroken pilgrimage to a grave that, in Solovev’s image, gathered like a great river the streams of devotion flowing in from every corner of Russia. The works do not argue the reader into faith so much as bear witness to a people who already believed, and who saw, in Seraphim, heaven bending close to earth. For the modern reader, that is perhaps their deepest value: they preserve not a theory of holiness but the texture of a moment when an entire people acted as though a saint were, quite literally, in their midst.

Reception & Influence

The great event that these works record and interpret—the glorification of Saint Seraphim on the nineteenth of July (the first of August by the Western calendar), 1903—was itself an act of reception on the grandest scale. The impulse had been resisted for years by cautious officials of the Synod and was finally pressed forward by the personal insistence of Tsar Nicholas II. The relics were transferred to a temporary resting place early in July; the solemn uncovering followed on the nineteenth, in the presence of the Tsar, the Empress, the Dowager Empress, and a vast concourse of the faithful that the Russian accounts number at as many as three hundred thousand. Metropolitan Antony (Vadkovsky) of St. Petersburg presided. Two commemorations were fixed: the second of January, the day of the saint’s repose, and the nineteenth of July, the day of the uncovering of his relics.

Three of these four works are thus primary witnesses to a defining moment in the last decades of imperial Russia, when the veneration of a forest hermit became, for a season, a national and dynastic celebration. Nikon’s and Solovev’s essays circulated in the very journals—the Trinity Leaflets, Soul-Profiting Reading — through which the wider public came to know what had happened at Sarov, and Gurev’s homilies carried the saint’s example into countless parish pulpits in the years that followed. That Seraphim went on to become perhaps the most beloved of all modern Russian saints, honored well beyond the borders of Russia, is the long reception into which these small books were among the first to speak.

The Text & This Edition

This is a fresh modern English translation, rendered from the public-domain Russian originals of the four works as preserved in the Russian Orthodox digital archive. Each text was translated in full and set in a clear, contemporary register that keeps the warmth and cadence of the devotional prose without archaizing it. The four are presented here in English only; this is not a parallel or bilingual edition, and the translation is offered on its own terms rather than set against the Russian.

The edition follows the conventions of this series. Authorship is given as the tradition receives it: each work is credited to its own author—Gurev, Tsarevsky, Nikon, Solovev—while their common subject, Seraphim of Sarov, is named with the veneration the Church has always accorded him, and translators are credited as translators, never as authors. Chapter and section numbers, together with scriptural citations, are set in the standard modern style (for example, John 9:41; Luke 2:8–11) rather than in older Roman or Slavonic forms. Inline emphasis and the many embedded scriptural quotations of the originals are preserved. Where the sources leave a fact genuinely uncertain—most notably the year of the saint’s birth—the edition hedges rather than pretending to a precision the record does not support.

A word on scope and order. These are four independent works of differing length and genre—a monastery history, an eyewitness account, an apologetic essay, and a homiletic collection—brought together because they share a subject. They can be read in any order, and this introduction serves all four.

Suggestions for Reading

A reader new to Sarov may find it easiest to begin with Tsarevsky’s The Sarov Hermitage, Past and Present, which supplies the setting—the forest, the founding, the succession of hermits—into which Seraphim is born and against which everything else makes sense. From there, Nikon’s Sarov Pascha offers the most immediate human experience of the tradition at its height: it is short, vivid, and unforgettable, and it shows what the saint meant to ordinary people. Solovev’s Glory rewards a reader who wants to understand not only what happened in 1903 but how the Church accounted for it, and it should be read with the awareness that its later pages argue a case against the doubters of its day. Gurev’s Homilies are best not read straight through but dipped into, one at a time, as they were meant to be preached—a single lesson taken up, considered, and carried into the week. Throughout, it helps to remember the distinction that governs the whole volume: these are voices about Seraphim, the memory the Church built around him, and they point beyond themselves to the saint’s own words and, past those, to the God whose nearness they were all trying to describe.

The Glory of Our Venerable Father Seraphim of Sarov the Wonderworker in the Light of the Christian Faith of the Orthodox Church

The Glory of Our Venerable Father Seraphim of Sarov the Wonderworker, in the Light of the Christian Faith of the Orthodox Church

The present essay has been written under the vivid and immediate impression of the celebrations just experienced in glory of Saint Seraphim of Sarov the Wonderworker—celebrations full of incomprehensible signs, of the divine power of the Orthodox Church, and of the moving expressions of the deep faith of her true sons, yet at the same time and alongside all of this also rousing and awakening desires, hitherto as if slumbering, on the part of the sons of opposition to the holy Church. These circumstances explain not only the range of subjects that have entered into the composition of the essay, but also the very character of the discourse about them.

From what took place in Sarov on July 19, the mind was involuntarily carried to other places where the echoes of the Sarov celebrations were heard; of itself it turned backward, to the time when only the dawn of Saint Seraphim’s glory was beginning to rise, and from there it pressed forward and inward with eager curiosity, passing from reverent contemplation of the wondrous visions of that glory to devout reflections on their inner meaning and significance. But here before the mind’s eye there at once arose a whole series of questions and objections from rationalism and unbelief, which had to be answered in order to dispel the doubts and perplexities they aroused. Such is the natural course of thought of the present essay, which thus falls into two parts: a narrative-descriptive part and a critical part, and by its aims may be called not only spiritually edifying but also theological-apologetic.

The Celebration of the Glorification of Saint Seraphim of Sarov the Wonderworker

Glory and thanksgiving to the Creator! It has come to pass—so wondrously and beautifully has come to pass—the long-awaited and heartily desired celebration of the glorification and opening of the holy relics of our Venerable and God-bearing Father Seraphim, the Wonderworker of Sarov!

I

The beginnings of this truly “triumph of Orthodoxy” were laid long ago—even in the days of Saint Seraphim’s ascetic life. Already then, people came to him—to him who from his youth had withdrawn from the world and its fleeting joys and vain glory into the remote Sarov monastery, and then from the very monastic brotherhood of the monastery into the distant and nearer hermitages, and thereafter into solitary enclosure, and who, both there and here, humbled himself to the point of bowing to the ground before every visitor and kissing the hand that received his own blessing—already then they came to him, to poor Seraphim in his white cassock and bast shoes, some for instruction and blessing, some with supplication for deliverance from ailments of soul and body; not only the monks of the monastery and the surrounding inhabitants, but people of every rank and station from the most distant regions of Russia, for his fame had penetrated even there—they came in tens, hundreds, and thousands in a single day. Already then, the humble monk Seraphim was known and honored, it seemed, by all and everywhere—already then the glory of Seraphim not only encompassed the whole Russian land, but penetrated to heaven itself—to the very throne of the Lord of Glory, and the Queen of Heaven herself with a whole host of angels and saints of God came down more than once and more than twice to her beloved, and illumining his very cell with heavenly light, called him blessed as a man of her own kindred, while the King of glory, the Lord, blessed him with a heavenly blessing, and the face of the elder shone, eyewitnesses related, like the face of an angel of God. Already then, the tireless people’s intercessor in prayer and teacher of the Church—as if in complement to his prayerful vigils before the icon of the Mother of God, “the Joy of all joys,” whose lamps and candles he kept abundantly lit as a sign of the spiritual churchliness of his prayers and as a pledge of their grace-filled power for those who thirsted for it—he would either anoint those who came to him with oil from the lamp, or give them holy water to drink and blessed bread to taste, and would give everyone dried bread crusts, saying: “Soak them and eat them in good health.” And a wondrous thing! Health came to those who received with faith and love these visible pledges of the elder’s grace-filled prayer—sufferers of life who were held fast by various ailments—it came even in those cases where, by the natural order of things, it could not have been expected. And how many infirm consciences were comforted by the grace-filled word of the teacher of meekness! How much light and warmth was poured out by this our joy—by blessed Seraphim—even during his lifetime!

The end of Elder Seraphim’s strictly ascetic life in Sarov was drawing near, and in response to a word of grief over the nearness of that end, expressed by a Diveyevo elder woman who venerated the blessed one, he said: “But when I am no longer with you, go to my little grave. Come close to the grave and tell me, as you would a living person, everything you are in need of. I will hear you and help you.” Thus spoke the blessed one in prophetic foreknowledge of his posthumous glory and in spiritual joy over that glory, as over the happiness of service to one’s neighbors through the all-powerful grace of God—as if sharing that joy with those whom he loved and whom he hoped to serve.

Understood in this sense, how much does this prophetic word of the beloved of the Mother of God call to mind her own canticle, in which she rejoiced in spirit in God her Savior, for He has regarded the lowliness of His servant; for behold, henceforth all generations shall call her blessed (Luke 1:46–49)! And the elder’s desire was fulfilled and his prophetic word came to pass; for from the very day, one might say, of the blessed repose of the servant of God—who had fled human glory all his life and had exhausted his flesh by labor, fasting, and prayerful vigils, mortifying what mortified him—there began that beatifying of him which the Lord was pleased to crown and seal, as it were with the seal of His Spirit, in the celebration of July 19 that has just taken place.

II

At the very hour of Saint Seraphim’s repose, Elder Filaret of the Glinsk Hermitage in Kursk province saw a pillar of light ascending from earth to heaven, and perceiving by the spirit the repose of the righteous man, explained to those surrounding him this vision as an image of the ascension to heaven of his angelically pure soul. And the small wooden coffin in which the honored body of the departed was placed could barely be buried—only on the eighth day after his repose—with the appointed church hymnody and prayers for the repose of the soul of the departed and with heartfelt sighs, at the grave near the south wall of the monastery’s cathedral church chosen by the departed himself—such was the great throng of his venerable admirers who had come to Sarov from wherever it was possible, all wishing to give the last kiss to the departed elder.

And this path of the people to the Sarov monastery—to the little grave and to the coffin hidden within it of Saint Seraphim—from that time was never empty and never overgrown, not for a single day one might say; but branching out from that dear grave as from a center along radii or rays across the entire face of the Russian land, it encompassed all of it—Holy Russia—to her most distant corners and remote backwaters even in Siberia, and each of those branches, returning from its outermost limits and on its way absorbing more and more new tributaries, merged like a mighty river at its center with others like itself—here, by the very grave of the saint, forming as it were an entire sea of his glory.

The singing of memorial services for the departed hieromonk Seraphim, with the offering of the bloodless sacrifice at his grave, did not cease for a single day throughout all 70 years from the day of his repose until July 19 of the present year. Throughout that entire time, it undoubtedly resounded on all those paths along which pilgrims made their way here. Everywhere the name of hieromonk Seraphim was entered into memorial commemorations. Depictions of him—as a bent elder, either in a white cassock or in a short monastic mantle and stole—both individual and episodic, went out not by thousands and tens but by hundreds of thousands into the dwellings of the Orthodox and were often placed near the icon corner, as if ready to be sanctified as proper icons. In no smaller quantity, though undoubtedly with even greater honor as sacred objects, the unburied relics of the saint were carried everywhere from Sarov—items and objects that had either been in his use or stood in close relation to him: sacred and spiritual books, worn garments, pieces of wood and even stones that he had gathered here and there; it is known that the two enormous stones upon which the saint prayed for a thousand days and as many nights are preserved in Sarov only in small remnants, while the greater part, broken into small pebbles with images of Saint Seraphim on them, has been carried to the most distant corners of Russia. Even the sand from the saint’s grave was taken by pilgrims as a sacred object.

Yes, all these and many other relics of the saint—which in the world’s judgment are trivial as dust—are kept and preserved by the faithful not simply as a memento of him or as an expression of veneration, but as sacred objects. Praying for the repose of the soul of the departed servant of God Seraphim, his venerable admirers also turned to him in prayer, asking his instruction, comfort, and deliverance from troubles, sorrows, and sicknesses. It was in connection with these prayers to the saint—by those who had no possibility of coming to his grave—as a partial fulfillment of his dying testament, that all those unburied relics of his were employed. These relics appeared in the eyes of those who kept them as intermediaries between themselves and the saint who had left them, as visible instruments for conveying their petitions to him and for receiving from him, through the grace of God inherent in him, the requested mercies. They believed that these inanimate objects can be and are permeated with divine grace, and with this faith they kissed them, placed them upon themselves—on their foreheads, their breasts, and other ailing members of the body—poured water over them and drank that water as sanctified—filled through this pouring with the grace of God inherent in the saint himself. And it is impossible to depict all the manifold forms in which this kind of prayerful petition to Saint Seraphim poured forth during the entire seventy years of the resting of his body in the grave, across the breadth of all Orthodox Russia, and still less to count all the instances of such prayerful approaches to him by the faithful. But it is equally certain that inexhaustible is the sea of miracles that occurred in the process—of those manifestations of God’s mercies to those who came to the saint in such prayers that are incomprehensible to human reason and unattainable by the present forces of nature. One can say only that those who called upon Saint Seraphim in their prayers with faith and love did not go away from him empty, whatever their position, rank, or station; beginning from the most destitute sufferer of life who has no corner of his own, and ending with the chambers of our most pious sovereigns themselves—everywhere there were and remain memorable cases of miraculous help from God through prayers to Saint Seraphim, and often precisely through the mediation of such unburied relics of his. These heavenly signs served as the finger of God, pointing to the supreme council of the chief pastors of the Russian Church to accomplish what was just accomplished on July 19—the celebration of the church’s glorification and the opening of the holy relics of Saint Seraphim—which may be called the beginning of the third, the highest stage of the saint’s glorification on earth.

Here is how this is stated in the “Act of the Most Holy Synod of January 29, 1903,” printed in the first issue of our journal: “Fully sharing the people’s faith in the holiness of the ever-memorable Elder Seraphim, the Most Holy Synod more than once recognized the necessity of proceeding to the proper arrangements for the glorification of the righteous elder.” Having spoken further of the investigation conducted at its behest by the Bishop of Tambov in 1892-1894 in 28 cities of European Russia and Siberia into the miraculous signs and healings manifested through the prayers of Father Seraphim to those who asked his help with faith, and likewise of the records kept by the Superior of the Sarov Hermitage concerning the numerous miracles that occurred thereafter, the Most Holy Synod writes: “In the past year 1902, on July 19, the birthday of Elder Seraphim, it pleased His Imperial Majesty to call to mind both the prayerful labors of the departed and the general people’s devotion to his memory, and to express the desire that the matter already begun in the Most Holy Synod concerning the glorification of the devout elder be brought to completion. The Most Holy Synod, having examined in full detail and with every possible care the circumstances of this important matter, found that the numerous cases of gracious help through the prayers of Elder Seraphim, properly investigated, present no doubt whatever as to their authenticity and by their nature belong to those events that manifest the miraculous power of God, poured out through the intercession and protection of Father Seraphim upon those who with faith and prayer have recourse in their spiritual and bodily ailments to his grace-filled intercession. Together with this, the Synod, desiring that the most honorable remains of the ever-memorable Elder Seraphim should be the object of reverent veneration by all who come to his prayerful intercession, entrusted to His Eminence the Metropolitan of Moscow the task of conducting their examination. On January 11 of the present year, Metropolitan Vladimir of Moscow and Bishops Dimitry of Tambov and Nazarius of Nizhny Novgorod, having joined to themselves the Archimandrite Seraphim of Suzdal and the Procurator of the Moscow Synodal Office, Prince Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, and four more clergy, conducted a detailed examination of the coffin and of the very remains of Father Seraphim, concerning which they drew up a special act signed by all in their own hand. On this basis the Most Holy Synod, in full conviction of the truth and authenticity of the miracles wrought through the prayers of Elder Seraphim, having rendered praise to the Lord God wondrous in His saints, who ever bestows His benefits upon the Russian state firm in ancestral Orthodoxy, and who even now in the days of the blessed reign of the most pious Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich, as in former times, was pleased to reveal through the glorification of this devout ascetic a new and great sign of His beneficences to the Orthodox Russian people, presented to His Imperial Majesty a most humble report, in which it set forth the following decision: 1) to recognize the devout Elder Seraphim, who reposes in the Sarov Hermitage, in the rank of the saints glorified by the grace of God, and his most honorable remains as holy relics, and to place them in a shrine specially prepared by the zeal of His Imperial Majesty for veneration and reverence by those who come to him in prayer; 2) to compose a special service for the Venerable Father Seraphim, and until such a service is composed, following the day of the glorification of his memory, to serve the general service for venerable saints, and to celebrate his memory both on the day of his falling asleep, January 2, and on the day of the opening of his holy relics; and 3) to announce this for general public knowledge by the Most Holy Synod.”

III

When this resolution of the Most Holy Synod was made known for general public information through the reading of the said “Act” in all the churches of Orthodox Russia, a general popular and pan-ecclesial preparation began, so to speak, for the celebration of July 19. Accounts of the life and labors of Saint Seraphim of every kind, as well as the most diverse depictions of him—including icon-like ones in their outward appearance—began to appear and spread everywhere in countless numbers. The pilgrimage to Sarov to venerate the saint, to his not-yet-opened little grave, increasing day by day, grew by July 19 to extraordinary proportions, from tens to hundreds of thousands. Alongside this general popular preparation went governmental and ecclesiastical preparations. In and around Sarov, lodgings were being built for pilgrims; within the monastery itself, quarters were prepared for Their Imperial and Royal Highnesses who had expressed the desire to be present at the celebration; on the clearings of the Sarov forest surrounding the hermitage, about a hundred wooden barracks were built, forming a whole small town—for ordinary pilgrims—along with several guesthouses. Despite this, some of the pilgrims had to make do with tents they had brought, or in the wagons they had arrived in, or even on bare earth under the open sky. Various commercial establishments and bakeries were also located there. To meet the spiritual needs of the pilgrims, chapels were erected at various places around the monastery, in which Sarov hieromonks—and, for lack of them, those summoned from other monasteries, as well as parish clergy of the Tambov and Nizhny Novgorod eparchies—were to serve first memorial services and from July 19 onward prayer services; everywhere icons and booklets were sold, and water from Saint Seraphim’s spring in small bottles. By thousands, and in the last days before the celebration by tens of thousands, pilgrims—some on their own behalf, some on behalf of families, institutions, and even whole cities—brought as gifts to the monastery various church items and furnishings such as: sacred vestments, coverings for the relics, lamps with whole poods of oil, sacred vessels, altar crosses, Gospels, processional banners, and much more. These banners, distinguished by the beauty of their forms and the variety of materials from which they were made, were brought as gifts to the Sarov and Diveyevo monasteries by banner-bearer societies from Moscow, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Nizhny Novgorod, Tambov, and other cities. Chief of all these offerings, of course, was the reliquary shrine and canopy over it for the relics of the saint, made by the zeal and at the expense of Their Imperial Majesties.

The incomparable sacred treasure of the Sarov monastery is of course the holy relics of Saint Seraphim; but in a holy person, as the first hierarch of the Russian Church, His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony of St. Petersburg, said so wonderfully well—everything is holy and grace-filled, even the shadow, even the garment, and not only the body or the bones. Hence it is entirely understandable that the preparations for the celebration of the glorification of Saint Seraphim pertained not to his holy relics alone and the place of their repose, but also to other objects that had this or that relation to him. Among these objects the first place belongs of course to the stone cell of the saint, in which he lived, labored, and departed in prayerful labor. Therefore the preservation and adornment of this sacred treasure could not but concern the venerable admirers of the saint, and the best means for this is the construction of a holy church in the saint’s name over his cell. Such a church had been laid as a foundation already two years before, and by the day of the opening of Saint Seraphim’s holy relics it was already ready for consecration. In its structure it presents an original construction in the Russian-Byzantine style with five cupolas; its cost is estimated at more than 200,000 rubles. On the western side of this church—between the choir and its central part—is situated the cell of the saint, outwardly fashioned in the form of a chapel with a four-sided scalloped roof of light bronze, with a row of kokoshniki along its lower edge and a golden cross on its cupola; the outer walls of this chapel-cell are adorned with sacred images from the life of Saint Seraphim. Inside the sacred cell, in the left corner in a richly adorned bronze icon case, are the icons of the Savior and of the Mother of God “Tenderness”—a copy of the icon before which Saint Seraphim died kneeling; before the icons is an ever-burning lamp, candle holders for candles, and a lectern with a cross and holy Gospel for the serving of prayer services. Along the walls of the cell, in special glass display cases of light bronze with mirror glass, erected at the expense of the Moscow banner-bearers, are enclosed the mantle, the little cap and leather prayer beads of the saint, two cypress pectoral crosses carved by his own hands, the stone upon which the saint prayed by day in his distant hermitage, one of his teeth and hairs from his head, and the Gospel scorched in the fire that broke out in the saint’s cell at the time of his repose. Another church in the name of Saint Seraphim, ready for the celebration that has taken place, was built in the Diveyevo women’s monastery founded by the saint—this church, forming the left chapel of the majestic Holy Trinity Cathedral of the monastery, is especially remarkable in that it was built simultaneously with the cathedral as far back as 1875 and had remained unconsecrated from that time until now. The Diveyevo orphans, as the saint loved to call the nuns of this monastery that he himself had founded, always believed so unshakably in the holiness of “Father” Seraphim, hoped so firmly for his glorification, that already 25 years ago they decided to dedicate the left chapel of the newly built church to the name of the saint whenever it should please God to glorify him, and now at last their expectation has been fulfilled. How fervently the Diveyevo orphans loved and venerated Saint Seraphim may be judged by the fact that it was they who preserved the greater part of the objects left behind by the saint. It was they who preserved the authentic icon of the Mother of God “Tenderness,” before which he prayed and before which he died; this icon, painted on canvas stretched over a cypress board, is adorned with a silver-gilt riza with an ever-burning lamp before it. It was they who also preserved both the nearer and the farther hermitages of the saint. The simple log hut that constituted the nearer hermitage stands in the cemetery church of the monastery in exactly the same state as it stood in the Sarov forest. Around it a light corridor has been arranged, where behind glass are placed the bast shoes, leather boots, mittens, small axe, caftan, fur coat, cap, kamilavka, woolen and leather short mantle, and prayer beads turned from wood by the saint himself. In the altar of this same church are kept the Gospel with the Psalter in a leather binding that the saint always carried with him, the stole and cuffs in which he received the holy mysteries, and a portion of the Menaion with an inscription in the saint’s own hand. Also preserved in the Diveyevo monastery in exactly the same state as it was during the saint’s lifetime is his farther hermitage, in a special small wooden structure that serves as a kind of case for it. This hermitage is likewise a small log hut—but with a stove; between the wall and the stove there is a small space in which only one person can stand, and into which the saint sometimes withdrew for prayer; here stands an icon with a burning lamp. In this same hermitage are kept the cut stump of a tree that served the departed as a chair, and a portion of the stone upon which he prayed.

“On the clearings of the forest surrounding the monastery, we said, about 100 barracks were built, which formed as it were a whole small town, as this settlement is now called. In these barracks more than 30,000 people can be accommodated. But that is not the point, nor is it that they, packed to the utmost limit, could hold only a third of the pilgrims who had come to the celebration; the point is that these pilgrims had to form and did form in those memorable days, as it were, a living temple enclosing within its depths the holy relics and all the other most honorable remains of Saint Seraphim. And who was not here! Here at the grave of the saint there gathered of their own free will representatives of every rank, station, and age, from every part even of the most distant regions of our vast fatherland, with at the head of them all our most pious Sovereign himself with the Empresses—wife and mother—and other members of the Imperial family, whose presence in those days in Sarov—among his own people—so vividly recalled the devout journeys of the grand princes and tsars of pre-Petrine Russia. In this crowd of more than a hundred thousand were representatives of every order of the Church—bishops with the first hierarch of the Russian Church at their head, and priests, and monks, and laypeople; there were people of every spiritual condition, with the exception perhaps of those schismatics from the Church who deify themselves. In short, here in miniature was, as it were, all of Orthodox Russia, all the Orthodox-Russian Church, gathered to pay homage to the newly manifested saint of God.”

But the most precious offering of all—we believe, even in the eyes of God—with which those gathered prepared themselves for the imminent celebration of the opening of the holy relics of Saint Seraphim, was the cleansing of the pilgrims’ consciences through the mysteries of confession and holy communion. Like a wondrous vision, at the remembrance of this, there comes before us our truly most pious Sovereign and Empress, who on the very day of their arrival in Sarov on the evening of July 17, having confessed to the hieroschemamonk of the hermitage Simeon, communed of the holy mysteries the next day at the early liturgy in the side-chapel of the Dormition Cathedral!

But enough of the preparations for the celebration of the Church’s glorification of Saint Seraphim; let us tell of how it was accomplished, making use for this purpose chiefly of the words of His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony of St. Petersburg—to whom the Most Holy Synod had entrusted this holy task—from his report to the Holy Synod of July 21 of this year, supplementing what he said with the testimony of other eyewitnesses.

IV

“Several days before the beginning of the celebrations, the Bishop recounts—namely on July 3—the oak coffin containing the most honorable remains of Saint Seraphim was taken out of the grave and transferred, after the conclusion of the liturgy served by the Bishop, in a cross procession to the church of Saints Zosimas and Sabbatius; here in the altar of the church, under his personal supervision as Bishop Metropolitan, with the active participation of Bishops Nazarius of Nizhny Novgorod and Innocent of Tambov, Archimandrite Seraphim, and a few other persons invited by them, the transfer of the most honorable remains of the saint into a new cypress coffin was accomplished over the course of three days, July 3, 4, and 5.” The report of His Eminence does not say so, but other reliable witnesses relate that all those present in the altar clearly perceived a fragrance emanating from the holy relics that bore no resemblance to ordinary incenses. The cypress coffin with the holy relics of the saint was placed inside the specially prepared oak coffin mentioned above, and locked by the Bishop Metropolitan until the day of the solemn opening of the relics, was set in the middle of the said church on the tombstone that had rested above the saint’s grave.

“The day that properly inaugurated the celebrations was July 16. On that day, at noon, the rare tolling of the large monastery bell summoned pilgrims to a solemn memorial service in the Dormition Cathedral. The memorial service was celebrated with episcopal serving, at which during the litanies and exclamations there were commemorated by name the most pious Sovereigns Emperors and Empresses, beginning with Empress Elizabeth Petrovna through Emperor Alexander III inclusive, the names of the reposed bishops of Tambov, the builders and abbots of the Sarov Hermitage, the parents of Saint Seraphim, Isidor and Agafia, and the ever-memorable hieromonk Seraphim himself. On the same day in the evening, a memorial all-night vigil—a panikhida service—for the ever-memorable hieromonk Seraphim was also celebrated in the cathedral churches of the hermitage—the Dormition and the Mother of God ”Life-Giving Spring“—likewise with episcopal serving. On July 17, from early morning, pilgrims in great numbers filled the monastery squares inside and outside the walls of the monastery. On that day the arrival was expected at Sarov of cross processions from two hermitages bearing the name of Seraphim—those of Diveyevo and Ponetaevka. To meet the cross processions, at 7 o’clock in the morning, the Sarov monastery’s own cross procession came out from its gates, accompanied by Bishop Innocent, and, having crossed the river Satis by bridge, stopped not far from the forest at the so-called Execution Place. There, at about 8 o’clock in the morning, those cross processions also arrived, and all of them joined together, forming a single majestic procession as it moved toward the walls of the monastery. Much was added to the beauty of the procession by the representatives of banner-bearing societies who had come to the celebration from various cities of the Moscow, Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, and Ryazan provinces. They all carried as a gift from their societies one or two banners each, many of which are distinguished by their value and the artistry of their workmanship. Upon the arrival of the combined cross procession at the monastery, the tolling for the late liturgy began. In both cathedral churches, the liturgy and after it memorial services were celebrated with episcopal serving. On the same day in the evening, after the arrival of Their Imperial Majesties, memorial all-night vigils for the ever-memorable hieromonk Seraphim were performed in the cathedral and other monastery churches by specially appointed clergy. At about 11 o’clock at night, when the monastery square was clear of the people, specially appointed archimandrites silently transferred from the Transfiguration Church the old oak coffin of Saint Seraphim back to its former resting place—into the grave, to which a small stone stairway with a descent has been constructed. The grave is at present lined with thin marble slabs and is left open on one side, so that the coffin standing behind a glass partition is always clearly visible.”

On July 18, after the early liturgy at which Their Imperial Majesties and many of the pilgrims communed of the holy mysteries, the last memorial liturgy was celebrated in the Dormition Cathedral with episcopal serving, and after its conclusion a memorial service was sung for the ever-memorable hieromonk Seraphim, and before it a speech was delivered by the Bishop Metropolitan. The memorial service concluded with a litia at the grave of the saint, to which a cross procession came out from the Cathedral for this purpose, attended by the Sovereign with the Empresses and all the other members of the Imperial family. Upon the return of the cross procession to the Cathedral, the reliquary shrine for the relics of the saint—made by the zeal of Their Imperial Majesties—was consecrated by the Bishop Metropolitan.

At 4 o’clock in the afternoon a small vespers was served in the Dormition Cathedral, and at 6 o’clock in the evening the tolling of the large bell began, summoning pilgrims to the all-night vigil. This was the first church service of “Our Venerable Father Seraphim, the Wonderworker of Sarov,” at which his holy relics were opened for the veneration of the people. After the usual beginning, the reading of the Old Testament lessons, and the utterance of the fervent and supplicatory litanies, at the singing of the litia verses, a cross procession came out from the Cathedral to the church of Saints Zosimas and Sabbatius, where the coffin with the most honorable remains of Saint Seraphim was kept. All who participated in the cross procession and the pilgrims surrounding it held lit candles in their hands; the serving clergy were vested in gold vestments embroidered in silver with cherubim (a gift of the Emperor). The bishops and clergy appointed to carry the coffin entered the church, as did Their Imperial Majesties and a few other persons who had accompanied the cross procession. All who had entered the church bowed the knee before the coffin containing the holy relics. Then the coffin was carried out by the bishops and the Emperor, with the participation of the Grand Princes and the appointed archimandrites, from the church, and covered with a precious pall was placed on a litter, which was raised onto shoulders and carried around the cathedral churches of the monastery by those same persons. The coffin, raised high, was visible to the people from all sides—people who stood in a living wall with lit candles along the entire path of the cross procession. From the surrounding crowd, in which there were many sick and infirm, prayerful sighs addressed to the saint were heard, along with weeping and even sobbing; strips of cloth, towels, skeins of yarn, and the like were thrown from all sides under the feet of those carrying the coffin. The religious fervor of those who participated in and attended this could not be described! The sight was moving to the very depths of the soul! At the western gates of the Dormition Cathedral the first litia litany was uttered, followed by four more stops at other sides of the Cathedral with the utterance of further litanies. After the reading by the Bishop Metropolitan of the litia prayer at the last stop, the procession entered the Cathedral and the coffin with the holy relics was set in the middle of it on a special raised platform. Between the reading of the kathismata, Bishop Innocent delivered a homily befitting the celebration then taking place, and then, at the singing of “Praise the name of the Lord,” all the serving clergy came out to the middle of the church and stood around the coffin of the saint. The Bishop Metropolitan unlocked the lock with which the coffin had been secured, and the archimandrites removed its lid. The holy relics of Saint Seraphim were opened. All bowed the knee and the serving clergy began to sing the magnification to the saint. After the reading of the Gospel, the veneration of the holy relics began—first by the bishops, then by the members of the Imperial family, and then by the rest of the pilgrims. The service continued and at about 11 o’clock concluded in the usual order, while the veneration of the holy relics continued without interruption throughout the entire night, in the presence of specially appointed clergy.

On the following day, July 19, the late liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral was celebrated by all the bishops present at the celebration, in the presence of the Sovereign, the Empresses, all the other members of the Imperial family, and a multitude of worshippers. At the Little Entrance, at the singing of “Come, let us worship,” the archimandrites lifted the coffin with the holy relics standing in the middle of the Cathedral and carried it around the holy altar, and then placed it in the prepared shrine. After the homily from the pulpit delivered by Bishop Dimitry, Archbishop of Kazan, a solemn prayer service to Saint Seraphim began. After the singing of the troparion to the saint, the coffin with the holy relics was taken out by the serving clergy from the shrine, and now opened, was carried in a cross procession from the Cathedral around the same monastery churches as the day before; His Majesty and Their Highnesses likewise, as the day before, took part in carrying the coffin on the litter. The people gazed upon the holy object being carried with the same deep reverence, and again, as on the previous evening, from among them were heard weeping, sobbing, and prayerful sighs. Upon the return of the cross procession to the Cathedral, the prayer service to the saint concluded with the reading by the Bishop Metropolitan of a prayer to the saint and the customary many-years. Their Imperial Majesties and Highnesses, having venerated the holy relics placed again in the shrine, departed from the Cathedral…

The concluding act of the liturgical celebration in honor and glory of Seraphim of Sarov the Wonderworker, on those memorable days, was the consecration of the churches built in the name of the saint—in Sarov itself over his cell, and in Diveyevo. The consecration of the first church was performed by His Eminence Anthony, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, on July 21, at which time he carried on his head into the newly consecrated church particles of the holy relics of Saint Seraphim from the Dormition Cathedral. The consecration of the church in the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery was performed on July 22 by Bishop Nazarius of Nizhny Novgorod.

V

The celebrations in honor of Saint Seraphim that we have described were not the only ones in those days, but only the center of a whole series of others that took place across all of Orthodox Russia. These other celebrations were all-night vigils with litias and magnifications to Saint Seraphim on July 18, and Divine liturgies with prayer services to him on July 19, served in the churches of, if not all the villages, then certainly all the cities and monasteries of Orthodox Russia. It is a pity only that the special service to the saint composed for July 19, or at least the troparion and prayer to him, was not published in timely fashion—if only through the “Church Gazette” published by the Most Holy Synod—so that the service everywhere was the general one for venerable saints. In most cases, before the divine services, icons of Saint Seraphim that had already been prepared for the occasion were consecrated, before which prayer services were performed and to which the faithful venerated—gathering everywhere in great numbers; in some churches, especially those of the capitals and provincial cities, icons of the saint were made of large size, in precious rizas and richly ornamented icon cases.

Moscow on this occasion, as always, led the other cities in this respect. The church-liturgical glorification of Saint Seraphim on the day of the opening of his holy relics was distinguished by special splendor in the great Dormition Cathedral, where on July 18 before the all-night vigil was brought the small monastic mantle of Saint Seraphim. This mantle, through which the saint had granted healing from scarlet fever to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, now Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, is kept in the palace of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and was, with his permission, brought to the Dormition Cathedral. The divine service was performed by His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir, at which during the litia a cross procession was made around the Cathedral, and after the magnification to the saint and the reading of the Gospel, first the Bishop and the serving clergy, and then the pilgrims, venerated the holy icon and the mantle. How great was the number of pilgrims who desired and kept coming to venerate the mantle of Saint Seraphim may be judged by the fact that this sacred object remained in the Cathedral and the veneration of it continued not only throughout the following night, but also through the following day and night until the late liturgy of July 20. Entry into the Kremlin was open only through the Savior Gates, from which in a long chain with numerous turns and windings the pilgrims made their way to the Cathedral—and those going by this path had to wait seven or eight hours after entering the Kremlin before they could venerate. One had to see the patient humility of the pilgrims waiting their turn, and with what special sympathetic goodwill and considerateness they gave way to children and the sick. Moscow did not lag behind Sarov in the building of a church in the name of Saint Seraphim; for in it also, in the Church of the Tikhvin Mother of God in Sushchevo, already on July 20 an altar was consecrated in the name of the newly manifested saint of God.

After Moscow, the celebration of the opening of the holy relics of Saint Seraphim was celebrated with special splendor at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad, at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, in Tver, Pskov, and other cities; prayer services to the saint were performed in those days even in such places where there are no churches; in many factories and other industrial and commercial establishments, workers were released from work on July 19. The newspapers did not set down in their pages, but it is an undoubted truth, that in very many families who had no possibility of participating in the church services of those memorable days, the hours of those services were devoted to communal domestic prayer to the saint and to the reading of his life.

In short, without exaggeration it may be said that for the glorification of Saint Seraphim, on the day of the opening of his holy relics and the day immediately following, all of Orthodox Russia, all the Orthodox-Russian Church stirred as one. All of it in those days, as one family, with one mouth and one heart glorified the newly manifested saint of God—all was turned by the spiritual eyes of faith toward those heavenly mansions where, together with all the saints and angels in the kingdom of glory, before the throne of God stands the Sarov ascetic and people’s intercessor in prayer, the Venerable Seraphim.

This turning of the earthly Church of Christ to the Heavenly Church in the person of the newly manifested heavenly dweller, Saint Seraphim, which began in its own time, will of course continue within it until the end of the age. In its Act, the Most Holy Synod decreed that the memory of Saint Seraphim of Sarov should be observed with panegyrics throughout the whole Russian Church, henceforth annually on July 19—the day of the opening of his holy relics—and on January 2—the day of his blessed repose; and within the bounds of the Tambov eparchy, in the territory of which the Sarov monastery is located, his name is to be proclaimed continually at the so-called great dismissals and in those church prayers in which it is ordained to raise the names of the saints of the Orthodox Russian Church…

Is it not true that this immeasurable grandeur of the celebration of the glorification of Saint Seraphim is profoundly significant and supremely instructive for those who interpret, whether with arrogant delight or with faint-hearted apprehension, the near-universal infatuation of Russia with the one called “the great writer of the Russian land”? Indeed, for not just a few decades all manner of means have been used to propagate the teaching of this writer and the man himself in Russian society, and how the popular orators “clamor” about his count’s grandeur and glory; yet what comes of all this? Can one compare with this artificially inflated infatuation with the count and his “simplified” teaching the popular wave that of its own free will, without any artificial enticements or assistance, poured into the monastic hermitage lost in the Tambov forests, to the coffin-shrine that had become a reliquary of “poor Seraphim’s little grave”? For that wave with a single surge is capable of eclipsing the count’s glory like a marsh light… But to see even more vividly and clearly all the immeasurable power and inestimable significance of the glory of Saint Seraphim, another comparison comes to mind. We have in view the glorification of the “infallible” Roman departed one by the “Western” Catholic world that was taking place simultaneously with our Sarov celebrations. How much arrogant pride, how much vanity alien to all things spiritual, how many base intrigues and even malice—in general something earthly, material, or rather materialistic—was in the celebration of the burial and glorification of Leo XIII! And how diametrically different from that celebration—also ecclesiastical in its own way—is our celebration, and precisely in its spirituality, in those moods and feelings with which it was accomplished and which it nourished and cultivated! And this is not surprising, because the starting point of the Sarov celebration was the humility of the saint, which, like light with darkness, is incompatible with the arrogance of the infallible one; its active force was love, which never fails; and its final aim was spiritual, heavenly goods, the salvation of the soul, which is worth more than the whole world that the one who calls himself the vicar of Christ strives to rule. And can one think that in those days, when all of Russia was stretching its spirit toward heaven, heaven was not bowing toward it with its love, and that the Heavenly Church was not rejoicing with us and glorifying Saint Seraphim, and at the same time praying for us to God our Savior? The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which in miraculous manifestations, like heavenly dew, poured out and pours out in abundance upon the souls of the faithful who thirst for it and come with faith to the saint of God—is our surety of that.

Yes, this is a holy truth for those believers who have lived through the holy moments of such grace-filled communion with heaven, and many of whom, overshadowed by this grace, were enlightened in their understanding, comforted in conscience, and strengthened spiritually. For unbelievers, however, this inner, spiritual, grace-filled and divine side of the church celebration that has taken place has of course remained hidden and incomprehensible; yet even they, if only they do not reason dishonestly, cannot and have no right to deny this grace-filled power of the church celebration that has taken place; it is proclaimed by those miracles which in such abundance—before the eyes of thousands of people—were accomplished and continue to be accomplished through the prayers of Saint Seraphim for those who come to him with faith and love, and which cannot be explained by any natural forces and laws of nature:

“One constantly has to hear of cases of healing,” says one eyewitness in the Church Gazette published by the Most Holy Synod (No. 30), “and not only to hear, but to see with one’s own eyes the healed ones themselves, glorifying and thanking God who has manifested His mercy upon them through the prayers of Saint Seraphim. At the spring of Saint Seraphim—that well of healings—signs of God’s mercy constantly appear. On one of the days there were more than ten cases of healing of the lame. The latter, as if in proof of the miraculous mercy of God manifested upon them, gathered their crutches and in the presence of a multitude of people, on the bank of the Sarovka river, committed them to burning. Touching also was another case that took place here. A blind boy, brought from far away to Sarov by his parents, suddenly regained his sight after bathing in Saint Seraphim’s spring. From joy at seeing the light of God, he broke into a run, followed by a whole crowd of people, deeply moved by this astonishing miracle accomplished before their eyes.” Or here again is a case of healing that took place on July 19 at the late liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral. “Among those at prayer in the Cathedral was a Mrs. Maslennikova who had come from Moscow; with her was her sick 12-year-old daughter, who for about two years had not spoken a word. She had treated her with several specialist physicians, but they had been unable to help her. When during the Little Entrance the coffin with the holy relics was carried by, Mrs. Maslennikova touched the coffin with a handkerchief and then wiped the face of her sick daughter with it, and the latter, to her mother’s great joy, at once began to speak, and was then led by her mother to receive holy communion.” So His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony relates this in his report to the Most Holy Synod, alongside several other cases. The miracles that occurred in Sarov are being recorded by Father Hieroschemamonk Simeon, who verifies their authenticity on the spot through the testimony of eyewitnesses. Not a few miracles from those that occurred in Moscow, Tambov, and other cities have also been made public. But can they all be written down and retold? New and new miracles appear even before such descriptions manage to appear in print. And will they cease? Will the word of God grow faint? Will His almighty power run dry? Will the Church of Christ, in which the saint was saved and is saved, and in which believers abide, be impoverished of that power? Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and He shall be the same forever (Heb. 13:8); He promised to remain with believers until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20), and said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church that He built (Matt. 16:18). And His word is of course not false…

Here we conclude our account of the glorification of Saint Seraphim the Wonderworker of Sarov, and proceed to clarify its dogmatic meaning and its church-canonical significance in opposition to the misinterpretations of rationalism and unbelief.

The Dogmatic Meaning and Church-Canonical Significance of the Celebration of July 19

It is impossible to define the outer limit of the glorification of Saint Seraphim, which began even during the days of his earthly life; equally impossible is it to enumerate all the forms in which this glorification manifested itself, manifests itself now, and will continue to manifest itself. Yet within this boundless ocean of glory of God’s holy one there is a point upon which one may pause and thereby more clearly picture this phenomenon and discern its significance. That point must be named as the solemn celebration of the ecclesiastical glorification of Saint Seraphim that took place on the nineteenth of July. This celebration is twofold and consists of two acts: the canonization of Saint Seraphim, that is, his enrollment among the saints, and the opening of his venerable relics. The first consists in the fact that the “eternal memory” kept by the Church for the reposed ascetic of Sarov—which until that time had been expressed in prayer for the repose of his soul—from the nineteenth of July became a prayer addressed to the reposed one himself; and the opening of his holy relics consists in the fact that his remains, hidden until then in the earth (beneath the ground), were brought forth from the grave and openly offered to the faithful for the same veneration that we render to the life-giving cross of Christ and to the holy icons. On this occasion both acts were performed simultaneously and jointly, so that from an outward standpoint their separation is hardly convenient; nonetheless they are two distinct and independent acts which in other cases are frequently performed at different times, sometimes centuries apart from one another. Accordingly, our discourse will treat each of them separately.

I (9)

If the number of those who, having lovingly inscribed the name of God’s servant Hieromonk Seraphim in their memorial books for the departed and offered memorial services for him, now with equal zeal—from the nineteenth of July onward—have begun and will certainly not cease to offer supplicatory services to him, praying not for him but asking for his prayers on their own behalf, must be counted in the millions; then surely there are not a few who neither knew nor wished to know the name of Seraphim of Sarov before, and on the nineteenth of July took no prayerful part in the Sarov celebration, and do not pray to Saint Seraphim now and will not pray to him in the future, leaving this holy work in all its forms to those they regard as blindly believing superstitious people deceived by the clergy. Such, unfortunately, are those among our so-called intelligentsia who express the entirety of their enlightened faith through a rationalistic attitude toward it, and who, echoing their beloved western Protestants, call prayer for the departed useless and prayer to the saints positively immoral—and who consider both generally irrational. Proud of their reason, which they esteem more highly than the voice of the Universal Church, and boasting that they regard only the Bible, interpreted and understood according to their own reason, as the source of their faith, these people fail to notice that in their rejection of both kinds of prayer they fall into open contradiction not only with the Church’s tradition, which they reject, but with the Bible itself and—what should be especially significant to them—with reason itself, in whose name they ostensibly protest; for both kinds of prayer are directly commanded in the word of God and logically presupposed with necessity by sound human reason.

Concerning the prayers of the saints to God on our behalf, and consequently concerning our prayer to the saints, there is testimony even in the Old Testament portion of the Bible. Judas Maccabeus, urging his countrymen to battle against the enemies of the homeland, pointed to the prayerful intercession of the former high priest Onias, whom he had seen in a vision praying for all the Jewish people (2Mac 15:12-16 cf. 1 Chr. 29:18; Dan. 3:35; Ps. 131:10 and many others). In the New Testament, Saint John the Theologian in his Revelation testifies that he saw how one of the angels—whom another apostle (Paul) in general terms calls those sent by God to minister to men (Heb. 1:14), and whom the Lord Jesus Christ himself calls guardians and intercessors before God for the little ones (Matt. 18:10, Act 12:7-12,27:23-24) — stood before the altar of God, holding a golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand (Rev. 8:3–4). In direct correspondence with these testimonies stand beyond all doubt all those passages of the Bible in which it is related how God himself commands people to seek the prayers of the righteous on their behalf (thus, for example, God commanded Abimelech to seek Abraham’s prayers: Gen. 20:7–17; and Job’s friends to seek the prayers of that righteous man: Job 42:8–10 and others). And by means of the prayers of the latter, God sends his mercies upon them (Exod. 32:11–14; 1Sam 7:8-9,12:23; James 5:17–18).

It is true that in the cited cases the speech concerns the prayers of the righteous during their earthly life; but our God, as the Lord Jesus Christ himself said, is not the God of the dead but of the living—before his face all are alive (Matt. 22:32), and the nature of love, which lies at the foundation of prayer, is such that it never fails (1 Cor. 13:8). Therefore, if the righteous, during their earthly life, guided by love and empowered by the grace bestowed upon them by God, could and can benefit people through their prayers, is it not all the more possible for them after their departure from this world? “The bonds by which the Savior united believers”—let us say it in the words of our first hierarch—“are so strong that even death itself cannot sever them… If it is true that they, even beyond the grave, remain in union with Christ, then it is also true that they stand in connection with us who live on earth. Our saints are not dead beings, but living ones. And if they continue to live, then they continue to love us. Great was the love of God’s holy ones during their lifetime for their brothers, and the holier they were, the more they prayed and labored for them. And now, when the Lord has called them to himself, can it be that this love must be forever extinguished in their souls? Can it be that they are able to forget the Church of the Savior, from whose very bosom they themselves came forth? No. They would sooner cease to live than cease to share in our destiny.” This is why the holy apostles—who, even on earth, prayed for their very enemies (Acts 7:60) and were ready to give not only their temporal lives but their very salvation for their brothers (Rom. 9:1–3)—boldly declared that even after their own departure they would not cease to remember them and care for them (2 Pet. 1:15) and so forth.

There is not much, yet still one can find in the Bible evidence for prayer for the departed as well. Thus, according to the testimony of that same Second Book of Maccabees, Judas Maccabeus offered sacrifice for soldiers who had died in the sin of taking plunder from idolatrous offerings (2Mac 12:39-45); Jesus Son of Sirach says: “Let your generosity extend to all the living, and do not withhold kindness from the dead” (Sir. 7:36). As for why “the all-penetrating wisdom of God does not proclaim loudly enough in divine revelation the commandment to pray for the departed,” Metropolitan Filaret in one of his sermons (vol. 3, p. 212) says that it may be “in order that, relying on this assistance, those who are living might not grow slothful in working out their salvation with fear before bodily death. But when he does not forbid this kind of prayer, does not this signify that he still permits one to cast, though not always a decisively reliable, yet sometimes and perhaps frequently a well-timed rope, to those souls that have broken away from the shore of temporal life but have not yet reached the eternal harbor, who between bodily death and the last universal judgment of Christ are tossed above the abyss—now rising by faith, now sinking by deeds inconsistent with it, now being raised up by grace, now drawn down by the remnants of corrupted nature, now caught up in divine longing, now entangled in the still not entirely shed garment of earthly thoughts.”

Thus the holy Bible, to which unbelievers appeal in support of their rejection of prayers for the departed and to the saints, stands not with them but with those who both before the nineteenth of July assiduously prayed for the repose of the soul of the reposed Hieromonk Seraphim, and who now with special zeal ask for his prayers on their behalf. And sound human reason also stands with them, in justification of their prayerful attitude toward the Venerable One; for neither can it deny the incontrovertible truth of the divinely revealed teaching held by the Orthodox Church regarding the prayerful communion between the living and the departed.

“The human race,” says one Orthodox theologian, “is a single whole: it is like a forest that has grown from one trunk. God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth (Acts 17:26). This is one family, one kindred, where each member is bound to all the rest by thousands of visible and invisible ties. We benefit from what our forebears have left us. Acting in one way or another upon the family and those around him, a person acts upon even the most distant members of the whole society, because society is a single body whose members are individual families. This is not all—the interaction extends further: whole nations too are known members of one great family of the human race, and therefore they inevitably act upon one another, just as families act upon societies and individuals upon families. And no walls can shield one from this influence, which, like the air, penetrates everywhere through a medium invisible to the eye.” This interaction of souls is not denied even by the best representatives of empirical science, such as Tarde, Gustave Le Bon, Henry Drummond, Charles Secretan, Guyau, Bourget and others. Everyone has surely noticed that in shared life, or under the influence of a strongly aroused feeling of love or hatred, or at the extreme tension of the will, the thought or feeling of one person influences another and is guessed without words.

But by what means does this interaction take place? In the view of the materialists, it is a simple collision of brain matter. “Our neuro-cerebral system, receiving from without the lower forms of energy—such as light, heat, chemical effects, and so on—transforms them into energy of a higher order, which forms the basis of psychic processes. If this is true, then psychic energy is equal to light energy, electrical energy, and so on, and can act not only within the human organism itself but can also spread into the surrounding medium. Taking this hypothesis as their point of departure and establishing an analogy between steel wires and our nerves, these thinkers find it possible for one working brain to exert influence upon another, and acknowledge the direct transmission of psychic waves or rays over a distance. It is known that the state of the nerves must thus be reflected in the state of the surrounding world-ether, and the state of the ether must in turn act upon the nerves of other persons.” But this materialistic explanation of psychic interaction cannot be recognized as adequate, since it wholly fails to explain the interaction of a material atom upon the spirit. “The materialistic explanation,” says Professor Glagolev, “explains nothing; the action of one ether atom upon another through contact is just as incomprehensible as action through a void; and the chief point—it is incomprehensible how the last material atom acts upon the spirit. Here one cannot speak either of void or of fullness, since it turns out that the spatial acts upon the non-spatial. The possibility of such action necessarily forces one to presuppose also the possibility of action of the non-spatial upon the non-spatial—of spirit upon spirit. Toward recognition of such immediate interaction of souls we are also obligated by our moral sense. Only by recognizing the immediate interaction of souls does our unity with our neighbors become comprehensible. Only admitting such interaction can explain for us the moral influence which the Venerable Seraphim, the Sarov ascetic, Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, Saint Theophan the Recluse, the well-known Kronstadt Archpriest Father I. I. Sergiev, Elder Ambrose of Optina, and many other bearers of truly Christian love have exerted and continue to exert upon people of pure heart. But if the law of immediate action of souls must be acknowledged, then the interrelationship between the earthly and the heavenly Church, expressed in the prayers of the members of the former and in the influence of those members of the latter who have attained Christian spiritual perfection upon those belonging to the Church militant, must necessarily also be acknowledged.” It is worthy of note that the holy Apostle Paul, unfolding the divinely revealed teaching about the Church of Christ in its practical application to life, appeals to that same law of interaction—as the law of life—about which, on the basis of inner and outer experience, science also speaks. He calls the Church of Christ, whose composition, by his own words, includes both the living and the departed and even angels (Eph 1:10,20-22, cf. Eph. 12:22–23), a body whose head is Christ (Col. 1:18). Just as in a living body there are various members—visible and invisible, strong and weak—and all of them are alive and live themselves and contribute to the life of the whole body through constant interaction, serving and helping one another; so too in the Church of Christ all her members, differing in their dignity and significance, cannot each live on their own without interrelationship with others, and must serve one another with the gift of the Holy Spirit received from God (1 Cor. 12:10–30). The holy apostle also points to the path toward this mutual communion—that path is love (1 Cor. 13:1–6), which lies at the foundation of every prayer.

The belief that the dead do not break off their connection with the living and help them in their affairs, and on the other hand that the prayer of the living for the departed is of benefit to the latter, may be said to be as if innate in the human race; and therefore in all pagan religions there exist both prayers for the dead and the veneration of them. The forms in which this belief finds expression in pagan religions are sometimes very crude and distorted, which is entirely understandable, since those religions themselves are a corruption of the original true religion. What matters to us is the fact of the existence of this belief, which cannot be denied even by those who rise up against the Orthodox teaching about prayers for the dead and the invocation of saints in prayer; for many of the most recent western scholars, who serve as unshakeable authority for such persons, attempt to derive the very idea of God from the pagan cult of ancestor veneration—so widespread is this cult—and many of those who on borrowed authority deny prayers for the dead and the invocation of saints do not refuse to participate even in spiritualistic activities, the foundation of which is a more degraded distortion than paganism of the thought that interaction between the living and the departed is possible.

And in vain do such people appeal to the fact that, according to the teaching of God’s word, each person’s fate beyond the grave depends on his personal spiritual and moral condition during earthly life—on his personal faith and personal deeds—and that there is but one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus. It is indeed true that a person’s personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as proclaimed by his holy apostles, is the necessary condition on the human side for his salvation, and that whoever does not have this faith—who consciously and obstinately rejects it—shall be condemned, by the word of the Lord himself (Mark 16:16). But from this it does not follow that prayer for the departed is useless; otherwise, prayer for the living must also be declared useless and therefore inappropriate—indeed every prayer, not only for one’s brothers but for oneself—and yet it is so clearly and so insistently commanded to us by God’s word. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, says the holy apostle of love, let him pray, and God will give life to him—that is, to the one who commits a sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that one should pray for that (1 John 5:16). From these words of the holy apostle of love it follows with logical necessity that prayer can be useless and therefore inappropriate only for those who commit the sin leading to death, which, by the word of that same apostle, consists in conscious and obstinate resistance to the apostolically proclaimed faith in Christ Jesus incarnate for our salvation (1Jn 4:1-3,2:27; cf. Matt. 12:32). And whoever does not commit this sin can neither refrain from praying himself nor refuse to receive others’ prayers on his behalf; because the faith in Christ Jesus that saves a person is inseparable from love, of which prayer is the expression. This prayer would contradict faith in Christ Jesus as the sole mediator between God and man only if it were offered not in Christ’s name and, so to speak, apart from him. Christ Jesus is the one mediator between God and men, but from this it does not follow that there can be no other intercessors in his name. “Just as”—says Stefan Yavorsky in his “Rock of Faith”—“the oneness of the Heavenly Father does not do away with earthly fathers, nor the oneness of Christ the instructor and teacher do away with earthly instructors and teachers, nor the oneness of Christ’s holiness and lordship take away holiness from the rest of the saints and lordship from earthly lords; so neither does the oneness of Christ the Mediator do away with other intercessors; only the manner and degree of mediation differs. For Christ is the mediator by way of preeminence, as has been said; whereas the saints are mediators of a lower and more remote degree from Christ. Christ is the mediator of redemption and of sonship’s prayer to the Father; the saints are mediators of friendly petition alone, according to the words of the Psalter: ‘How precious to me are your friends, O God’ (Ps. 138:17).”

Thus, contrary to the crafty reasonings of the opponents of the celebration that has just taken place, both by the teaching of God’s word and by the considerations of sound reason, Orthodox Russian people had full right even before the nineteenth of July to pray for the repose of the soul of the reposed servant of God Hieromonk Seraphim, and from the nineteenth of July they have that same right to address him—now already as a saint and a holy one of God—with prayers on their own behalf.

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The opponents of the glorification of Saint Seraphim that has taken place, as if to justify their refusal to participate in this celebration, pointing to the very act of canonization of the blessed elder—that is, his enrollment among the saints—and (hypocritically or sincerely, God knows) clothing themselves in the garb of religious reverence and humility, like the ancient Pharisees of the Lord’s time, say: “He” (meaning the Most Holy Synod) “blasphemes; for who can forgive sins except God alone?” (Mark 2:8–9). In other words, they deny the right of the Most Holy Synod to perform canonization—but is this denial just?

No. These speeches are just as unjust as the similar discussions that occurred two years ago regarding the excommunication of Count L. Tolstoy from the Church. Such perverse judgments arise now, as they did then, from a lack of clear understanding of the essence of the Orthodox-ecclesiastical act in question and its confusion with the Roman Catholic act in terms of outward ritual. From this perspective the Roman Catholic act of canonization is indeed expressed in the form of something like a judicial verdict, solemnly and authoritatively pronounced by the pope in his own name, and is preceded by a sort of judicial inquiry into the very person to be canonized, in which, after the manner of a civil court, prosecutors and defense attorneys appear as active participants—there is even a devil’s advocate opposing the glorification of the one to be canonized. Nothing resembling this theatrical, solemn, and proudly authoritative form of canonizing saints as practiced by Roman Catholics exists in our Orthodox Church; therefore the charge of blasphemy leveled against the council of our archpastors is inapplicable to it from this angle.

As to its substance, the groundlessness of this charge is admirably set forth by the estimable Archpriest P. A. Smirnov in his recently published booklet “The Glorification of Saints in the Christian Orthodox Church,” in these words: “To think that the reposed holy one of God, up to the time of his glorification, was as yet in need of intercessory prayer, and that the moment had at last arrived when all his sins were finally forgiven and he was being brought forth from his spiritual prison into the heavenly abodes, would be both excessively presumptuous and inconsistent with the circumstances and nature of the matter. Presumptuous, because who can set any bounds to God’s mercy? Who would dare to measure God’s mind and determine his decisions? The prayers of the faithful for reposed fathers and brothers, serving as an expression of love and respect toward them on the part of the faithful, may help to purify their spirit from sinful impurity; but their justification and sanctification is the work of God’s unspeakable and inscrutable mercy toward them and toward us. The Spirit breathes where he wishes, and you hear his voice, but do not know where he comes from or where he goes: so it is with everyone born of the Spirit (John 3:8), said the Lord Savior, and the glorification of God’s holy one is the highest manifestation of the spiritual life of a person reborn by grace, and elevates him to a height inaccessible to our sight. Inconsistent with the circumstances and nature of the matter, because the signs and miracles manifested through the venerated holy one of God customarily precede, and sometimes long before, his glorification in the earthly Church. Before his glorification has been established on earth, he already by the power of the grace given him by God both enlightens those in perplexity, and heals the sick, and delivers from misfortunes and calamities those who come to him in faith.” Therefore “the thought of any judgment by the Church over the saints prior to their glorification must be excluded from the concept of that glorification.”

What then, one will ask, does the enrollment of this or that reposed person—in this case of the devout elder Seraphim—among the saints mean, as declared in the ruling of the Holy Synod of January 29th of the current year? In no case does it mean his elevation from a state of sinfulness, for which one must pray, to the rank of a saint, to whom one must pray; rather it means only the universal ecclesiastical recognition of his holiness, already previously manifested by God himself in signs and miracles that occurred through prayer to him—just as the repeated investigations preceding his enrollment among the saints were not a judicial inquiry into him—a judgment on the holiness or lack of holiness of his life—but only an examination of the authenticity and reliability, and not the spuriousness or illusory character, of testimonies concerning the signs and miracles manifested through God’s holy one. This is clearly expressed in the act of the Holy Synod in these words: “The Holy Synod, having examined in full detail and with every possible care the circumstances of this important matter, found that the numerous cases of gracious help granted through the prayers of Elder Seraphim, having been duly investigated, present no doubt whatever as to their authenticity, and by their nature belong to events that manifest the wonder-working power of God, poured out through the intercession and advocacy of Father Seraphim upon those who with faith and prayer resort in their spiritual and bodily infirmities to his gracious intercession.”

But, it is said, if the Synod’s recognition of the devout elder Seraphim in the ranks of the saints was conditioned upon the miracles that occurred through his prayers upon those who with faith and prayer resorted to his gracious intercession, then it is clear that Elder Seraphim was already a saint before the ruling published by the Holy Synod. In that case, were the memorial services and other funerary prayers offered for the reposed before the nineteenth of July appropriate? And why, until that time, could supplicatory services not be celebrated in his honor? On the other hand, does the cessation of funerary prayer for the reposed from the moment of his glorification not impose, as it were, some limit upon his spiritual perfection, and does it not argue against the endlessness of that perfection, if prayer for him is considered no longer necessary?

These questions are not new; answers to them have long been given in our theological literature. “Is it superfluous to pray for the saints?” asks Metropolitan Filaret in one of his sermons, and answers: “And yet the holy apostle commands us to pray for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18). “Is it superfluous to pray for the apostles, who are the dispensers of grace to all the rest and the first among the saints in the Church: ‘God has placed in the Church first apostles’” (1 Cor. 12:28)? “And yet the apostle requires that prayers be offered for him—and by those who are not apostles—and at a time when he had already drawn near to the crown for his apostolic labors. There is a prayer in favor of the very Gospel: that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified, even though the Gospel is itself the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16); can one be afraid of excess in praying for believers?“ And indeed; for who shall be clean of defilement? No one, even if his life upon earth were but a single day (Job 14:4). On the other hand, ”prayer for the departed,“ says Father Archpriest Smirnov in the book cited above on the glorification of saints, ”offered under the guidance of the Church, is not limited to a petition for the forgiveness of sins of the departed, but is at the same time a prayer for his repose—for his being settled in that rest which God himself received after the six days of creation and which, according to the words of the Savior, consists in the work of the Father“ (John 5:17)—in his governance of the world and of men, in his beneficence toward them. ”Imitating the Heavenly Father and the Lord Savior, the saints of God, for whose repose the Church’s prayer is offered, find the sweetness of their rest in the possibility of doing good to the earthly assemblies that raise prayers for them to the throne of the Almighty.“ This is why ”the certainty of the firm faith and good life of the departed ought in no way to diminish prayer for him; on the contrary, it ought to intensify and animate it with hope of being heard. The greater the certainty of the purity and holiness of the departed, the stronger and livelier is the prayer offered for them.“ ”There is reason to think,“ Father Smirnov continues, ”that in the Church prayer for the saints continues even after their glorification, united with the sacred act of the Eucharist.“ ”Prayer for already glorified saints,“ writes Bishop Vissarion in his commentary on the liturgy (specifically on the priest’s prayer after the sanctification of the gifts), ”is grounded in the desire that, for the sake of the bloodless sacrifice, their blessedness may grow more and more, so that those among them who stood at the lower degrees of nearness to God might attain the higher ones.“ From this prayer, as is well known, not even the Most Honorable, More Glorious than the Seraphim, the Theotokos Mary is excluded; and this is because there is and cannot be any end to that perfection which is indicated to all in the Savior’s words: ”Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect“ (Matt. 5:48). ”In this case the Church, as a great and true mother, rises above all—both her earthly and her heaven-translated children—and, resembling the Heavenly Father, embraces in her care both the living and the dead, both the righteous and the unrighteous, uniting all in concord and love.“”

Such, in general and in essence, are the answers of our best theologians to the questions raised.

In the sense of these answers, applied to the present case, it should be entirely comprehensible that prior to the moment of the glorification of Saint Seraphim, truly believing Orthodox Russian people prayed for him with special zeal—with the Church’s prayer, specifically the prayer for the forgiveness of his transgressions and for his repose together with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom—and the closer to the moment of glorification, the more earnestly; but from these very same answers it in no way follows that now, after the ecclesiastical glorification of Saint Seraphim, we—both each individually and all together, personally and of our own initiative, so to speak—may pray for him with this same prayer, entering his name in our memorial books for the departed and offering memorial services for him. The liturgical prayer for the saints is offered as a bloodless sacrifice for them, as a washing of them in the blood of the Lamb of God—which is the same blood that our Savior shed on Golgotha—and therefore it is offered only by the celebrant who performs the mystery of the Eucharist, not personally on his own initiative—not by individual will and not by personal authority—but only by the grace of the priesthood, by the power and action of the Holy Spirit with which they are invested in the mystery of holy orders. But we who are not invested with this gracious power of the priesthood, as well as those who are so invested but pray personally on their own behalf, in devout contrition “contemplating in the mystery” (of the Eucharist) “that same death and that same glorification,” participate in this bloodless sacrifice through prayer to the Lord that we may be visited by the prayers of the saints and through their glorification, and consequently through prayer to the saints for their intercession for us before God—prayer for our being joined to their glory, for our union with them, and not for their salvation. Therefore, apart from the aforementioned liturgical-sacramental commemoration, the Church herself does not offer any other so-called funerary services for the saints; and consequently, for Saint Seraphim as well, from the moment of his glorification, neither memorial services nor other similar commemorations are to be and shall not be offered.

If it is entirely in accord with the spirit of Orthodoxy, full of love and freedom, and with the truth in general, that the devotees of Saint Seraphim even during his lifetime sought and received from him both instruction and consolation and healing, and after his repose in their prayerful commemorations began to address him with petitions about their sorrows and needs—then it would be unreasonable and criminal presumption to take upon oneself what the Church herself performs only sacramentally by the Holy Spirit, rather than limiting oneself to earnest prayer for the gracious help of one whose wonder-working power in its authenticity and reliability has been attested not only by human testimonies but by the voice of the Church. But on the other hand, one must call it a violation of truth, contrary to Christian freedom and therefore a criminal coercion, the desire of some persons that priests should perform supplicatory services to Saint Seraphim and bless as icons the images painted of him even before his universal ecclesiastical glorification.

In what way and why? Why, prior to the universal ecclesiastical glorification of Saint Seraphim, could prayerful address to him not be universally obligatory, while after this glorification precisely such a relationship is the only one that can be recognized by the sons of the Orthodox Church as the “canonical” norm for all of us? What is the actual essence of the matter? That is the question to which all the preceding explanations naturally reduce.

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Indeed. From everything said thus far it is, we believe, entirely clear that the Orthodox Church, even before its recognition of Saint Seraphim among the saints, and before the solemn liturgical glorification inseparably connected with that act—while permitting among individual believers opinions about him analogous to this recognition and essentially in accord with the Church’s liturgical service to him, together with their prayerful address to him—thereby clearly testifies that by its stated recognition of the devout elder Seraphim among the saints and by its begun liturgical-prayerful glorification of him, it introduces nothing essentially new—not only into the spiritual condition of Saint Seraphim himself, but also into the content of our thoughts about him and the character of our relationship to him; for in both these acts, essentially identical in kind, it is grounded not merely on similar but on the very same miraculous events and manifestations that had previously confirmed the truth of things for individual believers. If this is so, then what, one asks, does the celebration that has taken place actually signify? What is its essence, its meaning and significance?

“In the glorification of the saints by the sons of the earthly Church”—so Father Archpriest Smirnov answers this question in the cited book (p. 45)—“is expressed the recognition of an event already accomplished in the Heavenly Church, a reverent bowing before the will of the Lord who is wondrous in his saints, obedience to this will, at one and the same time both humbling our spirit before the wondrous ways of God’s providence and filling it with joy and gladness in the Lord our Savior, who grants in his saints new intercessors and advocates before his supreme throne.” The most essential element in this answer—which with remarkable theological precision and psychological subtlety marks the foundational features of the Orthodox teaching about a holy one of God and our relationship to him—consists, in our opinion, in the words: “recognition of an event already accomplished in the Heavenly Church.”

In order to clarify this fact and to understand whose and what recognition of the accomplished event is here meant, one must pay attention to the fact that, despite the essential similarity of the prayerful relationship to the Venerable One before and after his glorification, in each case it has its own distinctive features. These features consist in the following: that before the ecclesiastical glorification of Saint Seraphim, the veneration of him as a saint and prayerful relationship to him was a private matter, a personal affair of individual believers who either had personally witnessed or had even experienced upon themselves the miraculous confirmation of the truth of their relationship to him—and precisely for this reason it could not be a matter of obligation for all the remaining believers, who had either not witnessed or personally experienced such miraculous signs of Saint Seraphim’s holiness, or who in general were not incontrovertibly assured in their conscience of the authenticity of these signs. But after the Holy Synod expressed its concord with the people in the belief that had until then been the people’s faith, this latter becomes the faith of the entire Orthodox Church in Russia—in her wholeness—and therefore prayer to Saint Seraphim, which had until then been private, or so to speak personal prayer of individual believers, becomes a prayer of the universal Church, or the liturgical-ecclesiastical prayer. Henceforth doubts about the truth of things will relate no longer to the testimony of individual believers—which could be, as always may be, mistaken—but to the voice of the Church; and the conscious rejection—arising from such doubts—of the liturgical-ecclesiastical veneration of the Venerable One will already be a withdrawal from participation in the Church’s life. In other words, in the enrollment of Saint Seraphim among the saints pronounced by the Holy Synod, the voice of the Orthodox Russian Church is expressed, and in the celebration of his liturgical glorification, an act of Church life in the proper sense.

If I believe in the Church as the guardian of Christ’s truth and the treasury of the grace of the Holy Spirit, and recognize as such precisely the Eastern Greek-Russian Church, which has in fact expressed this voice and performed this “act”—that is, I recognize it specifically as Orthodox, and consequently as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, in a word, as true—then I can no longer have the same justification as before for my doubts about the holiness of the Venerable One and for withdrawing from his liturgical veneration; because, calling myself Orthodox and therefore recognizing the Orthodox Greek-Russian Church as the guide given to me by God himself in the work of salvation, I recognize in her voice the voice of that Church which is the pillar and foundation of truth, and in her life I recognize the action of the Holy Spirit by whose power my very salvation is accomplished; for to believe in the Church means not merely to recognize her as such in the mind, but to honor her as such in one’s heart and in one’s life to submit to her precepts and ordinances.

Not so much for the greater grounding of these judgments as for a more vivid and concrete presentation of them, let it be permitted to employ certain analogies—comparisons of the phenomenon under examination with others like it—making use for this purpose of that very word “canonization” by which, in theological-scholarly language, the initial act of this event or phenomenon is named.

The word “canonization” is Latin (canonisatio) and in the Roman Catholic Church is used in the sense of a papal determination concerning the Church’s enrollment of a reposed ascetic of piety among the saints and his inscription in the catalog of saints. But borrowed from there and used in the same meaning in our theological-scholarly literature as well, this word is both in its origin and in its fundamental meaning unquestionably Greek; it is derived from the Greek word kanon, which means: a rule, a plumb line, and from there further—a rule, a law, and finally—a catalog, a list, but not in general, rather a catalog or list of something strictly and precisely defined, in the sense of a norm, a rule, a law. Taken in this meaning of the word, though in various forms, it was from the very first centuries employed in the Christian Church in application to the books of Holy Scripture and to the members of the clergy.

According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, the Bible consists of canonical and non-canonical books; the former are those which have been entered in the catalog, or list, of divinely inspired books—not on the basis of anyone’s or any kind of human reasoning, but on the direct testimony of the holy prophets and apostles themselves and on the teaching of the Church—and therefore serve as the immutable and inviolable rule of faith and life; non-canonical books, on the other hand, are those which were not entered in the catalog of sacred books by divinely inspired persons, and therefore, though included in the Bible, do not have the same obligatory significance as canonical books—the significance of an immutable and inviolable rule of faith and life. Thus the fundamental distinction of canonical books from non-canonical consists in the fact of the inscription of the former in the list of sacred books, sealed in its absolute significance by divinely inspired testimonies as divine signs. If we compare this fact of, so to speak, the canonization of holy books with the canonization of the holy ones of God—as a fact similar to it—then the essence and significance both of the very act of the canonization of a given person and of our relationship to a canonized saint will, we believe, become clearer and more vivid to us. Just as through the inscription of this or that sacred book in the canon of specifically sacred books the book did not change in its essence, did not become divinely inspired only from that moment—having not been so before—but by virtue of the divine incontestability of the very fact of its inscription in the canon our relationship to it essentially had to change; so too the canonization of this or that ascetic of faith and piety does not alter his spiritual-moral character, making him a saint from a sinner, but alters only our relationship to him. If before canonization we could refrain from honoring him as a saint and from addressing him as a saint in prayer—precisely because we did not have a testimony of that holiness invested with the authority of divine incontestability—then after canonization, and precisely because this act was performed by those to whom, we believe, the Holy Spirit himself has entrusted the guidance of our spiritual life, there cannot and must not be for us any doubt about this holiness, attested by miraculous signs whose authenticity and reliability have been affirmed by those who performed the canonization; and our relationship to the canonized one can only be liturgical and prayerful.

And if we turn to another analogy suggested to us by the word “canonization”—and compare the enrollment of a reposed ascetic among the saints implied by it, and our liturgical-prayerful relationship to him, with the ordination of chosen persons to holy orders and our relationship to them—then the conclusions drawn will become still more evident to us and the matter will, we believe, be illuminated still more broadly.

The foundational Greek word for the concept of canonization, kanon, we have said, was already in the ancient Church employed in application to the clergy or church staff; thus “sacred church ministers,” says Professor Golubinsky in his book on the canonization of saints, “were called in ancient times canonics—hoi kanonikoi—Basil the Great, canon 6; those numbered in the canon—en to kanoni exetazomenoi—First Ecumenical Council, canons 16 and 17; people of the canon—hoi tou kanonos—Fourth Ecumenical Council, canon 2 and Antioch Council, canons 2 and 11.” Explaining the significance of this designation, the professor continues: “this means that they (those called canonics) formed a special corporation of persons numbered in the church rolls”; but the reference he cites immediately after (the expression of the First Ecumenical Council ‘en to kanoni,’ the Sixth Ecumenical Council, canon 5, replaces with the expression: ‘en hieratiko katalogo’), it seems to us, gives the right to define this significance still more precisely in the sense that these persons were called canonics as being numbered in the list of specifically sacred persons, that is, those bearing holy orders. It is this holy order of theirs—granting them the right to be called canonics as conferring upon them the particular grace of the Holy Spirit by which they are called to sanctify the faithful—that has significance for us in the present case. If the sacred ministers are called canonics—people of the canon, numbered in the canon or sacred list—and are called so because, through episcopal ordination, they bear upon themselves the particular grace of the Holy Spirit by which they sanctify the faithful, then may one not draw a certain parallel with this in respect to the canonization of saints and our relationship to them? It is true that here there immediately strikes the eye the essential difference that the canonics receive through episcopal ordination a particular grace, while the holy ones of God through the act of canonization are only incontrovertibly attested as possessing a divine power inherent in them; but what matters to us is that just as the grace of the priesthood bestowed through ordination is unquestionable for us in its concrete reality, so too the act of canonization renders the holiness of the one canonized incontrovertible for us; and just as those invested with the grace of the priesthood are called to sanctify the faithful by this grace, so too the canonization of saints is welcome and dear to us because—if before the canonization of a given person not everyone knew, not everyone was assured, and not everyone had recourse to his intercession and advocacy for men before God—now this intercessory significance before God is incontrovertibly and reliably known to all, and all without any doubt can have recourse to him and pray to him.

Of course, the concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, or of the Orthodox Church in Russia, cannot be called equal in its scope to the concept of the Universal Church; for within the scope of the Universal Church, besides the Orthodox Church in Russia, there are other particular, local churches as well—namely the Constantinopolitan, the Jerusalem, the Antiochian, and the Alexandrian. But from this it does not follow that her voice, not in general but in this specific case, is not an infallible witness of truth, and that her act has no gracious significance—as many now wish, who call themselves Orthodox and yet dare not only to discuss but also to condemn both her voice and her acts. The injustice of these people, who seek new paths for their spiritual life, is revealed with particular clarity precisely in the present case; and we even think that it may have been in order to expose these presumptuous attempts that the Lord God was pleased to grant us the celebration of the glorification of Saint Seraphim that we are now experiencing.

Indeed, can one speak of the injustice and spiritual impoverishment of that Church in whose heaven spiritual luminaries are kindled—whose light illuminates the whole world, and whose warmth of gracious power warms so many despondent hearts and in general vivifies and regenerates so many human souls? Let those people turn their attention to those not tens but hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who have streamed in an unbroken procession and continue to stream toward Sarov; to the labors and privations to which they have voluntarily consigned and continue to consign themselves; let them look into their tremblingly joyful and animated faces and hearken to their ardent speeches about the holy consolations of faith they have experienced; let them gather those tears that flow at the shrine of the Venerable One; and, having weighed all this, let them say in good conscience—has the Russian Church grown poor in spiritual strength, and has it erred in its voice? Of course the Venerable One himself, whom the Lord has raised up, draws to himself these innumerable multitudes, wipes their tears, pacifies their consciences, comforts their despondent hearts, enlightens their minds, and so forth. But the wonder of it is precisely that Saint Seraphim was a son of the Orthodox Russian Church—that his all-powerful gracious strength, by which he acts upon these multitudes and before which the alluring power of the contemporary idols—those who have broken away from the Church—seems so paltry, he acquired through the labor of his whole life precisely in the spirit of the Orthodox Church; and by the example of his life and the word of his instruction he taught people to honor precisely it as the true Church and to obey its teaching and commandments, and to order their spiritual life in all its manifestations according to its ordinances and regulations. Can one say, in view of all this, that the enrollment of Saint Seraphim among the saints is a mistaken human word and not the voice of divine truth, and that the opening of his holy relics is a dead work of that empty word and not a manifestation of the all-acting power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Church?

Should those people say—for whom perhaps the understanding of spiritual states is not even accessible—that all this is self-deception and excitement, we shall answer them what the Apostle Philip once said to Nathanael: “Come and see” (John 1:45), and what the Lord Savior himself replied to the disciples of John, who were scandalized by him: “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them” (Matt. 11:5). We shall point to those miracles and signs that in such abundance are poured forth by God through Saint Seraphim upon all who approach him with faith and love. Of these miracles, rigorously and precisely verified in their authenticity and reliability, ninety-four are indicated in the act of the Holy Synod; in the archive of the Sarov Hermitage there are preserved not a few hundred letters about other such signs; and of course still more such miracles have not yet been recorded anywhere. Those who were in Sarov at the celebration of the opening of the holy relics were eyewitnesses of such miracles—not one, but ten and more in a single day. These miracles are being performed now as well, and we trust will not cease to be performed in the future. And what is especially wonderful: all these numerous and manifold miracles—incomprehensible and astonishing in their divinely all-powerful force even to the very unbelievers, who find no grounds to dispute their reliability—were performed both before and in still greater abundance after the opening of Saint Seraphim’s holy relics; they were and are performed not only in Sarov itself—whether at the relics themselves or at the spring—but also at a distance, hundreds and thousands of miles from Sarov, through the mere mental recollection of the Venerable One and the mere “interior” prayer addressed to him. More than that: such miracles were and are performed not only upon those who themselves pray to the Venerable One, but also upon those for whom only others pray, and who themselves are not in a condition to be aware of what is happening around them, or to desire anything, or to pray—as for example infants, the feeble-minded, the demon-possessed, and the like. Is this not the finger of God, by which the Lord himself pointed out to the council of archpastors of the Russian Church the devout elder Seraphim as one of his holy ones dwelling in the ranks of the saints, and now, after his enrollment by the Holy Synod in that rank—points out to all of us in this very enrollment his divine voice, inviolable and incontrovertible, resistance to which must be recognized as criminal resistance to manifest truth and a trampling upon the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Orthodox Church?

IV (12)

Unfortunately our unbelievers, instead of responding to this finger of God—which points them to the true path of life—by crying out, as the Apostle Thomas did: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), point to the opening of the holy relics of Saint Seraphim and, like the king of Judah Ahaz who refused the heavenly sign of the truthfulness of the Prophet Isaiah’s prediction that was offered to him, say with feigned or genuine humility: “What is the point of this willful, without clear signs from the Lord, exhumation of the grave of the reposed elder and the opening of his ‘little coffin’ hidden within it, when one could have gotten along without this?” But these people either forget, or through their general ignorance of spiritual literature do not know at all, that such a divine voice pointing to the glorification of God’s holy one precisely through the opening of his holy relics has not always taken the form of either visions of the saint or some other unintended by men and seemingly accidental remarkable circumstances; sometimes the voice of the people—which not without reason is called the voice of God—was also recognized as such an indicator of God’s will, and sometimes too the devout wishes of sovereigns, “whose hearts are in God’s hands.” In the “History of the Canonization of Saints in the Russian Church” by Professor E. E. Golubinsky, not a few examples of this kind are cited. The well-known Russian pilgrim to holy places, Barsky, relates that on Mount Athos the bones of deceased brothers are dug up three or four years after burial and placed in the ossuary, “until such time as, if God wills to glorify someone of virtuous life, he manifests upon them some fragrance—which has come to pass with many.” According to the words of a writer on Athos in his letters, this custom exists there to this day…

It is astonishing how resourceful is the spirit of contradiction against truth and resistance to the Church. While some, with expressions of reverent horror, recoiled before what they called the “fearless” presumption of the Holy Synod in charging the examination of the venerable remains of the ever-memorable elder of Sarov, Hieromonk Father Seraphim, others—after this examination had already been completed—armed themselves against the devout temporary protection of the shrine from idle curiosity, and with incomprehensible boldness in openly and widely circulated leaflets declared that “in fulfillment of their duty before truth and the Russian people they had taken upon themselves the investigation of the affair concerning the relics of Seraphim of Sarov and would not hesitate, if necessary, to proceed even to the opening of the contents of the coffin”—naturally by arbitrary, forcible, and premature means. In all probability these persons, blinded by malice, these “fighters against Orthodoxy,” had by some roundabout means heard a rumor that those who had conducted the examination of “the little coffin of Elder Seraphim” had not found therein his incorrupt body, and with their impudent outburst were counting on dealing a decisive blow to Orthodoxy, imagining that the relics of saints must always and necessarily be completely incorrupt, that the people were expecting precisely such incorrupt relics of Saint Seraphim to be opened, and that the Holy Synod intended to pass off the relics to be opened as exactly the same; and that it was for this reason that the Synod was delaying the matter of the opening and covering it with secrecy. The calculation was evidently this: the Holy Synod, fearing the exposure of its deception, would continue to maintain silence, while they in the meantime would themselves “open the contents of the coffin” and the deception would be unmasked by the act itself; and it would be no better for Orthodoxy if they were not allowed to carry out such an opening, since that too could be explained as a fear of revealing the truth.

Vain expectations and mistaken calculations! How they recall by their craftiness the tempting questions of the Herodians and Pharisees about tribute to Caesar, and of the Sadducees about the resurrection of the dead, addressed to the Lord and by him so simply and clearly unmasked in their dishonest emptiness! Does this not suggest that such must have been and was the end of the senseless scheme of the contemporary enemies of Christ’s truth as well?

Soon after these leaflets appeared, His Eminence Anthony, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, who had been entrusted with performing the opening of the holy relics of Saint Seraphim on July 19, published a “necessary clarification” on the matter, and the Holy Synod, in its official publication Church Gazette, promulgated the act of examination of the relics, drawn up on January 11 of the current year by another first hierarch who had conducted the examination, His Eminence Vladimir, Metropolitan of Moscow, together with several other ecclesiastical and civil personages, with all their own signatures. In this act, which we have already quoted in full (in Book VI), the following is written concerning the holy relics themselves: “In the coffin those present clearly saw the distinctly defined skeletal remains of the departed, covered with the remnants of his decayed monastic garments. The body of the ever-memorable elder, Father Seraphim, had undergone decomposition, but his bones, being entirely preserved, were found to be properly arranged, though easily separable from one another. The hair of the head and beard, of a grayish-reddish color, was preserved, though it had separated from its places.” Metropolitan Anthony, in his “clarification,” having cited the aforementioned words of the “act,” goes on to say, among other things: “Such is the content of the coffin. But here begins, for many, a stumbling block. ‘There are among us people,’ as Professor E. E. Golubinsky rightly observes, ‘who have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge, who assert that the relics of saints are always and without exception completely incorrupt, that is, entirely whole, in no way decomposed or damaged.’ Yet such an assertion is wholly incorrect and does not accord with the universal consciousness of the Church, according to which the incorruption of relics is by no means considered a universal and obligatory criterion for the glorification of holy saints. The proof of the holiness of the saints consists in the miracles performed at their tombs or through their relics, whether these are whole bodies or only bones alone. The incorruption of relics, when it exists, is a miracle, but only a supplementary one to those miracles that are wrought through their mediation.” And the holiness of Elder Seraphim was determined not by the condition of his remains, but by the faith of the people and by the numerous miracles which, upon being duly investigated, presented no shadow of doubt as to their authenticity, being in their nature events that manifested the miraculous power of God through the intercession and mediation of Father Seraphim before God. And only after such confirmation of the holiness and prayerful boldness of Father Seraphim before God was it decreed that his most venerable remains should be an object of reverent veneration by all who come to his prayerful intercession. (Act of the Holy Synod, January 9, 1903.) For “one does not place a lamp under a bushel. It would be painful to the believing heart to hide these remains of the Saint under the ground. In a holy person, everything is holy and wonder-working, even the shadow, even the garment, not only the body or the bones. Thus the shadow of the Apostle Peter, the head-coverings of the Apostle Paul, healed the sick of their illnesses. By the touch of the bones of the Prophet Elisha, a dead man was raised to life. Even the dust upon which the feet of a holy person walked acquires healing power. So it is that after the holy elder Seraphim, the earth from his grave, the stone upon which he prayed, the water from the spring he dug, are venerated as holy objects and are taken in portions and carried home by believers as wonder-working, granting healing in various infirmities. His bodily remains, his bones, are for the believer a precious shrine, a true treasure, through which healing help is granted to those who honor him”…

Thus did falsehood lie against itself.

Professor E. E. Golubinsky, in that same book of his which we have cited, from which Metropolitan Anthony quotes his words, speaks further of these people who have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge: “they assert this for the same reason that people like them asserted it in the fifteenth century, namely, out of their imagined concern for human unbelief, out of their opinion of simple people, as if ‘any saint who does not lie whole in his body is, in their view (the view of simple people), not holy.’ But they slander simple people, who in reality approach relics with equal reverence and devotion, whether the relics consist of whole bodies or merely bones and small remnants and fragments of bones. A decisive and vivid proof of this is furnished by those occasions when relics of saints were brought to us from the East in the form of small remnants of their bones: our people flocked to render them veneration with the same faith with which they also venerate whole bodies.”

And now, do we not see the very same thing in the attitude of the common people toward the relics of Saint Seraphim? And if for some the pilgrimages of these millions to the holy remains of Saint Seraphim are not convincing, for such persons, as proof of the equal honor accorded to all manner of holy remains, we can point to the specially venerated relics of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon in Moscow, to the particles of holy relics in the Kremlin Cathedrals, and many others. How many cities or monasteries in Russia are there where there are no specially venerated holy icons and reliquaries containing particles of the holy relics of both Russian and ancient Greek saints? Everyone knows that in the holy antimension of every church, holy relics are placed in memory of the fact that in ancient times, during the persecutions, the Liturgy was celebrated over the tombs of the martyrs. The relics of the greater part of the saints in Greece and in the East, as well as in the West, are bones, not whole bodies. Beyond the examples mentioned above in the excerpts from Metropolitan Anthony’s clarification and from Golubinsky’s work, the latter contains a lengthy list of other similar examples from both the ancient and the modern history of the Church, with precise references to the primary sources from which these examples are drawn.

That the relics of saints are not always whole bodies, but are sometimes and in most cases bones or even fragments of bones, is attested by many of the holy fathers and teachers of both the ancient Greek and the Russian Church; among the ancients, Saints John Chrysostom and Basil the Great, and among the Russian, Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk, Saint Dimitri of Rostov, and among more recent teachers, Metropolitans Platon and Filaret of Moscow and many others, whose words are cited in that same book of Professor Golubinsky. He also proves, on the basis of numerous expressions in ancient manuscripts and philological data, that the word “moshchi” (relics) was used to denote not the whole body, but only parts of it, chiefly bones, and that this word signifies not something whole, but only a part of some sacred or non-sacred object, so that to take apart some object into “moshchi” meant to take it apart into pieces. The word “moshchi” is Slavonic and derives from the word “moshch,” meaning strength, firmness, power; consequently, literally, this word must denote the firm parts of the body, that is, the bones. Miklosich and Sreznevsky in their dictionaries of the Old Slavonic language translate the word “moshti,” “moshchi” with the Greek leipsana and the Latin reliquiae. Thus, translated into our common usage, “moshchi” denotes a dead body, the mortal remains of a person. In our contemporary prayer book, in the order of burial, the body of the deceased, in whatever condition it may be, is generally called “moshchi.”

“If,” Professor Golubinsky continues in his book, “the Church had accepted the teaching that the incorruption of relics is itself the proof of the holiness of saints, then many saints whose relics remained and remain undisclosed would not have been canonized, many saints would not have been canonized before the discovery of their relics, and many saints would not have been canonized until after a considerable interval of time following the discovery of the relics. If this were so, then all the departed whose bodies proved to be incorrupt would have been numbered among the saints. Yet this is not the case.” Of the departed whose bodies proved to be incorrupt but who remain unnumbered among the saints, the professor cites Joasaph Gorlenkov, Bishop of Belgorod, whose incorrupt body rests openly in the Belgorod Trinity Monastery, Metropolitan Paul of Tobolsk, resting in the Kiev Caves Lavra, and others.

Indeed, the very nature of the matter does not require the absolutely incorrupt wholeness of the entire body, such as we behold in certain holy relics. Of course all of us—both those whose bodies have undergone decomposition and those whose bodies remain incorrupt in their full composition even after death—will rise bodily; but one cannot suppose that the incorrupt bodies of the saints of God will remain after the resurrection just as they are now preserved. However miraculous the properties of these bodies, they are still essentially different from the body of the risen Lord, according to the likeness of which our bodies must be after the universal resurrection (1Cor 15:20,23,42-51). And this transformation of bodies at the resurrection, into the likeness of the body of the risen Lord, must be so essential that we cannot even conceive of the spiritual properties of those bodies, just as we cannot conceive of the properties of the body of the risen Lord himself. Consequently, the purpose of the incorruption of holy relics, if one may so express it, is not in preserving them in their present state for all eternity, but in the manifestation through them of divine grace, as a particular divine power in which the departed person partook through his God-pleasing life, and by which he can, according to God’s will, act upon us through the miracles and signs that are wrought in answer to prayers addressed to him. The relics of the saints are thus sacred and holy remains of certain saints, granted to us in order to sustain in us the most vivid remembrance of those heavenly intercessors on our behalf, which we must honor as such, and are those earthly means (in the expression of the Larger Catechism of Metropolitan Filaret) through which the Lord most fully manifests his wonder-working power.“”

“By human reckoning,” says Father Archpriest Smirnov, “one could say something quite opposite to what is thought and said by those zealots of the faith without understanding, as pointed out by Professor E. E. Golubinsky—namely: the more fierce the assault of the enemy, the more glorious the victory over him; the more he has plundered, the more precious what has been saved from him. But such human calculations must be set aside where the mind and power of God are at work: ‘where God wills, the order of nature is overcome.’”

The design of this reliquary, set between two pillars on the right side of the Dormition Cathedral of the monastery, is distinguished by a majestic simplicity. The reliquary itself, in which the holy relics of the Saint rest, was made, in memory of his prayerful feat upon the rock, of Russian “Vazelemsky” marble of a yellowish-white color; it is composed of four massive slabs set upon a platform with three steps of the same marble, and measures 1 arshin in height, 2 arshins 12 vershoks in length, and 1 arshin 2 vershoks in width. The entire reliquary is adorned all around with carved work alone, without polishing or gilding. On the western head panel, on a round shield, is carved a patterned four-pointed equilateral cross of Byzantine form, and on either side of it the words: The righteous shall live forever, and their reward is with the Lord, and their care is with the Most High (Wisd. 5:15) and The Lord preserves all their bones; not one of them shall be broken (Ps. 33:20). On the right and left panels are carved exact likenesses of the eight-pointed copper cross that the Saint wore on his chest, and on their sides—a chronicle of the principal events of the Saint’s life; on the foot panel of the tomb, in a round convex shield under the Cap of Monomakh—the initial letters of the names of Their Imperial Majesties, and on the sides of the shield, a prayer of Saint Seraphim, written by him in his own hand in one of the liturgical books remaining after him: Save, O Lord, and have mercy upon Your servant (name), and enlighten his mind with the light of the knowledge of Your Holy Gospel, and guide him upon the path of Your commandments, and teach him, O Savior, to do Your will, for You are our God. The lid of the reliquary is of silver, weighing approximately 3.5 puds, and represents a wide sloping frame, in which is set under glass, painted on zinc, an image of Saint Seraphim lying in his coffin. At the corners of the lid are chased images of six-winged seraphim, and between them, on all four sides, in Slavonic script, is written the troparion common to all saints in the monastic order. On the inner board of the lid is engraved that this reliquary was created by the command and pious zeal of Their Imperial Majesties, with the indication of the time of its making.—Into this stone reliquary is fitted an oak coffin—an artistic reproduction of the oak log in which for 70 years the body of the Saint rested in the earth; this coffin-log (2 arshins 8.5 vershoks in length) is bound with three iron hoops and ten hanging clasps for carrying the coffin by hand. Into this coffin-log is fitted a cypress coffin containing the holy relics.—Around the tomb is a bronze chased-work grating with images of double-headed eagles at the corners and seraphim at the sides.—Four bases with columns of Kiev labradorite support the canopy which, rising above the tomb to a height of 12 arshins, has the form of a chapel over a well with a pointed roof in the old Vladimir-Suzdal style. Made of gilded bronze with fine chased work, the canopy is crowned with 5 onion-shaped domes. In the arches and kokoshniks of the central cupola of the canopy are images: on the western side—the Savior Not Made by Hands, with the inscription along the frieze: Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today, and forever; on the northern side—the nocturnal prayer of Saint Seraphim on the rock, with the inscription along the frieze of the prayer of the Publican; on the southern side—the appearance to Saint Seraphim of the Mother of God with twelve crowned virgins, and the inscription: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, through the prayers of the Mother of God, have mercy on us sinners; and on the eastern side—the blessed repose of the Saint, with the inscription: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. In the arches of the central cupola are icons of the saints with whom Saint Seraphim was in spiritual communion and whose works he loved both to read himself and to use for the edification of others, namely: the three Ecumenical Teachers, Isaac the Syrian, Macarius of Egypt, John Climacus, Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves, Sergius of Radonezh, and others. At the corners of the architrave are 8 icon-painted images of seraphim, and between them and the kokoshniks—icons of Saints Isidore, Agatha, Prokhoros, and those whose feast falls on July 19 and January 2.—Above the column capitals are icons of the saints whose names are borne by the August promoters of the glorification of Saint Seraphim.—The total cost of the reliquary with the canopy is approximately 35,000 rubles. The design belongs to Prince Putyatin; all materials of the reliquary are exclusively Russian.—Around the reliquary in the arches of the canopy runs a row of lamps, and on the eastern platform—large candle stands. There are 36 lamps in all, of which 5 are gifts of the Most August Persons. The lamp of Their Majesties is of round form, golden, and adorned with precious stones from Siberian mountain deposits. The next lamp is a gift of the August children of Their Majesties, then of the Grand Dukes—Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife, Peter Nikolaevich with his wife, and Nicholas Nikolaevich. All five of these lamps were executed after the design of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich, the well-known connoisseur of ancient Christian and Byzantine style.—Before the reliquary of the Saint is spread a carpet-runner, the borders of which are embroidered with ribbons by the work of Her Imperial Majesty herself.

“Against Those Who Deny the Veneration of the Saints. A Sermon by His Eminence Vladimir, Metropolitan of Moscow, on the Day of the 250th Anniversary of the Opening of the Relics of the God-Fearing Prince Daniel, Delivered at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow.” See Faith and Church, 1902, vol. 2, p. 350.

L. Bagrecov, in the article: “The Interrelationship between the Earthly and the Heavenly Church.” Journal Faith and Reason, 1903, no. 14, pp. 73-75.

See N. Maltsev, The Psychology of the Moral Influence of One Person upon Another. Kazan, 1902, pp. 7 ff.

See his Supernatural Revelation and Natural Knowledge of God, p. 387.

See Maltsev, op. cit., pp. 100, 131, 171, 191, and elsewhere.

See Bagrecov, p. 83.

Vol. II, pt. 2, sec. 1, p. 254 and chapter. Cited from the above-mentioned article by Mr. Bagrecov, which we also used in our preceding discussions.

Sermons and Addresses of Metropolitan Filaret, vol. 3, p. 211.

See his Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, 4th ed. St. Petersburg, 1896, p. 236. The prayer in question, according to the order of the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, is read as follows: “We also offer You this rational worship for those who have fallen asleep in the faith: forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics, and every righteous spirit made perfect in faith. Especially for our most holy, most pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary; for the holy prophet, forerunner, and baptizer John; for the holy, glorious, and all-praised apostles; and for all Your saints, through whose supplications, O God, visit us.” Somewhat different in wording, but wholly in accord with this prayer in the spirit of its content, is the prayer after the consecration of the Holy Gifts in the order of the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great.

See the cited work of Fr. Smirnov, pp. 48-44.

In this connection, it is worthy of note that according to the ecclesiastical typikon the aforementioned prayer of the celebrant is recited in secret, and during its recitation the faithful sing the magnification of the Most Holy Mother of God.

The central, so to speak, act of canonization, according to the rite of the Latin Church, consists in the solemn proclamation of the Pope from his throne: “We decree and define that the Blessed N. is a saint and we inscribe him in the catalog of saints” (Beatum N. sanctum esse decernimus et definimus ipsumque sanctorum catalogo adscribimus).

The distinction between Orthodox canonization and Roman Catholic canonization that we have noted above pertains not to the substance of the act, nor to what it produces, but to its form and method: quite apart from the theatricality of the Latin act of canonization, which is foreign to Orthodoxy, it excessively emphasizes the person of the one performing the canonization, which is likewise absent from our own practice, just as this is noticeably true in the administration of the sacraments (among us the priest says: “is baptized,” “receives communion,” while among Roman Catholics: “I baptize,” “I give communion”).

The History of the Canonization of Saints in the Russian Church, by E. Golubinsky. 2nd ed., Moscow, 1903, p. 11.

See History of the Canonization of Saints, by Prof. Golubinsky, p. 29.

Miklosich. Lexicon Palaeoslov. Vindob. 1862-65, p. 382. Sreznevsky, Materials for a Dictionary of the Old Russian Language, vol. II, fasc. 1. St. Petersburg, 1895, p. 183.

See citation on p. 301.

Golubinsky, p. 302.

P. 67.

Scripture Index

Every Scripture reference identified in this book, sorted in canonical Bible order. Tap a reference to jump to the verse where it appears.

Genesis
Genesis 20:7–17I (9) (9.2)
Exodus
Exodus 32:11–14I (9) (9.2)
1 Chronicles
1 Chronicles 29:18I (9) (9.2)
Job
Job 14:4II (10) (10.6)
Job 42:8–10I (9) (9.2)
Psalms
Psalms 33:20IV (12) (12.12)
Psalms 131:10I (9) (9.2)
Psalms 138:17I (9) (9.9)
Daniel
Daniel 3:35I (9) (9.2)
Sirach
Sirach 7:36I (9) (9.4)
2 Maccabees
2 Maccabees 12:39–45I (9) (9.4)
2 Maccabees 15:12–16I (9) (9.2)
Matthew
Matthew 5:48II (10) (10.6)
Matthew 11:5III (11) (11.12)
Matthew 12:32I (9) (9.9)
Matthew 16:18V (7.8)
Matthew 18:10I (9) (9.2)
Matthew 22:32I (9) (9.3)
Matthew 28:20V (7.8)
Mark
Mark 2:8–9II (10) (10.1)
Mark 16:16I (9) (9.9)
Luke
Luke 1:46–49I (3.3)
John
John 1:45III (11) (11.12)
John 3:8II (10) (10.3)
John 5:17II (10) (10.6)
John 20:28IV (12) (12.1)
Acts
Acts 7:60I (9) (9.3)
Acts 17:26I (9) (9.6)
Romans
Romans 1:16II (10) (10.6)
Romans 9:1–3I (9) (9.3)
1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 12:10–30I (9) (9.7)
1 Corinthians 12:28II (10) (10.6)
1 Corinthians 13:1–6I (9) (9.7)
1 Corinthians 13:8I (9) (9.3)
Ephesians
Ephesians 6:18II (10) (10.6)
Colossians
Colossians 1:18I (9) (9.7)
Hebrews
Hebrews 1:14I (9) (9.2)
Hebrews 12:22–23I (9) (9.7)
Hebrews 13:8V (7.8)
James
James 5:17–18I (9) (9.2)
2 Peter
2 Peter 1:15I (9) (9.3)
1 John
1 John 5:16I (9) (9.9)
Revelation
Revelation 8:3–4I (9) (9.2)

Colophon

The Glory of St Seraphim of Sarov
by St Seraphim of Sarov.

This edition was produced by
Royal Archives.

The text is set in Palatino and Georgia.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
August 16, 2026.

Table of Contents

- Title Page
- Copyright
- Introduction

- The Glory of Our Venerable Father Seraphim of Sarov the Wonderworker in the Light of the Christian Faith of the Orthodox Church

- The Celebration of the Glorification of Saint Seraphim of Sarov the Wonderworker

- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V

- The Dogmatic Meaning and Church-Canonical Significance of the Celebration of July 19

- I (9)
- II (10)
- III (11)
- IV (12)
- Scripture Index
- Colophon