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

Life of Elder Seraphim of the Sarov Hermitage

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: Житие старца Серафима, Саровской обители иеромонаха, пустынножителя и затворника

Cover: Birch Grove (1879) by Arkhip Kuindzhi (Russian, 1841/2–1910), Wikimedia Commons, which is in the public domain.

Edition identifier: urn:royalarchives:zhitie-startsa-serafima-sarovskoj-obiteli-ieromonaha-pustynnozhitelja-i-zatvornika:en:1

Introduction

The Author

This book belongs to a distinct kind of writing. It is not a treatise composed by the man whose name stands at its head, but a Life — a hagiography—written about him by the community that kept his memory. Saint Seraphim of Sarov left the Church a handful of his own words: the counsels gathered as the Spiritual Instructions, and the celebrated Conversation with Nikolai Motovilov on the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. The present work is something else. It is the narrative of his whole earthly course, from his birth in Kursk to his repose at Sarov and the wonders reported at his grave, assembled from monastery archives, the recollections of those who had known him, and the earlier printed accounts that had already begun to circulate. In the manner of the Church’s oldest hagiography, its true author is a tradition rather than a single pen.

The saint it describes was born Prokhor Moshnin, the son of Isidor and Agafya Moshnin, a devout merchant family of Kursk. The received tradition, followed in the Church’s commemoration of him, places his birth on the nineteenth of July, 1754; this Life, reflecting the fluidity of the monastery’s own early records, gives the year as 1759. He lost his father as a small child and was formed by his mother’s piety and charity. After a boyhood marked by two deliverances that his household read as signs of divine protection—a fall from the bell tower of the church his family was building, and a grave illness healed, the Life says, after the wonderworking Kursk icon of the Mother of God was carried through their courtyard—the young Prokhor set his heart on the monastic life. Having journeyed to Kiev to venerate the relics of the Caves and to seek a blessing, he was directed to Sarov, and entered that hermitage as a novice in 1778. He was tonsured a monk in 1786 with the name Seraphim, was ordained hierodeacon and, in 1793, hieromonk. There followed the long years of withdrawal for which he is most remembered: the forest solitude, the extreme fasting, the thousand nights of prayer said to have been kept upon a rock, and, in 1804, the beating by robbers that left him bent for the rest of his days and which he met with complete forgiveness. Emerging at last from his reclusion, he became one of the most sought elders of his age, receiving a stream of visitors with the greeting “my joy,” exercising gifts of insight and healing that the Life reports in abundance, and taking under his fatherly care the women’s community at Diveyevo. He reposed on the second of January, 1833.

The compiler who gave this material its fullest and most durable shape was Nikolai Vasilyevich Elagin (1817–1891), a religious writer and censor of the imperial period who had made a study of the Sarov monastery’s history. In 1861 the monastery asked him to prepare, from its own archives and the existing publications, a complete account of the elder’s life; Motovilov, the saint’s devoted disciple and first collector of testimony, passed further materials to him that same year. Elagin’s redaction was published at St. Petersburg in 1863. He did not write on a blank page: short accounts of the elder’s life and deeds had already appeared in the two decades after his repose, and part of Elagin’s task was to weigh, correct, and enlarge them against the monastery’s documents. His labor produced the fullest and best-attested Life yet made, and it is this redaction—reprinted, expanded, and adjusted across successive editions through the end of the century—that stands behind the text translated here. Tellingly, the 1863 book appeared without his name, as a work of the monastery itself, and his authorship was acknowledged in print only in the fifth edition of 1905. That anonymity is not incidental: it reflects the book’s own understanding of itself as the corporate testimony of Sarov rather than the composition of an individual, and it is why the work is rightly received as the Sarov tradition’s Life of its elder, given order by Elagin’s hand.

The Work: Occasion & Purpose

The Life was written to preserve and to edify, and behind both purposes lay the growing conviction that a saint had lived and died in Sarov’s forest. Within a few years of Seraphim’s repose the first short accounts of his life and deeds had appeared, drawn from those who remembered him; the demand for them, and the multiplying reports of help received at his grave, made a fuller and more carefully documented Life both possible and necessary. The monastery’s commission to Elagin in 1861 was an effort to gather this scattered witness—archival records, the depositions of eyewitnesses, the earlier printed sketches, and the papers Motovilov had assembled—into one authoritative narrative before the living memory of the elder should fade.

Its aim, then, is twofold and openly so. First, it means to instruct. The book everywhere pauses over Seraphim’s conduct to draw out the lesson: how the young novice conquered despondency by obedience, how the ascetic ordered his sleep and food, why stillness must be guarded and idle talk shunned. Long stretches of it are effectively a manual of the spiritual life, taught by example and interlaced with the sayings of the elder himself and of the Fathers he loved—Isaac the Syrian, Barsanuphius, Macarius, John of the Ladder. Second, it means to testify. The later chapters, recording the cures and consolations reported after his death, function as a dossier of the saint’s continuing intercession, the very kind of evidence the Church weighs when it comes to number someone among the saints. Composed a generation after the elder’s repose and four decades before his formal glorification, the Life stands as both the ripened fruit of Sarov’s devotion and, in retrospect, a principal foundation of the case for his canonization.

Argument & Structure

The book follows the shape that Christian hagiography has kept for centuries: birth and formation, ascent through the monastic degrees, the summit of holiness, repose, and the wonders that follow. In its complete form it moves through twelve chapters and a short appendix. The opening chapters carry Prokhor from his Kursk childhood and his mother’s blessing to the gates of Sarov, and then through his years as a novice—the round of obediences in the bakehouse and the woodworking shop, the illness of 1780 and the vision that healed it, and the disciplined pattern of prayer, reading, and labor by which he prepared for tonsure. The central chapters trace the classic Sarovian progression: from tonsure and priesthood into the “distant wilderness” of forest solitude, into the practice of stillness and a period of strict reclusion, and then into the “near hermitage” from which, in old age, he opened his door to the world.

From there the narrative turns outward to the elder’s public work—his fatherhood of the Diveyevo community, his influence on the convents at Ardatov and Zelenaya Gora, and the crowded final years of his eldership—before closing with his preparation for death, his passing and burial, and two chapters cataloguing the “gracious help” reported at his intercession afterward. The appended cell prayer-rule, the short daily office he kept and taught, fittingly ends the volume where the elder’s own life began, in prayer.

Two threads run through the whole. One is ascetic and interior: the Life is unusually attentive to the psychology of the spiritual struggle, and Seraphim’s own analyses—of tedium, despondency, and faintheartedness, and of the humility that alone breaks their power—give the book much of its enduring weight. The other is the theme of divine protection and presence, announced in the childhood deliverances and gathered up in the Mother of God’s words over the sick novice, “This one is of our kind,” a refrain the reader is meant to hear again in every later wonder.

Readers should know that the present edition does not contain the entire book; the reason is set out below. The great set-pieces of the received tradition that fall in the missing chapters—the thousand nights upon the rock, the robber attack of 1804, the fullest telling of the posthumous miracles—belong to the Life’s design even where the text before the reader does not narrate them, and are supplied by the wider tradition and by the saint’s other Lives.

Theological & Spiritual Significance

At the center of everything this Life records stands the teaching for which Seraphim is most loved, and which his own Conversation with Motovilov states outright: that the true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. The Life dramatizes that conviction. Its long apprenticeship in obedience, its forest stillness, its fasting and unceasing Jesus Prayer, are not presented as ends in themselves but as the means—the “spiritual commerce,” in the elder’s own merchant’s image—by which a soul trades the perishable for the grace of the Spirit. The saying most often carried out from Sarov, that a man who acquires a peaceful spirit will draw thousands around him toward salvation, is the practical form of the same doctrine, and the Life’s portrait of the elder besieged by pilgrims is its living illustration.

The book is also a document of the Russian recovery of ancient monastic prayer. Seraphim belongs to the same eighteenth- and nineteenth-century renewal that produced the Philokalia in Slavonic and the eldership of Optina; his reading, named page by page in these chapters, is the hesychast inheritance of Isaac the Syrian, Barsanuphius, and John of the Ladder, and his life is that inheritance embodied in the Russian forest. In him the tradition of stillness and the invocation of the Name is shown not as a museum piece but as a living path, walked to its end within living memory.

This attention to the inner life gives the book a value beyond biography. Its most quoted passages are the elder’s own diagnoses of the soul’s maladies and their cures, and they read as a compact ascetical teaching drawn from experience rather than from books alone. The Life is careful to show that Seraphim’s authority rested on what he had suffered and overcome: he prescribes the ordering of sleep, food, and speech because he had first tried these remedies on himself, and he speaks of despondency and its healing as one who had been driven to the edge of it and returned. In this the book joins the long line of monastic writing in which doctrine is inseparable from a life, and the reader is invited to receive the teaching only in the company of the man who lived it.

Not least, the Life exhibits the particular vocation of the starets, the spiritual elder. What the desert once was, the elder’s cell becomes: a place where the ordinary Christian—the merchant, the soldier, the peasant woman, the landowner Motovilov—may receive from a man filled with the Spirit the discernment, healing, and consolation that the monk had gone into solitude to find. Seraphim’s care for Diveyevo makes the point concrete, extending his eldership to a whole community of women and binding the fruits of his hidden years to the visible life of the Church. The miracles the book reports—the healings, the readings of hearts, the appearances after death—are set down as such vocations have always been set down in the Church’s memory: as received testimony to the nearness of God in his saints, offered for the reader’s faith rather than for his analysis.

Reception & Influence

The Life did its work. The book Elagin shaped, reissued through edition after edition, became the standard nineteenth-century account of the elder and carried his memory far beyond Sarov, feeding a devotion that grew steadily through the century. That devotion reached its climax in 1903, when the Russian Church solemnly glorified Seraphim among the saints. The celebration at Sarov that July—with the uncovering of his relics, immense crowds of pilgrims, and the presence of the imperial family—was among the great religious events of the age, and it set the seal of the whole Church upon the holiness that this Life had labored to document. His principal shrine came to rest at the Diveyevo convent he had fathered, where it remains a place of pilgrimage. The relics themselves would pass through a long exile in the century that followed and were rediscovered and returned to Diveyevo only in the early 1990s—a later chapter of the same veneration that this book first helped to kindle.

Since then Seraphim has become one of the most widely venerated of all Russian saints, and one whose appeal has crossed confessional lines: his figure is honored well beyond the Orthodox world, and his teaching on the acquisition of the Spirit and on joy has found readers across the Christian traditions. The narrative preserved here—with its greeting of “my joy,” its Paschal warmth, and its insistence that holiness is offered to everyone—is a principal reason why.

The Text & This Edition

This edition presents a fresh, modern English translation of the Life of Elder Seraphim of the Sarov Hermitage, made from the public-domain Russian text of Elagin’s redaction as preserved in the digital library of azbyka.ru, itself a re-typesetting of the pre-revolutionary printed editions. Following the conventions of this series, the saint is named as the Church receives him, and the writer who assembled the Life is credited in his proper place as its compiler—a contributor to a book about the saint, never as its author. Citations of Scripture and of chapters are given in the modern Arabic style, and the English has been rendered in a readable contemporary register while keeping the reverent cadence of the original.

Two matters of the text should be stated plainly. First, this edition should not be mistaken for Seraphim’s own writings. His teaching survives in separate works—the Spiritual Instructions and the Conversation with Motovilov — which are edited and read on their own terms; the present book is the tradition’s Life of him, and quotes his sayings within its narrative rather than presenting them as a corpus. Second, the edition is not quite complete. The digital source from which it was made carries a defect inherited from its pagination: three of the book’s twelve chapters—the fourth and sixth, on the solitude and labors of the distant and near wilderness, and the eleventh, on the manifestations of grace after the elder’s repose—were served only as duplicates of neighboring chapters and could not be recovered from the available copy. What is offered here is therefore the remainder of the Life: chapters one, two, three, five, seven, eight, nine, ten, and twelve, together with the cell prayer-rule. The break is noted so that the reader who misses the famous episodes of the rock and the robbers will know they belong to chapters not present in this source, and may seek them in the fuller tradition. Restoring them awaits a fresh transcription of the printed edition. Within its bounds, the text is the whole and continuous witness of those chapters, faithfully carried into English, and the doctrinally weighty passages have been checked against the Russian by hand.

What remains is more than enough to do what the compilers of Sarov intended: to set before the reader a man wholly given to God, and through him the ancient promise that the Holy Spirit may still be acquired, and joy still found, in the following of Christ.

1. From His Birth to His Entry Into the Sarov Hermitage

Father Seraphim of blessed memory labored in the Sarov Hermitage for more than fifty years. Just as during his earthly life he edified, enlightened, comforted, and healed many through word, deed, example, and prayer, so too after his repose, the wondrous feats and teachings he left behind—passed from mouth to mouth by countless eyewitnesses, listeners, disciples, and all who had received any spiritual benefit from him during his lifetime—have never ceased to be instructive for all who worthily venerate his memory and desire to imitate his virtuous life and follow his teaching.

The provincial city of Kursk is memorable as the birthplace of Father Seraphim. The city’s residents, according to tradition, know this location to this day and point it out to visitors as one of the local sights worthy of note. It lies on Sergievskaya Street, in close proximity to the church of St. Sergius. Here stood the family home of Father Seraphim’s parents. Later, when the city was replanned by order of Empress Catherine II, they were assigned another plot at the edge of the city, near what are now the Moscow Gates—the site where Father Seraphim’s elder brother Alexei had his home and lived.

Father Seraphim’s parents were named Isidor and Agafya, with the family name Moshnin. They belonged to the respected merchant class of the city. Seraphim’s father owned brick factories near Kursk, worked as a contractor building stone structures—churches and private homes—and had a reputation as an honest man; he was devoted to the churches of God and possessed considerable material means. In the final years of his life he undertook to build in Kursk, at the expense of its parishioners and especially of the merchant Karp Efremovich Pervyshev, a new church dedicated to the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, the wonderworker of Radonezh—a church that was designated a cathedral in 1833. Its foundation was laid in 1752. When the lower church, with its altar dedicated to St. Sergius, was fully complete, the builder was overtaken by death in 1762. He left his wealth in the hands of his wife and entrusted her with the continuation of the church’s construction and the completion of the work.

Agafya, Seraphim’s mother, is remembered even more than her husband—both for her personal piety and for her charity toward her neighbors. During her husband’s lifetime and after his death she helped the poor, especially orphans, refusing no one, even in cases where the request was to help equip a poor girl’s household upon her marriage—something that naturally required a considerable outlay. In accordance with her husband’s wishes and her own inclinations, she continued the construction of the Church of St. Sergius for many years, personally overseeing the progress and quality of the work, and in 1778 she brought the church to its final completion. The church is adorned with stucco work both inside and out. The iconostasis occupies the entire eastern section up to the cupola itself; it is carved from solid wood and is said to have been prepared and finished over the course of ten years. The construction of the church is so solid that to this day no damage can be seen on it. Even the gilding, which was applied at the time of the church’s completion, has never been renewed and to this day has not lost its freshness. Such circumstances and virtues placed the Moshnin family among the prominent people of the city of Kursk.

Father Seraphim was born on the night of July 19 to 20, 1759, and was given the name Prokhor in honor of St. Prokhor, one of the Seventy Apostles and the Seven Deacons of the early Church, whose memory is celebrated on the 28th of that same month. He was not his parents’ only son: at the time of his birth he already had an elder brother, Alexei. Prokhor inherited his parents’ good qualities and above all their piety. He lost his father when he was barely three years old. His mother alone remained as his educator in childhood. She taught her young son chiefly by the example of her own life, and certainly her charity and her love for the churches of God and for prayer planted in the heart of Father Seraphim the seeds of that care for the poor and orphans, that love for the beauty of God’s temples, and that zeal for prayer which distinguished Father Seraphim from his early years. Meanwhile, to those attentive to the workings of Providence it was evident that from infancy Prokhor was under the special guidance and protection of Divine Providence. He was seven years old when his mother, going to inspect the construction of the Church of St. Sergius, took her son with her to the very top of the bell tower then being built. There Prokhor slipped from his mother’s sight and, left alone, fell through carelessness to the ground. In great fright Agafya ran down from the bell tower, expecting to find her son beaten to death; but with amazement and indescribable joy she saw him whole and unharmed. The child was standing on his feet. Questions followed: from what height had he fallen, and how had he survived—and the end of it was that the mother, with tears of joy, recognized the preservation of her son from death and injury as the work of special Divine protection and gave thanks to God. Three years later a new event revealed even more plainly the special protection of God over Prokhor. He was ten years old; he had a strong physical constitution; his mental faculties showed sharpness of mind and quick memory; in his conduct—meekness and humility. At this time he began to be taught church literacy. The boy showed both aptitude and ability for learning; but his studies had to be interrupted. Prokhor fell so gravely ill that recovery was not expected. At the most critical time of the illness, in a vision during sleep, Prokhor saw the Most Holy Mother of God, who promised to visit him and heal him from his illness. Prokhor, upon waking, told his mother of this vision. The dream revealed in the boy a pious disposition of soul and receptivity to religious impressions, while its fulfillment—which came about in a visible manner—showed the higher Providence at work over Prokhor. During one of the cross processions, the wonderworking icon of the Sign of the Mother of God was being carried through the city of Kursk along the street where the Moshnin house stood. A heavy rain began. To cross to another street, the procession most likely took a shortcut through the Moshnin courtyard to avoid the mud. Taking advantage of this occasion, Agafya carried her sick son out into the courtyard, held him up to the wonderworking Icon, and brought him beneath its shadow. It was noted that from that time Prokhor began to recover his health and soon was completely well. Thus was fulfilled the promise of the Queen of Heaven to visit the boy and heal him. Once his health was restored, Prokhor continued his studies successfully, learning the Book of Hours and the Psalter, taught himself to write, and developed a love for reading the Bible and spiritual books.

Since Prokhor’s elder brother Alexei was engaged in trade and had his own shop in Kursk, Prokhor was also made to learn commerce in that shop. “I am by birth,” he said later, conversing in Sarov with N. A. M., “from the Kursk merchants, and when I was not yet in the monastery, we used to trade in goods that bring more profit.” The objects of trade were things necessary for peasant life—such as straps, tar, rope, yokes, harnesses, bast shoes, iron, and the like—but his heart had no inclination toward trade and profit: it drew him to where he could acquire for himself the treasure of the spirit, the eternal salvation of the soul. He scarcely let a day pass without visiting the church of God. Unable, because of his work in the shop, to attend the Liturgy and Vespers at the church during the day, he would rise early and, after his prayers at home, hasten to the morning divine service so as to offer there his prayers to God. On Sundays and feast days he particularly loved to occupy himself with reading spiritually edifying books, sometimes gathering his companions to listen to the reading.

Although the desire to share the treasures of spiritual wisdom led Prokhor to gather companions around him, an inner, deep feeling drew him toward solitude and communion with himself alone. He sought close acquaintance only with those who could converse with him for the benefit of his soul.

At that time in the city of Kursk there lived a certain fool-for-Christ’s-sake, whose name is now forgotten but who was then held in general reverence. He was a native of Kursk and had taken up this difficult ascetic labor for the salvation of his soul from early childhood. Out of his own piety Prokhor first struck up an acquaintance with him and afterward attached himself to him with his whole heart. The fool-for-Christ also came to love Prokhor, and by his influence inclined Prokhor’s soul still more toward piety and the solitary life, which he himself led in the midst of family and acquaintances.

The direction his son was taking, openly and simply displayed, did not escape his mother; in her heart she agreed with it, approved of it, and rejoiced. Anxiety covered her face only when she looked into the future and pondered what occupation and manner of life her son would choose for himself. After a few more years this question too began to resolve itself. Prokhor began to speak of a monastery, cautiously sounding out his mother’s thoughts and asking as if hypothetically: “might he not go into a monastery?” Seeing that his mother did not oppose his wish—that she would rather let him go than keep him in the world—his desire for the monastic life burned all the more strongly in him. Then Prokhor began to speak of the monastic life with people he knew. In many he found sympathy for his intention and approval; and certain merchants—Ivan Ivanovich Druzhinin, Ivan Stepanovich Bezkhodarny, Alexei Semyonovich Melenin, and two others—gave hope of going with him to a monastery and remaining there forever for the salvation of their souls. At seventeen his resolve to leave the world and enter upon the path of monastic life had fully matured in Prokhor. And in his mother’s heart too a determination had formed to release him into God’s service. She was all the more prepared to do so without reservation since she would not herself be left in complete solitude: her other son Alexei—already known to us, quite unlike Prokhor in character, more inclined to worldly pursuits than to spiritual exercises—remained with her. Then the seventeen-year-old Prokhor Moshnin, following the ecclesiastical and civil provisions of the Spiritual Regulation, obtained his release from the Kursk city community, thus taking the first formal step of his renunciation of the world for the sake of monasticism. His parting from his mother was deeply moving! According to the Russian custom, after they had gathered everything and sat together for a while, Prokhor rose, prayed to God, and, bowing to the ground before his mother, asked for her parental blessing. Agafya let him venerate the icons of the Savior and the Mother of God, then blessed him with a copper cross. Taking this cross with him as the sign of his mother’s blessing—as the symbol in which all the obligations of a monk are united—Father Seraphim preserved it to the end of his life, wearing it always openly on his chest. Thus mother and son parted from each other. With bitter tears the widowed Agafya watched him go; the thought of keeping the young man at home turned in her mind; but the danger of drawing a person away from a good resolve, and the fear of bearing the ill consequences of such dissuasion, calmed the agitation of her soul. Prokhor surely wept no less than his mother, but grief—the natural companion of every parting—did not detain him at home; his thoughts pressed toward the place to which the ways of God were calling him. Making the sign of the cross before God’s church, the young man—with a pensive look and a secret thought in his heart—left, like Abraham, his homeland and his father’s house.

Monastery archive, div. 15, no. 13

2. From His Entry Into the Hermitage to His Tonsure as a Monk

Where did the young seventeen-year-old Prokhor go after leaving his family home, his mother, his brother, and his inheritance? Did he have a definite intention regarding where he would settle? Without any doubt he had in mind to dedicate himself to God in the monastic state. But where exactly? In which monastery?—these questions, which had long occupied him, still concerned him now. The fame of the ascetic life of the monks of the Sarov Hermitage—where many natives of Kursk were already living the monastic life, and where the prior at that time was Pakhomy, himself a native of Kursk—inclined him to go to these ascetics. But first he wanted to visit Kiev, in order to see at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, that nursery of Russian monasticism, the labors of its monks, to receive counsel, instruction, and confirmation of his thoughts and a blessing from some ascetic firm and experienced in the spiritual life, and finally to pray and receive a blessing at the holy relics of the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius, the founders of monasticism and the other servants of God resting in Kiev. And so Prokhor set out—with his mother’s blessing around his neck and a staff in his hands—for Kiev. Along with him went five other Kursk merchants: these were the very men who, together with Prokhor, had conceived the intention of leaving the world and withdrawing to a hermitage. All of them afterward entered a monastery, except for the merchant Alexei Semyonovich Melenin, who, through unforeseen circumstances, found himself responsible after his parents’ death for five brothers and three sisters.

In Kiev Prokhor prostrated before the holy relics of the servants of God with fervent prayer and tears, imploring above all the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius to bless his intention and guide him on the path of salvation. While visiting the fathers there engaged in asceticism, he heard that not far from the holy Pechersk Lavra, in the Kitaev monastery, there lived as a recluse one named Dositheus, a man of truly godly life and endowed with the gift of spiritual discernment. Coming to him, Prokhor fell at his feet and kissed them, opened his whole soul before him, and begged for instruction and blessing. The discerning elder, perceiving his intentions and foreseeing in him a good laborer for Christ, directed him to the Sarov Hermitage for his dwelling and blessed him, saying in conclusion: “Come, child of God, and abide in the Sarov Hermitage; that place shall be your salvation. With God’s help, there you will also complete your earthly pilgrimage. The Holy Spirit, the treasure of all good things, will order your life in holiness. In Sarov the prior Pakhomy is also of godly life, a follower of our venerable fathers Anthony and Theodosius.” The conversation with the blessed elder Dositheus finally confirmed the young man in his good intentions. It seemed that now no obstacles, no temptations, would have power to deflect him from his resolve to enter the Sarov Monastery. After attending the services, confessing, and receiving holy communion, and once more bowing before the holy servants of God of Kiev-Pechersk, he directed his steps onto the road, and, guarded by God’s protection, arrived safely back in Kursk at his mother’s house. There he spent several more months, even going to the shop, but no longer engaged in trade—rather, he read spiritually beneficial books for his own edification and that of others who came to converse with him, to inquire about the holy sites, and to listen to his reading. This time was a time of farewell to his relatives and his homeland. His mother, though she knew of Prokhor’s decision to settle in the Sarov Hermitage and even gave her consent, when the final hour arrived and Prokhor came to bid her farewell, blessed him with the words: “You might have buried me first, and then gone to the monastery.” Of those who had agreed to go with him, two set out at the same time, while the others had arrived before him.

The cenobitic Sarov Hermitage was founded in 1706 by the hieroschemamonk John, a native of Arzamas from the village of Novy Usad, known for his monastic labors and his ill-fated life. Developing gradually, it was elevated under the prior Elder Ephrem (1758–1777) to a high degree of interior and exterior good order. Prokhor arrived there on November 20, 1778, on the eve of the feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple. Standing in the church at the all-night vigil of the feast, witnessing the reverent performance of the divine services, listening to the dignified singing of the monks, and observing how all—from the prior to the humblest novice—were diligent in prayer, he was enraptured in spirit, rejoicing that the Lord had shown him this place for the salvation of his soul. The superior at that time, as mentioned, was Elder Pakhomy, a tonsured monk of the Sarov Hermitage who had dedicated himself to God’s service from his youth—a gentle, humble-minded monk, a faster and a man of prayer, a model for monks, whom the people called a holy man. He was of Kursk merchant stock and had known Prokhor’s parents since his childhood. With love Pakhomy received the young man, in whom he saw a genuine striving toward monasticism; he enrolled him among the novices and entrusted him to the elder Hieromonk Joseph—who served in the monastery as treasurer—for instruction in the paternal way. At first Prokhor served in the elder’s cell. He fulfilled all the monastery’s rules and regulations precisely at the elder’s direction, and served in the cell not merely without complaint but always with zeal. Such conduct drew the attention of all and earned him the regard of the elders Joseph and Pakhomy. He was then assigned, beyond his cell duties, the communal monastic obediences of the brotherhood in turn. At first he was placed in the bakehouse, then transferred to the prosphora-baking room, then to the woodworking shop, and after that he was made the one who roused the brothers. In the woodworking shop Prokhor carried out his obedience for quite a long time. For a considerable period he also served as wake-caller, together with another brother, and in this capacity he would make his way before the start of services to the brothers’ cells, announcing with a modest knock on the door—accompanied by the Jesus Prayer—that it was time to go to church. After these duties he also served as sacristan. Vigorous in his strength, Prokhor, as eyewitnesses testified, fulfilled all the monastery’s obediences with great zeal.

The path of fulfilling external obediences is without doubt the safest path for young monks: it saves them from many temptations, yet does not free them from the inner struggle through which alone the ascetic can be strengthened and grow in the spiritual life. Prokhor endured many temptations: the spirit of sorrow, tedium, and despondency acted on him powerfully, to the point of exhausting his soul. “The spirit of sorrow,” he said later, “is inseparably accompanied by tedium.” Here is how Father Seraphim describes this condition, speaking in his characteristic way through the words of the holy fathers: “Tedium, as the fathers observe, assaults a monk about midday and produces in him such terrible unrest that the very place where he lives and the brothers living with him become unbearable to him; and during reading a kind of aversion arises, along with frequent yawning and powerful hunger. Once the belly is satisfied, the demon of tedium suggests to the monk thoughts of leaving his cell and going to converse with someone, representing this as the only way to be rid of tedium—by talking with others continually. And the monk overcome by tedium is like desert brushwood, which pauses a little and then rushes on again in the wind. He is like a waterless cloud driven by the wind.”

“If this demon cannot draw the monk out of his cell, it begins to distract his mind during prayer and reading. ‘This thing,’ it suggests to him, ‘is not lying right, and that thing is not in the right place—everything needs to be put in order.’ And it does all this in order to render the mind idle and unfruitful.”

How did the young ascetic heal this illness of the spirit? “This illness is healed,” he says from his own experience, “by prayer, by restraint from idle talk, by such handiwork as one is able for, by reading the word of God, and by patience—for it arises from faintheartedness, idleness, and idle talk. (See Antiochus, ch. 26. Isaiah Sir 212.)”

“It is difficult,” he would say, “difficult to avoid this illness for one who is just beginning the monastic life; for it is the first to attack him. Therefore the primary remedy against it is the strict and unquestioning fulfillment of all the duties laid upon the novice. When your duties fall into proper order, tedium will find no place in your heart. Only those are bored whose affairs are not in order. And so obedience is the best medicine against this dangerous illness.”

“When tedium overcomes you, say to yourself, following the instruction of the Venerable Isaac the Syrian: ‘You are again craving impurity and a shameful life.’ And if the thought says to you, ‘It is a great sin to kill yourself,’ say to it: ‘I am killing myself because I cannot live impurely. I will die here rather than witness the true death of my soul before God. It is better for me to die here for purity than to live in the world an evil life. I have chosen this death above my sins.’”

“(I will put to death my fleshly passions, because I have sinned against the Lord and will no longer provoke His anger.) What does it profit me to live estranged from God? I will endure these afflictions so as not to lose my heavenly hope. What profit does God have from my life if I live wickedly and provoke His anger (Word 22)?”

Further he distinguishes tedium from despondency, shows that despondency itself is of two kinds—natural and from evil spirits—and teaches what a person who has fallen, through inattention, into one or the other state must do. “Tedium is one thing,” says Father Seraphim, “and the anguish of spirit called despondency is another. A person sometimes finds himself in such a state of spirit that it would seemingly be easier for him to cease to exist, or to be without any feeling or consciousness, than to remain any longer in that indefinably tormented condition. One must hasten to get out of it. Guard against the spirit of despondency, for from it all evil is born. (Barsanuphius, Ans. 13, 497.)”

“There is natural despondency,” teaches St. Barsanuphius, “arising from weakness; and there is despondency from a demon. Do you want to know which is which? Test it thus: the demonic kind comes before the time when one should give oneself rest. For when a person has set himself to accomplish something, it drives him to leave the work and get up before a third or a quarter of the task is done. In that case one must not obey it, but must say a prayer and sit at the work with patience. And the enemy, seeing that through this the person offers prayer, withdraws, because he does not want to provide an occasion for prayer.” (Barsanuphius, Ans. 559, 563, 564, 565.)

Finally he describes the last in this sequence of spiritual temptations—the condition of faintheartedness—and offers the surest remedy against it. “When it pleases God,” says Isaac the Syrian, “to plunge a person into greater sorrows, He permits him to fall into the hands of faintheartedness. It produces in him a strong force of despondency in which he experiences inward constriction of soul—and this is a foretaste of hell. In consequence of this comes a spirit of frenzy, from which arise a thousand temptations: confusion, rage, blasphemy, complaint against one’s lot, corrupt thoughts, moving from place to place, and the like. If you ask what the cause of this is, I will say: your negligence, because you did not take care to seek a cure for them. For the remedy for all this is one, through which a person quickly finds consolation in his soul. And what is this remedy?—humility of heart. By nothing else can a person break down the stronghold of these vices; on the contrary, he finds that they prevail over him. (Isaac the Syrian, Word 79, leaf 156, verso.)” Among the holy fathers, despondency is sometimes called idleness, sloth, and laziness.

We have seen above how the young novice in his life conquered these, or similar, temptations through patience and obedience. Let us now look at how he put the other means against them into practice.

His life at that time, before his monastic tonsure, was ordered day by day in the following way. At appointed hours he was in church for the divine services and the appointed rules. Following the example of Elder Pakhomy, he would arrive for the church prayers as early as possible, would stand without moving through all the services, however long they might be, and would never leave before the complete end of a service. During the hours of prayer he always stood in one fixed place. To protect himself from distraction and wandering thoughts, keeping his eyes cast downward, he listened with strained attentiveness and reverence to the singing and reading, accompanying them with prayer.

Outside of church, having fulfilled his obedience duties, Prokhor—withdrawing from vain association with others—loved to retire to his cell in solitude. There, besides prayer, his occupations were of two kinds: reading and bodily labor. He read books both of a general Christian and of an ascetic-spiritual nature. The subjects of his reading were: the Holy Bible, especially the Psalter; the Holy Gospel and the Apostolic Epistles; the works of the holy fathers—for example, the Hexaemeron of St. Basil the Great, the Homilies of St. Macarius the Great, the Ladder of St. John of Sinai, the Lives of the Saints in the Menaion of St. Dmitry of Rostov, the Philokalia, and others. The Psalms he read while seated, saying that for a weary man this was permitted; but the Holy Gospel and the Apostolic Epistles he always read standingbefore the holy icons in a posture of prayer, and this he called vigil (wakefulness). This reading was not done merely to pass the time or to satisfy an aroused intellectual curiosity. The young ascetic sought in it answers to the questions of life and applied what he had read to his own situation and to human beings in general. From this, in the light of the word of God, under the influence of asceticism, in humility and submission to the will of God, there gradually took shape in him—and later fully formed—a sound and luminous vision of the Christian life in general, and in particular of the paths of monasticism.

During the hours of rest from spiritual labors Prokhor gave himself to bodily work. At that time his occupation was woodworking: like other monks, he carved crosses from cypress wood to give as blessings to pilgrims. In woodworking—especially when he was carrying out this particular obedience—Prokhor distinguished himself by great zeal, skill, and achievement, so that in the roster of alternating shifts for the unceasing singing he was the only one designated specifically as “Prokhor the woodworker.” But while he carried out his cell obedience he also went out for the labors common to the whole brotherhood: floating timber, preparing firewood, and the like. While occupied with handiwork in his cell or at communal obediences, he continually held in memory and heart the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Work supplemented the monastery’s ascetic labors, for upon a monk, beyond spiritual occupations, physical labor is enjoined by the rules.

Regarding his conduct at table, the taking of food, and nightly rest, the following personal testimony of Father Seraphim has been preserved: “Sitting at table, do not look at or judge who eats how much, but attend to yourself, feeding your soul with prayer. At dinner eat your fill; at supper, practice restraint. On Wednesdays and Fridays, if you are able, eat only once. Every night without fail sleep four hours: the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and one hour past midnight. If you are weak, it is permissible to add a nap during the day. Observe this without doubt until the end of your life, for it is necessary for the rest of your head. I have kept this rule from my youth. We ask the Lord God always to grant us rest during the night hours. If you guard yourself in this way, you will not be despondent but healthy and cheerful.” In time, from standing too long and from insufficient nightly rest, Father Seraphim—as he himself said on more than one occasion—developed a severe headache. This illness resolved itself when he began to allow himself a few more hours of rest at night. After this, Father Seraphim, on the basis of his personal experience, advised the infirm to give six hours a day to sleep, and the physically stronger and spiritually firm to give five hours—repeating here the teaching of the desert fathers that we are taught to mortify not the body but the passions.

The labors of obedience, prayer, reading, and work were not, however, fully satisfying to the solitude-loving soul of the young ascetic. It is known that the Sarov Hermitage is surrounded for many miles in every direction by dense forest. Among certain elders the thought arose—following the example of the ancient ascetics and the founding fathers of the Sarov Hermitage—to withdraw from the monastery and there, hidden from people, before the eyes of God alone, to devote themselves more attentively to pious exercises. With the blessing of Prior Pakhomy, the well-known hermits—Abbot Nazary, Hieromonk Dorofei, and Schema-monk Mark—each settled in this way in different places not far from one another, each with his own disciple, in the depths of the monastery forest. Seeing such examples, Prokhor yearned in spirit for greater solitude and ascetic labor. His soul, like a turtledove, strained toward solitude. He received from his elder, Father Joseph, a blessing to leave the monastery in his free hours and go into the forest. There he found a secluded place, built a hidden shelter, and in it, entirely alone, gave himself to contemplation of God and prayer. “Even if it is not always possible to remain in solitude and silence when living in a monastery and carrying out the obediences laid upon you by the prior, at least some part of the time remaining from your obedience ought to be devoted to solitude and silence—and for this little the Lord God will not fail to send down upon you His rich mercy.” This is the rule—later impressed upon other monks—that Prokhor himself was now fulfilling, withdrawing to his solitary shelter. The contemplation of wondrous nature lifted him up to God, while complete solitude united him more closely with God in the feeling of divine omnipresence through prayer. According to the testimony of a man who was later close to Elder Seraphim, Prokhor performed here the rule that the Angel of the Lord gave to the great Pakhomy, the founder of monastic community life. This rule is performed in the following order: the Trisagion, and after the Our Father, twelve repetitions of “Lord, have mercy.” Glory and now: “Come, let us bow” three times. Psalm 50: “Have mercy on me, O God.” “I believe in one God…” One hundred prayers: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and after these: “It is truly meet” and the dismissal. All of this constituted one prayer. But such prayers were to be performed, according to the number of hours in the day, twelve times during the day and twelve times at night. This rule, adopted in the monastery and composed according to the rule of the Venerable Pakhomy, Prokhor fulfilled—at the instruction of Elder Joseph—from the very time of his entry into the monastery. But in the shelter, amid nature, alone as it were with God, he devoted himself to the labor of prayer with greater concentration and compunction. He combined prayer with abstinence and fasting: on Wednesdays and Fridays he ate nothing at all, and on other days of the week he ate only once. Who would not rejoice to see such asceticism in a novice still young not only in soul but in years? It was evident that Prokhor was establishing himself firmly on the path of monastic life. Everyone felt respect and love for this unusual ascetic. Prokhor was not, however, the only zealous novice in all of Sarov at that time: there were other young people who showed high examples of zeal for piety. Such, for example, was the twenty-year-old novice Vasily, who entered the hermitage in 1787 from among the townspeople of Temnikov. At the very first step he gave signs of complete submission to the will of the prior Pakhomy, with the renunciation of his own will: whatever he had acquired in the world, upon entering the monastery he laid it all at the feet of the superior, earnestly surrendering himself as well into complete obedience to him. This amazed Elder Pakhomy, who always kept this novice in special regard. In the final years of Father Seraphim’s life this novice, under the name Nifont, was the prior of the Sarov Hermitage. There were other servants of God as well, but the monastic life—like the truly Christian life in general—is, according to the word of Scripture, hidden with Christ in God. Therefore they carefully concealed their pious deeds, struggled secretly with their passions, fearing and fleeing human glory. But Prokhor stood before the eyes of the elder brothers of the monastery, and his labors were so constant and striking that it was hard to conceal them. Therefore, presenting him as an example—above others—to those less diligent in monastic affairs, the elders Joseph and Pakhomy showed, beyond love for him as for their own son, also trust. “Our fathers of blessed memory—the superior Pakhomy and the treasurer Joseph, holy men—loved me,” Father Seraphim would later say, “as their own souls, and nothing was hidden from me by them; and what was profitable for their own souls and for me, they took care of.”

And how they took care! In 1780 the novice Prokhor fell gravely ill. He took to his hard bed; his body swelled; the sick man lay unable to move. It was not known what illness he had; there was no physician with him: there was no one to determine the nature of the illness. From external signs it was thought that Prokhor was suffering from dropsy. But it admits of no doubt that the ailment was stubborn and prolonged, lasting for three years—half of which the sufferer spent in bed. The sick man wholly committed his body and soul to God, prayed, and bathed his bed with tears; a word of complaint never passed his lips. Here it became apparent how much all—and first of all those in authority in the monastery—respected, loved, and pitied Prokhor. During his illness, Elder Father Joseph—his guide and instructor in the preparatory monastic labors—served him as a novice would. The prior Pakhomy and Elder Father Isaiah also cared greatly for him. Many years after this (May 25, 1832), in conversation with a certain person, Father Seraphim recalled with deep gratitude the care of Elder Pakhomy. “I had,” he said, “a friend here in the monastery at that time, the hieromonk Pakhomy. When I was sick, lying in bed for a year and a half, he tended to me, being almost constantly at my side.” We shall see later how Father Seraphim expressed his grateful feelings toward Elder Pakhomy in deed. For now let us not forget that Pakhomy was the prior of the monastery, while Prokhor was a novice… and yet it was to him—because of his infirmities—that the prior and the elders next in rank showed such zeal and care. This circumstance revealed in the senior brothers of the monastery a high degree of attentiveness and concern for the younger—as it ought to be in every well-ordered society, and especially in a church community. As the illness reached its final stage, fear for the patient’s life arose. Then the prior decisively proposed calling a physician, or at least opening a vein. The sick man’s ascetic reply was most remarkable: “I have committed myself, holy father, to the true Physician of souls and bodies, our Lord Jesus Christ and His Most Pure Mother. But if your love sees fit, provide for me in my poverty, for the Lord’s sake, the heavenly medicine”—that is, communion of the Holy Mysteries. Elder Joseph, at Prokhor’s request and his own zeal, celebrated a special all-night vigil and Liturgy for the sick man’s recovery. The brothers gathered for the service out of their own devotion, to pray for the one who was suffering; Prokhor was heard in confession and received the holy Body and Blood of Christ, which were brought to his cell, to his bed. Not long before his own repose, Father Seraphim—who always spoke the truth and abhorred falsehood—told many persons that on this occasion, after receiving the holy Mysteries, the Most Holy Virgin appeared to him in ineffable light, accompanied by the Apostles John the Theologian and Peter, and turning her face to the Theologian while pointing to Prokhor with her finger, said: “This one is of our kind.” Then she laid her right hand upon the head of the suffering man; and the matter that had filled the sick man’s body began to flow out through an opening that formed in his right side. In a short time the body was completely freed of the illness. The traces of the wound that had served as the outlet of the illness remained on Father Seraphim’s body for the rest of his life. Those who knew him in his own time
were amazed at the speed of the recovery that followed the communal prayer offered for him and his reception of the holy Mysteries. But they knew nothing of the miraculous visitation, which alone can explain the rapid end of so prolonged and stubborn an illness. This illness brought much spiritual benefit to Prokhor: his spirit was strengthened in faith, love, and hope in God. Among other things, the care shown him by the monastery’s members bound his heart to them with a new feeling of gratitude. Prokhor remembered very often, and always with love, the tending he had received from Father Joseph and the other elders, and—as we shall see—after their deaths he showed them special veneration.

During the period of Prokhor’s novitiate, under Prior Pakhomy, a number of urgently needed construction projects were undertaken in the Sarov Hermitage. Among them, on the site of the cell where Prokhor had been ill, a hospital was being built for the treatment of the sick and the rest of the elderly, and alongside the hospital a church on two floors—with altars on the lower level dedicated to Ss. Zosima and Savvaty, wonderworkers of Solovetsk, and on the upper level to the Transfiguration of the Savior. For the building of the church, the young novice was sent from Sarov to collect funds in various places. Out of obedience, out of gratitude for his own healing, and out of sympathy for the infirmities the building was meant to alleviate, he willingly undertook the difficult labor of a collector. Traveling through the towns nearest to Sarov, Prokhor also visited Kursk, the place of his birth. He did not find his pious mother still among the living, and visiting her grave, he prayed fervently and with bitter tears for the repose of her soul. But he had a blood brother there who, after the mother’s death, had become the full master of the family estate. This brother on his part provided Prokhor with generous assistance for the construction of the church. Having thus completed the obedience of the collector, Prokhor showed new zeal for the construction of the church attached to the hospital. His long and zealous practice of woodworking had taught him to make articles more sturdy and complex than the fashioning of crosses. He built with his own hands, for the lower hospital church dedicated to the Venerable Zosima and Savvaty, an altar table from cypress wood—which stands in its place to this day. From the time the altar was consecrated on August 17, 1786, Father Seraphim received holy communion for the remainder of his life in this church above all others—to keep ever in memory the great benefaction of God shown to him in this place, of which he himself spoke very often and to very many people.

These same words, on a similar occasion, were spoken to another recently reposed ascetic of our Church. This was Archimandrite Paisius, an elder of eighty years, known to devout people for his strictly monastic life. During his time resting at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, he fell gravely ill. The Mother of God, appearing to him with John the Forerunner of Christ, healed him from his illness and likewise said to him: “This one is of our kind.” This account was conveyed to us by the very person to whom Father Paisius secretly told it. The expression “of our kind” clearly indicates that Father Seraphim and Archimandrite Paisius were especially fervent in their prayer to the Mother of God, and therefore themselves stood under her special protection and intercession. An attentive reader may perceive this from the present biography of Father Seraphim.

3. From His Tonsure to His Withdrawal Into the Distant Wilderness

From his entry into the Sarov Hermitage, Prokhor spent eight years in the rank of novice. In the language of monks this time is called the probationary period—that is, a testing of whether one who desires the monastic life is ready to enter upon the path of more perfect life. The preliminary probationary period is set as a necessary condition for everyone passing from the world to exclusive service of God, as a preparation for that service. Prokhor had now grown to manhood: he was a little over twenty-five years of age. His outward appearance at this time had notable features. He was tall, about two arshins and eight vershoks in height; despite strict fasting and asceticism, his face was full, with a pleasing fairness of complexion, a straight and sharp nose, bright blue expressive and piercing eyes, and thick eyebrows; his hair was light brown and also thick. His face was framed by a thick, rounded beard, with long thick mustaches joining at the corners of the lips. He had a robust build and possessed great physical strength. Of his mental faculties, he had a retentive memory, a bright, lively, and precise imagination, and, connected with these, a captivating gift of speech. Prokhor, dedicating all his faculties and powers to the Lord, had thus passed through all the degrees of the monastery’s probationary period and had expressed in his actual life a complete readiness and fitness to receive the monastic vows. In severe bodily and spiritual trials sent to him by the Lord himself, his soul was purified and his heart strengthened in piety. Even while still at the novice stage he had striven for a strictly monastic—even ascetic—mode of life and, as we have seen, had already begun to lead it. The prior of the hermitage, now firmly persuaded of Prokhor’s calling, petitioned the ecclesiastical authority for his investiture with the monastic rank. With the approval of the Holy Synod, on August 13, 1786, his tonsure was performed by the superior Hieromonk Pakhomy. His sponsors were the venerable elders Joseph and Isaiah, who held the first places in the monastery’s hierarchy after the prior. At the tonsure he was given the new name Seraphim (“the fiery”). This name—given to Prokhor, following the custom of the previous century, without his prior knowledge or consent—may be seen as an expression of the monastery authorities’ understanding of him: they had seen Prokhor’s zeal for a godly life, they foresaw an even greater flame of love for God, and so they named him Seraphim. In the brotherhood registers for 1786 it is stated that Seraphim was tonsured as a monk, to fill a vacancy in the Gorokhovetsky Nikolaevsky Monastery, to which he was formally attached for a considerable time. But he never lived in that monastery and maintained his permanent residence in the Sarov Hermitage. With the acceptance of the monastic rank, the meaning of his new name—reminding Father Seraphim of the purity and fiery service to God of the Angels—heightened in him the desire to serve the Lord with even greater zeal than before. Without taking on new ascetic labors, the monk Seraphim continued his former course of life, which had long since become one with his soul and being. Only from the outside it became noticeable to all that he held himself more apart, plunged more deeply into his own soul, cleaved more firmly to the fulfillment of his vows and the most honorable duties bound up with them.

In the same year, 1786, in October, the monk Seraphim—at the petition of Prior Pakhomy—was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon by His Eminence Victor, Bishop of Vladimir and Murom. His ordination certificate for this rank remains intact to this day among the monastery’s papers. Now, beyond the labors of monasticism, Father Seraphim acquired new duties in the rank of hierodeacon. But his heart now also kindled with a greater love for God. He gave himself entirely to his new, truly angelic ministry. From the day of his elevation to the rank of hierodeacon, preserving the purity of soul and body, he served, almost without interruption, for a period of six years and ten months in the capacity of hierodeacon. He spent the nights before Sundays and feast days entirely in wakefulness and prayer, standing motionless until the very Liturgy. After each divine service was over, remaining in the church for a long time afterward, he performed the duties of a sacred deacon—putting the sacred vessels in order and caring for the cleanliness of the Lord’s altar. The Lord God, seeing his good zeal and diligence in ascetic labors, granted Father Seraphim strength and vigor, so that he scarcely felt the toil, had no need of prolonged rest afterward, remained vigorous in health, often forgot about food and drink, and departing from the path of ascetic labors for rest would feel regret that a person—unlike the angels—cannot serve God without ceasing. Prior Pakhomy now became even more attached to Father Seraphim than before. He performed scarcely a single service without him: “When our father Pakhomy served,” Father Seraphim would later say of himself, “he rarely performed the service without me, poor Seraphim.”

Whenever Elder Pakhomy traveled away from the monastery—alone or with other elders, for monastery business or simply to serve—he often invited Father Seraphim to accompany him. On one such trip Father Seraphim happened to take part in the burial of the most celebrated monastic nun Alexandra—in the world Agafya Semyonovna Melgunova—the foundress of the Diveyevo community. Shortly before her blessed repose, the landowner Solovtsov of the village of Lemeti, a benefactor of the Sarov Hermitage, had died. The elders Pakhomy and Isaiah went to his burial, taking Father Seraphim with them as hierodeacon. Passing through Diveyevo, they visited Agafya Semyonovna and, finding her gravely ill and very weak, administered to her the holy sacrament of Holy Unction. The sick woman, sensing her end, begged the elders with tears not to abandon her Diveyevo orphans.

The prior Pakhomy, comforting her, said: “Do not be troubled about anything, dear mother: by the grace of God you have been prepared with everything due to a Christian. While I am alive I will not abandon your orphans; and after me, here is Father Seraphim—he will not abandon them.”

The sick woman replied: “My father, I am not troubled for myself: with God’s help I go to eternity in hope. But these orphans will be left after me in the greatest sorrow, bound as they are to me in their devotion to me, their poor one. And it is for this reason that I beg you, my father—do not abandon them; bear all their burdens and infirmities in everything, according to God’s commandment. You know what grief and loss it will be for them to be parted from me forever.”

Then she took out the remainder of her estate, consisting of two small pouches—one filled with gold coins, the other with silver—and, handing them to Father Pakhomiy, said: “Accept this orphan’s portion for use in their benefit: they themselves cannot yet employ it wisely and as it ought to be applied for the common good, but you from experience know where and on what to spend it.” On their return from Lemetyj, the elders found the nun Alexandra already dead and barely managed to arrive in time for her burial. According to custom, a meal was held after the burial. Father Seraphim did not remain in Diveyevo even to take a bite for the sustenance of his strength, but walked back alone on foot to the Sarov Hermitage, which lies twelve versts from Diveyevo. Such was his habitual self-discipline—not only within the hermitage walls, but beyond them as well.

Such a state of spiritual sobriety, ascetic self-restraint, ceaseless prayer, and unremitting labor could not be attained except by way of long-practiced self-denial and continual compulsion of oneself toward monastic virtue. Father Seraphim, one may say, had labored over himself from childhood, cultivating this spirit within himself, and his entire past life had been, so to speak, a ladder toward his present degree of ascetic striving. But the future held for him labors and feats far greater still. Looking back over his past, Father Seraphim could see above his head the special protection of the Most Holy Mother of God and the care of Divine Providence. Now temptations could scarcely draw his heart, bound to God, away from the path of strict piety. And yet God’s Providence found it needful, in view of new and still more arduous feats of asceticism, to strengthen his zeal with spiritual visions. Purity of heart, self-restraint, and constant elevation of soul toward God had made him capable of beholding them. In the notes published in “Mayak” for 1844 (book 32), it is said that Father Seraphim, while serving in the rank of hieromonk, would at times see holy Angels during church services, co-celebrating and singing together with the brothers. They appeared in the forms of lightning-bright youths clothed in white gold-woven garments; yet their singing could be likened to no harmony on earth. What a wondrous impression these visions made upon his soul! “My heart,” he says, “was like wax melting from unspeakable joy. And I remembered nothing from such joy; I remembered only how I entered the holy church and how I left it.” Especially striking was one vision, which we shall relate here approximating the very words of Elder Seraphim himself, as this account is set down in the aforementioned notes of a Sarov monk of that time:

“I will tell you yet, my joy, of a most glorious vision that befell me, unworthy as I am. Only give me your word that what you hear from me you will reveal to no one.”

His interlocutor—most likely the author of the notes himself—bowed to the elder and gave his promise to keep the secret. But Father Seraphim, foreseeing that it might be revealed after his (that is, Seraphim’s) death, added: “Die with it, tell no one.” The interlocutor bowed to the holy elder’s feet in sign of agreement, and tears flowed unbidden from his eyes in tender emotion… The elder then continued: “It happened that I was serving with Father Pakhomiy and the treasurer Iosif on Holy and Great Thursday. The Divine Liturgy began at two o’clock in the afternoon, and as customary, with Vespers. After the Little Entrance and the readings, I, unworthy as I am, cried out at the holy altar: Lord, save the pious and hear us—and, having entered the Royal Doors, I swept the orarium over those present and proclaimed: and to ages of ages. At that moment a light blazed upon me like a ray of sunlight. Turning my eyes toward the radiance, I beheld our Lord God Jesus Christ—in the image of the Son of Man in glory, shining brighter than the sun with an unspeakable light, surrounded, as if by a swarm of bees, by the heavenly hosts: Angels, Archangels, Cherubim, and Seraphim. From the western church doors He was walking through the air, stopped opposite the ambon, and, raising His hands, blessed those serving and those praying. Then He entered into the icon in the iconostasis near the Royal Doors. My heart rejoiced then with a pure, enlightened joy, in the sweetness of love for the Lord.”

From this mysterious vision Father Seraphim was instantly transformed in appearance and could neither move from the spot nor utter a word. Many noticed this, and of course no one understood the true cause of what had occurred. At once two hieromonks approached, took Father Seraphim by the arms, and led him into the holy altar. For about two hours Father Seraphim stood afterward in one place without moving. Only his face changed from moment to moment: now it would be covered with a whiteness like snow, now a flush would play across it. And for a long time he could not speak a word, contemplating in his soul the wondrous visitation of God and tasting its gracious consolations.

It is most noteworthy that this vision fell at that moment of the Liturgy when, by the entrance of the clergy into the altar, their entering as it were into heaven itself is signified; when in the silent prayer the priest asks the Lord: grant that with our entrance there may be an entrance of the holy angels, co-serving with us and co-glorifying Your goodness; when the Angelic hymn is sung: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. This vision showed that it is not in vain that we believe the heavenly powers to be invisibly serving with us at the Divine Liturgy… And every person praying in the house of God ought to think that he is praying as it were in heaven together with the Angels. There is no doubt that the zeal of Father Seraphim was more powerfully strengthened in his arduous ascetic labors by such heavenly consolations. They kindled in him ever greater longing for the contemplative life. The vision could also have had harmful consequences for Father Seraphim’s spiritual character. Had he thought to himself that he was now already holy, that he had attained a high degree of perfection and had no need of further advancement—then all his labors before God would have turned to vanity and worthlessness, crumbling like dust scattered by the wind… But Father Seraphim had good spiritual guides, in whom he placed complete trust and who were his mentors in monastic life. The elders Pakhomiy and Iosif, who had served the Liturgy, asked: “What had happened to him?” It seemed to them that he might have suddenly felt a weakening of strength, which could so naturally occur on Holy and Great Thursday after the prolonged fast—given the reverence which Father Seraphim had long held for them. Father Seraphim was accustomed to relating to these two elders with childlike confidence: he told them his vision exactly as it had occurred. The elders, experienced in the spiritual life, treasured this account in their hearts. And to Father Seraphim they impressed the need not to become proud, not to allow in his soul any ruinous thought of any worthiness of his own before God, and they confirmed him in the spiritual disposition of self-abasement and humility.

Guarded by humility, Father Seraphim advanced from strength to strength in the spiritual life. His humility and monastic labors, formerly hidden, now became as it were more visible and more steadfast. We have already seen that even as a novice Father Seraphim would withdraw into the Sarov forest and plunge into contemplation in a hidden bower. Now a solitary cell was established there for him. As a hieromonk bound by service in the church and by obediences in the monastery, Father Seraphim could not yet—and perhaps had not yet matured sufficiently—to become a full hermit. And so he spent his days, from morning until evening, in the monastery, performing services, fulfilling the monastic rule and obediences. But in the evenings, when he could be his own master, he withdrew to his hermitage cell and spent the night hours in prayer; then early in the morning he would appear again in the monastery to fulfill his duties. Some among the weaker brothers might perhaps have been envious, yet no one had grounds to be offended by his feats; for Father Seraphim did not make others labor on his behalf, fulfilling sacredly all his own obligations—both personal and communal—toward the hermitage.

In the year 1793, on the nineteenth of July, Father Seraphim turned thirty-four years of age. The Sarov Hermitage, by a new administrative division, passed from the Vladimir diocese to the governance of the Tambov diocese. The leadership of the hermitage, seeing that Father Seraphim by his ascetic labors had risen above the other brothers and deserved precedence over many in advancement to the higher ranks within the hermitage, petitioned for his ordination to the rank of hieromonk. On this occasion, after nearly seven years of service as a hierodeacon, Father Seraphim was summoned to Tambov, and on the second of September 1793, Bishop Feofil ordained him a hieromonk. By the observation of contemporaries, all who have described the life of Father Seraphim affirm one and the same thing: that upon receiving the higher grace of the priesthood, he began to strive in the spiritual life with greater zeal and redoubled love. In the rank of hieromonk he continued for a long time in unbroken liturgical service, receiving Holy Communion daily with fervent love, with faith, and with reverence.

We have now come to the final days of Father Seraphim’s sojourn in the hermitage. Soon we shall also witness the death of the venerable elder Pakhomiy. Let us recall certain circumstances of the hermitage during his abbacy—circumstances that remained in Father Seraphim’s memory until his death and had a moral influence upon him. During the period that corresponds to Father Seraphim’s life before his withdrawal to the wilderness, there was more than once a famine in the regions surrounding Sarov. But the hermitage suffered no shortage of bread and provided those in need with abundance. There was one occasion when the famine was especially prolonged; yet even then the hermitage fed about a thousand people every day for many months. At one point it came to pass that there was neither flour nor grain left even for the monks of the hermitage. The entire brotherhood gathered in the church. The prior Pakhomiy, on account of the impending famine, served a moleben to the Mother of God and an all-night vigil in full assembly. The brothers prayed as if before death, without losing, however, their hope in the Lord and His Most Pure Mother. The next morning, Father Seraphim, by the special trust of the prior Pakhomiy, went to the storehouse and found all the grain bins filled with various kinds of bread and grain. From that time forth, throughout the duration of the famine in the surrounding region, there was no shortage in the hermitage: however much was distributed to those in need, the storehouses were filled again. These events had a great influence on the deepening of mercy—one of the essential qualities of Father Seraphim. At the same time they further contributed to the confirming of his heart in unshakeable hope in the Providence of God and the protection of the Most Holy Mother of God.

So many years had Father Seraphim spent in the monastery! How greatly he had labored over the purification of his heart! How many feats he had endured for the salvation of his soul! We have already seen that these labors were not fruitless for him. Ascending by degrees along the ladder of spiritual life toward Christian perfection, he had by now attained a significant measure of the stature of a spiritual man. His spirit had matured for dwelling in the wilderness and for the higher monastic feats.

This year 1786 is precisely recorded in Father Seraphim’s ordination certificate, which is kept in the Sarov Hermitage.

This account, as we can see, became known after the interlocutor’s death, contrary to his own wishes.

4. Solitude and Ascetic Labors in the Distant Wilderness

Father Seraphim withdrew into the wilderness of his own free will, yet not without discernment and not without the blessing of the prior. We have already noted in him a leaning toward solitude, even when he still bore the name Prokhor. This inclination was strong; it would have been difficult to live with it in the world, and so it found its outlet and its satisfaction when Prokhor entered the Sarov Hermitage. Here he saw that many of the monks, not content with the common life, dwelt in the forest in solitary cells. From the very beginning of his life in the hermitage he had given himself wholly to the monastic rule, and his longing for solitude grew ever stronger; he received a blessing, in imitation of the elders, to withdraw into the forest for the monk’s hidden labor of virtue. While still a hierodeacon, he already had a cell in the wilderness and spent fully half of his everyday life there. His inclination toward solitude sought the mortification of sinful thoughts in the life of a desert-dweller. And so Father Seraphim, having become a hieromonk, formed the intention of settling altogether in the wilderness. The eremitic life was his vocation, his calling from above. From what we have already seen of Father Seraphim’s earlier life, we noted that in him was a powerful striving to withdraw from the world for immediate union with Christ. Life in the common brotherhood had taught him self-knowledge: there, as in a crucible, the young monk came to know his own infirmities, and, having grown strong in spirit for the putting off of those infirmities, he became capable of living, with the help of God, a life of solitude. Abba John, the dweller of a skete, instructs the hermit: “to have a mind stripped of all earthly things and, as far as human weakness permits, to be united with Christ” (John Cassian, Conferences, 19, ch. 8). Such a life was fully in keeping with Father Seraphim’s spirit in his present state.

From the causes of the eremitic life—one of which lay in Father Seraphim’s own soul, while the other constituted the goal of the desert-dweller—we must distinguish the outward occasion he put forward when asking a blessing to withdraw into the forest. A monk and Christian who understands the mystery of the hidden life always conceals his aims and intentions beneath some external circumstance which, for its own part, is genuine and itself a motive toward the goal. So it was in the present case as well. From unceasing vigils in his cell, from his constant attendance at the services in church—in short, from years of standing on his feet with only brief rest during the night—Father Seraphim had fallen into infirmity: his legs had swollen and developed open sores; for a time he lost the ability to serve at the altar. This illness was itself no small inducement toward his choice of the eremitic life. In the brotherhood registers as far back as 1796 there was a notation that he bore no monastic obedience in the monastery on account of illness. But given his illness, Father Seraphim ought, one might think, to have asked for rest from monastic labors and to settle in the infirmary cells, which had now already been built; yet instead he petitioned the prior Father Pakhomy for a blessing to withdraw into the wilderness—that is, he wished to pass from lesser labors to greater and heavier ones. The seventy-year-old elder Pakhomy gave him his blessing. This was the last blessing Father Seraphim received from that wise, virtuous, and venerable elder. Builder Pakhomy at this time was already unwell and, seeing no means of recovering his health, was preparing for death. Father Seraphim, keeping in grateful memory how the elder Pakhomy had watched over him in his own illness, now served him in return with self-denial. Once Father Seraphim noticed that, added to Father Pakhomy’s bodily suffering, there was some particular spiritual anxiety and grief.

“About what, holy father, are you so sorrowful?” Father Seraphim asked him.

Elder Pakhomy replied: “I grieve over the sisters of the Diveyevo community: who will look after them after me?”

Father Seraphim, wishing to set the elder at rest in his final moments, promised to look after them himself and to sustain everything as it had been during Pakhomy’s lifetime, after his death as well. Father Seraphim’s promise comforted and gladdened the departing Father Pakhomy; he kissed him joyfully with a last farewell embrace, and not long afterward fell asleep in the peaceful sleep of the righteous. In his place, in that same year of 1794, the worthy successor Elder Hieromonk Isaiya was appointed builder—the same Isaiya who had been Father Seraphim’s godfather at his monastic tonsure. Father Seraphim bitterly lamented the loss of Elder Pakhomy, who had loved him as his own beloved child in the Lord, under whose guidance he had passed through all the stages of monastic life and attained the maturity of a hermit. His prayer for his father, friend, and benefactor rose to God, borne aloft on tears and fervent faith. His consolation in the parting from Father Pakhomy through death was the appointment of Elder Isaiya, whom Father Seraphim also loved and revered deeply.

Thus, after the death of Elder Pakhomy, with the blessing of the new prior Isaiya—his spiritual father—on the twentieth of November 1794, the anniversary of his arrival at the Sarov Hermitage, Father Seraphim withdrew to his wilderness cell. For unimpeded residence there, he was issued a pass signed by Builder Isaiya, which is preserved in the Sarov Hermitage to this day. The text of the pass reads as follows: “The bearer of this document, Hieromonk Seraphim of the Sarov Hermitage, is released for residence in the wilderness on the monastery’s own land:”

on account of his incapacity in community, owing to illness and by his own fervent desire, after many years of probation (that is, the period of testing) in that hermitage and in the wilderness, he is released solely for the peace of his spirit for God’s sake, and with the rule given to him, in accordance with the dispositions of the holy Fathers; and henceforth no one is to hinder him from residing in that place, and this I confirm—Builder Hieromonk Isaiya. November 20, 1797. For the sake of authenticity I affix my seal hereto.“”

The cell in which the elder pursued his salvation stood in a dense thicket of pine forest, on the bank of the river Sarovka, on a high hill, about five versts from the monastery, in the direction of the winter sunrise. It was built of wood and consisted of a single room with a stove; to enter the room one passed through a small vestibule to which a porch had been added. Around the cell a small kitchen garden had been laid out with beds. All this space was enclosed by a fence. In addition, he had a beehive established there in time, which produced the most excellent honey. The hill on which the solitary cell stood lay in the vicinity of other heights. Near Father Seraphim, at a distance of two versts closer to the monastery, other Sarov hermits lived in solitary huts: Abbot Nazary, Hieromonk Dorofey, and Schema-monk Mark. All of this setting somewhat recalled the holy Mount Athos, composed as it is of various heights, covered with forest, monasteries, and the cells of hermit-dwellers. Elder Seraphim therefore named his wilderness hill the Athonite Mountain. Moreover, this hill, like the Holy Mountain, descended steeply on one side. The other most secluded spots in the forest were called by him, in a spiritual sense, by the names of various holy places. There were: the holy city of Jerusalem; Nazareth, where the Holy Virgin Mary received the annunciation from the Archangel; Bethlehem, where Christ was born; the river Jordan, where He received baptism from John; Tabor, on which was the wondrous Transfiguration; the brook Kedron, which the Savior crossed; Golgotha, on which He was crucified; the Garden, in which He was buried and rose again; and the Mount of Olives, from which He ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of God the Father. These names were given to various places in the Sarov forest in order to vivify the representation of the events of the Savior’s earthly life—He whom Elder Seraphim had resolved to imitate, and of whom he wished to preach to all who came to him for visitation and edification.

Many indeed began to visit Father Seraphim in his wilderness cell. Women also came… One beginning the strict eremitic life considered visits from women unsuitable in the sense that to certain of the brethren, and still more to laypeople, such visits might serve as a stumbling-block and occasion for scandal. Yet to refuse women the spiritual nourishment for which they came to the hermit might also be a thing displeasing to God. And so Father Seraphim, on the visible and entirely incidental grounds that women are forbidden to enter the holy Mount Athos, resolved to extend this prohibition to his own hill, which he had named the Athonite Mountain. He prayed to the Lord God and to the Most Holy Theotokos that his desire might be fulfilled, and that the Lord, if it were not contrary to His will, would give a sign of His assent by bending the branches of the trees at His pleasure. How much he besought the Lord of this, how deep was his prayer, how strong and sincere was the desire itself—that is known to God alone and the Most Pure Virgin Mary, and to Elder Seraphim himself. In the traditions set down at the proper time, however, there is a narrative that the Lord God did indeed give him a sign of His assent. This narrative we shall set down as it has come to us in written form.

“The feast of the Nativity of Christ arrived, on the twenty-fifth of December. Elder Seraphim, having come to the monastery for the feast, stood at the late Liturgy in the church of the Life-giving Spring and received the Holy Gifts of Christ. After the midday meal, having taken food in his monastery cell, he set out safely for the night to the wilderness. On the twenty-sixth, the feast day of the Assembly of the Most Holy Theotokos, in the night he went to the hermitage for the Liturgy, and upon reaching the place where the ground descends steeply downward—from which the hill takes the name Athonite—he saw that enormous boughs from centuries-old pine trees had fallen from both sides of the path and blocked the way, though there had been nothing of the sort the evening before. But all things are possible to God! His first thought was one of gratitude: Elder Seraphim fell to his knees and gave thanks to God for the sign given in answer to his prayer, understanding from this that it was pleasing to the Lord God that women should have no entrance to his hill. Somehow he clambered over the boughs that had blocked the path, came to the hermitage, arrived just in time for the Liturgy, and went into the church of the Life-giving Spring.”

So the chronicler of Seraphim’s time recounts this event. On that day the Liturgy in the church of the Life-giving Spring was celebrated in full assembly by Builder Elder Father Isaiya. The hermit Seraphim stood in the altar. After the Holy Gifts had been transferred to the altar table, when the second half of the Cherubic Hymn had been sung, Father Seraphim approached the altar table with reverence and said to Father Builder Isaiya:

“Father dear, father builder! Give your blessing that women should have no entrance to my hill, on which I now live.”

The builder, who was about to read the prayer of the Prothesis after the transfer of the Holy Gifts to the altar table, answered with a somewhat reproving tone:

“At what a moment, and with what a question have you approached, Father Seraphim!”

“Now is precisely the time to give your blessing, father dear,” Father Seraphim entreated.

“But how can I,” said the builder, “watch from five versts away that women do not enter?”

“You need only give your blessing, father dear,” said Father Seraphim, “and not one of them will ascend my hill.”

Then an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, “Blessed is the Womb,” was brought forward. Elder Isaiya, blessing Father Seraphim with the holy icon, said:

“I bless you that women should have no entrance to your hill; but guard it yourself.”

Having venerated the holy icon, Father Seraphim withdrew calmly to his place, and at the appointed time for the clergy received Holy Communion. After the midday meal, having given thanks to Elder Isaiya for the blessing he had received, he returned for the night once more to his wilderness cell.

The account of this has been preserved with minor variations in the Sarov Hermitage itself to the present day. Those who knew Father Seraphim personally say that the conversation with Elder Isaiya took place not on the second day of the Nativity of Christ, but on the fifth week of Great Lent, on Saturday, the day of the Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos; that already one week after the blessing, Father Seraphim, descending from his hill through a ravine, found, as if someone had purposely knocked boughs from the trees and heaped them across the path; and that this circumstance he received as a sign of God’s assent to his prayer. The divergences between these two accounts are so minor that they do not destroy the substance of the event itself. Setting aside the discrepancies, we must leave as beyond doubt: that Father Seraphim prayed to God and to the Most Holy Theotokos for the forbidding of women to ascend his hill; that some sign was given in answer to his prayer; and that the prior, for his part, blessed his desire with an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. Thereafter Father Seraphim himself blocked the path to his dwelling with logs, and the entrance was entirely closed—not only to women, but to outsiders in general.

During this period of his ascetic striving, Father Seraphim wore constantly a single garment, of the plainest and most humble kind: on his head a worn kamilavka, on his shoulders a smock of white linen, his hands in leather mittens, his feet shod in leather stockings—something like leggings—over which bast shoes were worn. On the smock hung a cross, the very cross with which his devout mother had blessed him when sending him from home; and behind his shoulders he carried a sack in which the ascetic always kept the Holy Gospel close by him, inseparably. Was there not, in Father Seraphim’s mind, a visible sign and lesson in this—that he, as a good soldier of Christ, must always bear his cross, having renounced the world, and that the yoke of Christ depicted in the Gospel is easy and His burden is light? In describing the ascetic life of Father Seraphim, we have no doubt that the bearing of the cross and the Gospel had no other meaning.

What ascetic labors Father Seraphim bore in his wilderness cell; how varied and how heavy they were; to what degree they were lofty and saving—that is known in full to the Lord God alone; it remained the deep secret of the hidden heart of the ascetic. We shall describe here only those deeds and labors which were observed by his contemporaries, as it were through the fence of his wilderness. Yet even in these ascetic labors a connectedness and progression may be discerned: Father Seraphim passed from lesser spiritual works and lighter ones to greater and more difficult, until at last he entered upon a new direction of life, consisting in complete reclusion.

The visible ascetic labors of Father Seraphim at this time consisted of bodily toil, the reading of books, and the recitation of prayers.

Bodily toil varied according to the season, warm or cold. In cold weather it was necessary to heat the cell; the elder prepared firewood with his own hands, carried it into the hut, and warmed it. Besides the bodily labor involved, in this he voluntarily endured cold and frost; for his clothing in winter remained the same as we have already described. In summer he cultivated the beds of his wilderness garden. To fertilize the soil, he would go on hot days to marshy places, gather moss there, and carry it to the beds. Since he would enter these low-lying places without clothing, girding only his loins, the insects stung his body cruelly, causing it to swell, to turn blue in places, and to crust with blood. The elder voluntarily endured these wounds for the Lord’s sake, having before him the examples of the holy ascetics of ancient times in the Orthodox Church. Each summer, fertilizing the soil with moss, Father Seraphim cultivated his beds without outside assistance, planted seeds in them, watered the soil, cleared it of unprofitable weeds, and raised certain vegetables which he used to sustain his strength. In the life of a strict ascetic these occupations, while exercising the body, had moreover a moral significance: they served the elder as a remedy for the pain in his legs, which had been put forward as the stated reason for his withdrawal to the wilderness. With bodily exercise the elder entered into a state of cheerfulness which overflowed into the singing of sacred songs. Ever attentive, possessed of a retentive memory, he knew by heart a multitude of church songs, with which he refreshed his spirit amid the monotony of bodily occupations. On various church feasts and Sundays, calling to mind the sacred events, he would sing various sacred songs. But those close to Father Seraphim noticed that certain hymns, having the greatest relevance to his locality and to his solitary work of virtue, were heard more often than others and were his favorite songs. Such were, for example: a) “Universal Glory”—a hymn which Father Seraphim sang in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos, regarding Her as the patroness of his wilderness; b) “For those in the wilderness, a ceaseless divine longing is born, apart from all that is vain in the world”—a wondrous antiphon, which in a beautiful picture depicts the wilderness life and lifts the soul of the desert-dweller to heavenly things; c) “He who brought all things from non-being into being, creating by the Word, perfecting by the Spirit”—a hymn that raises the soul to the great work of God’s love, the creation of the world and of man; d) “He who founded the earth upon nothing by His command,” and others. Thus the simplest occupations elevated the spirit of the ascetic to a moral disposition and a church-biblical vision of the world. In every object, in every deed, he perceived their hidden relationship to the spiritual life and found instruction therein. Hence certain manifestations of the following kind were observable. Father Seraphim, occupied with some task in the garden or at the beehive or in the forest, would without noticing it, for a certain interval, break off his work; the tools would fall from his hands; his hands would drop to his sides; his eyes would give his face a wondrous quality of inward absorption; the elder would plunge with his whole soul into himself, his mind would ascend into heaven and soar in the contemplation of God. No one dared in these inspired moments to disturb his sweet stillness; with reverence each one would gaze upon the elder and quietly withdraw from his sight.

What, then, was the religious and unified vision of nature that Elder Seraphim had formed within his soul in his monastic life? And was he not, with all accuracy, a representative in our own time of the very essence of ancient Orthodox monasticism—which set a significant part of its spiritual work in spiritual contemplation, so greatly conducive to the purification of mind and heart?

In order to maintain himself constantly at the level of eremitic contemplation, in order to stretch ever higher and higher in spiritual perfection, Father Seraphim, beyond his bodily labors, gave himself to the most exalted occupations of mind and heart and read many books. The foremost book for him now was Holy Scripture, and within it the Holy Gospel, which he always carried with him. His constant ascetic life, the reading of many patristic writings, the study of the contents of liturgical books, and prayerful communion with God had illumined his mind with such a light that he understood clearly the meaning of the word of God. His constant rule in the wilderness was to read daily, with his own explanation and reflection, several lections from the Gospel and the Apostle. He also loved, for the more vivid representation of events, to read the Holy Gospel at those places in the wilderness which, as we have seen, bore the names of holy sites. Thus, in his Bethlehem garden, contemplating with his mind the Christ-Child lying swaddled in the manger for our sake, he would sing in imitation of the heavenly powers: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men.” Stopping on the bank of the Sarovka, as if at the waters of Jordan in Bethabara, Father Seraphim would read of John the Baptist, would hearken to his preaching of repentance and the approach of Christ’s kingdom, and would call to mind the Savior’s baptism in the Jordan. The Savior’s Sermon on the Mount concerning the nine most sweet promises of blessedness he would hear on one
hill lying by the Sarov river, while there, on another height called the Mount of Transfiguration, he would contemplate in spirit, in the company of the holy Apostles, the glory of the transfigured Lord. Plunging into the depths of the dense Sarov forest, he would recall according to the Gospel the Lord’s prayer in the agony of the Garden, and, moved to the depths of his soul by His inner suffering, he would pour forth tearful prayers for his own salvation. In one place, at a considerable spreading of the Sarovka, as if on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, he would read the Gospel account of the Lord’s appearance after the Resurrection to His disciples, His conversation with them, and the wondrous catch of fish (John 21:1–14). On the hill called the Mount of Olives he would contemplate the glory of Christ’s Ascension into heaven and His sitting at the right hand of the Father. Thus both the natural revelation of God—that is, nature—and together with it the divinely revealed word of the Holy Trinity served the devout ascetic, each in its own measure, as a path to spiritual ascent and perfection. No one who knows that nature with all its phenomena received its being from God and that among its appointed ends lies God’s own thought—to assist the ascent of men to the Lord—will be in the least astonished at this account. Besides Holy Scripture, Father Seraphim sought wisdom for himself in the writings of the holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, and at this time his soul confined itself to writings specifically of ascetic content, such as the works of John Climacus, the venerable Varsanufiy, Ephraim and Isaac the Syrians, the Margarit, and others. The reading of the word of God and of spiritual writings Father Seraphim regarded as a matter of the greatest importance for the Christian’s spiritual perfection, for his ascent to heaven and union with God. This he called the provisioning of the soul, and his thoughts on the subject he set forth in a special treatise entitled: “By what the soul ought to be provisioned.”

Thus in the solitude of the wilderness Father Seraphim read through all of Holy Scripture with understanding. Now he sought in it not truth alone, but also warmth of spirit: tears of tender compunction would often moisten his cheeks. Peace of soul and the gift of deep knowledge of the word of God were God’s reward for this labor. “It is very profitable,” he would say, “to occupy oneself with reading the word of God in solitude and to read through all the Bible with understanding. For such an exercise alone, apart from other good deeds, the Lord will not abandon a person by His mercy, but will fill him with the gift of understanding.”

The third occupation of Father Seraphim in the wilderness was the recitation of prayers. He had with him a Psalter with additional services. The ascetic performed by it daily the monastic rule according to the practice of the first, strict desert-dwellers. Thus, around midnight, rising from sleep, he would perform the rule of Pachomius the Great, read the morning prayers, sing the Midnight Office and Matins, and read the First Hour. At the coming of the ninth hour, he would read the Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours and go through the order of the Typika. In the evening he would read Vespers and Small Compline. At the coming of the night he would perform the monastic rule with the prayers before sleep. Often also, instead of the evening rule, he would make a thousand prostrations at one time. His sleep during the night was brief. Moreover, he engaged in psalmody, first according to the rule of Saint Pachomius the Great and then, adapting it to that rule, he composed his own order of service, which is known as the cell rule, and which is also shown in the appendix. These prayer services Elder Seraphim would go to perform as well at those places which in a spiritual sense bore the names of holy sites. Thus the Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours with the order of the Typika—in which is concentrated the commemoration of the sufferings and death of Christ—he loved to perform in solitude on his Golgotha. Here with the eyes of faith he beheld how our Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to the Cross, how He, having suffered, died on the Cross and was buried. The elder knew by his own spiritual experience all the obstacles a person encounters on the path of prayerful ascent, and afterward, in conversation with others, would indicate sure means for their removal; he knew all the forms and degrees of prayer and himself ascended not only to the labor of what is called the prayer of the mind, but to the very highest earthly height of prayerful contemplation, in which a person, like Stephen the Archdeacon, Gregory Palamas, and others, is accounted worthy of heavenly visions and revelation. “When the mind and heart,” he would say, “are united in prayer and the thoughts of the soul are not scattered, then the heart is warmed with a spiritual warmth in which the light of Christ shines, filling the whole inner man with peace and joy.” Living his life in solitude, in labor, in reading, and in prayer, Father Seraphim combined with this fasting and the strictest abstinence. At the beginning of his settlement in the wilderness he ate bread—mostly stale and dry; he would usually take bread with him on Sundays for the entire week. There is an account that of this week’s portion of bread he would give part to the wild animals and birds, which had been gentled by the elder, loved him greatly, and visited the place of his prayers. He also ate the vegetables produced by the labor of his own hands in the wilderness garden. The very purpose of this garden was that he might place no burden whatsoever on the hermitage and, following the example of the great ascetic the Apostle Paul, sustain himself by working with his own hands (4:12). In the course of time he trained his body to such abstinence that he ceased to eat even his daily bread, and, with the blessing of Prior Isaiya, nourished himself solely on the vegetables of his own garden. These were potatoes, beets, onions, and the herb called snyt. During the first week of Great Lent he abstained entirely from food until Holy Communion on Saturday. After a further interval, Father Seraphim’s abstinence and fasting reached an almost unbelievable degree. Having stopped altogether taking bread from the hermitage, he lived without any support from it for more than two and a half years. The brethren, marveling, could not understand on what the elder could have sustained himself all that time—not only in summer but in winter. He meanwhile carefully concealed his ascetic labors from the eyes of men. But before his death, in conversation on the twentieth of May 1832 with a trusted person who at that time wrote down their exchange, Father Seraphim disclosed this, beginning as follows:

“Do you know snyt? I would gather it and put it in a little pot; sometimes I would pour in a little water and put it in the stove—a fine dish would come out.”

“I asked him about snyt, what it meant—whether to take it as a figure of speech, or as something actual. He replied: ‘What a one you are! Do you not know the herb snyt? I am telling you about myself. I myself prepared this dish from snyt.’”

I asked him how he ate it in winter and where he got it.

He replied: “What a one you are! In winter I dried the snyt, and on this alone I sustained myself—and the brethren wondered what I lived on! But I ate snyt… And this I did not reveal to the brethren, but to you I have told it.”

I asked: and for how long a time had he eaten it?

He gave me a precise answer to this as well. But I forgot exactly how many days short of one thousand days he ate nothing but snyt. I only remember that for more than two and a half years, not quite three years, he sustained himself on this herb alone.“”

On weekdays, pursuing his salvation in the wilderness, Father Seraphim would appear at the hermitage on the eves of feasts and Sundays, hear Vespers and the All-night Vigil, and at the early Liturgy in the infirmary church of Saints Zosima and Savvaty would receive Holy Communion of the Holy Gifts of Christ. Then until Vespers he would receive in his monastery cell those who came to him with spiritual needs from among the monastic brethren. During Vespers, when the brethren left him, he would take bread for the week, withdraw to his wilderness. The entire first week of Great Lent he would spend in the hermitage. During those days he would keep a strict fast, make his confession, and receive Holy Communion. His confessor from long since had been the builder Elder Isaiya.

Such were the days the elder spent in the wilderness! The other hermit-dwellers, whose names we have already mentioned, each had one disciple who served them. Father Seraphim lived in complete solitude. Certain of the Sarov brethren attempted to live together with Father Seraphim in the wilderness and were received by him; but not one of them could endure the hardships of the eremitic life; in no one was there found enough moral fortitude to appear, as a disciple, in imitation of Father Seraphim’s labors. Their devout attempts, though of benefit to the soul, were not crowned with complete success; and those who had settled with Father Seraphim returned again to the hermitage.

Many of the Sarov brethren also came to him temporarily in the wilderness. Some wished simply to visit him, while others came out of need for counsel and instruction. The elder distinguished between people well. From some he would withdraw, wishing to preserve silence; but those who had need of him he did not refuse spiritual nourishment, guiding them with love toward truth, virtue, and the ordering of their lives. Among the constant visitors of Father Seraphim were known Schema-monk Mark and Hierodeacon Alexander, who was also pursuing salvation in the wilderness. The former came to him twice a month, the latter once. Father Seraphim conversed with them readily on various subjects conducive to the salvation of the soul. Upon their hearts there was impressed with particular depth his conversation on unceasing inner, or mental, prayer—its power and significance—a teaching that became known to Father Seraphim not from books but from his own experience of life. A brief example of this conversation we find in the following instruction of Father Seraphim on prayer.

“Those who have truly resolved to serve the Lord God must exercise themselves in the remembrance of God and in unceasing prayer to Jesus Christ, saying with the mind: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner; and in the hours after midday one may say this prayer thus: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, through the prayers of the Theotokos have mercy on me, a sinner; or else have recourse specifically to the Most Holy Theotokos, praying: Most Holy Theotokos, save us; or say the Angelic salutation: Rejoice, O Theotokos, Virgin! By such exercise, guarding oneself from distraction and maintaining purity of conscience, one may draw near to God and be united with Him. For, in the words of Saint Isaac the Syrian, apart from unceasing prayer we cannot draw near to God (Discourse 69, fol. 142).”

“The forms of prayer have been explained very well by Saint Symeon the New Theologian (Symeon the New Theologian, Russian transl., Discourse 68).”

“The dignity of prayer has been clearly defined by Saint John Chrysostom: prayer, he says, is a mighty weapon, a treasure that does not fail, a wealth never exhausted, a harbor free from storm, the cause of tranquility and the root of countless blessings; it is a fountain and a mother” (Margarit, Discourse 5, On the Incomprehensible).“”

“In church it is profitable to stand at prayer with eyes closed, in inward attentiveness; but to open the eyes when you are overcome by despondency, or when sleep begins to weigh upon you and incline you to drowsiness; then you must turn your eyes toward the icon and to the candle burning before it.”

“If during prayer the mind happens to be captivated and carried away into a scattering of thoughts, one must humble oneself before the Lord God and ask forgiveness, saying: I have sinned, O Lord, in word, in deed, in thought, and in all my senses.”

“For this reason one must always strive not to give oneself over to distraction of thoughts; for through this the soul turns away from the remembrance of God and from love of Him, by the action of the devil, as Saint Macarius says: all the striving of our adversary is to turn our thought away from the remembrance of God, and from fear of Him, and from love of Him (Discourse 2, ch. 15).”

“But when the mind and heart are united in prayer and the thoughts of the soul are not scattered, then the heart is warmed with a spiritual warmth, in which the light of Christ shines, filling the whole inner man with peace and joy.”

“In all things we must give thanks to the Lord and commit ourselves to His will; we must also present to Him all our thoughts, words, and deeds, and strive that all may serve only to His good pleasure.”

Despite the infrequency of visits, the hermit-dwellers Mark and Alexander would at times find Father Seraphim wholly plunged into contemplation of God. In such a case, not daring to disturb his spiritual occupations, they would wait, unbeknown to the elder, for their conclusion. It would also happen that after waiting about an hour they would not obtain a meeting with him, and would return to their own places; and having before them such a living lesson of asceticism, they would themselves with greater zeal give themselves to spiritual labors.

Among the outside visitors of Father Seraphim at this time, one is especially well known: a deacon from Nizhny Novgorod province, later a hieromonk and ascetic, Timon. He came from a clerical family and had completed the full course of studies at the Nizhny Novgorod Seminary; he was an educated man. The influence of theological learning had developed in him, beyond intellectual gifts, a sense of piety of an ascetic character. Circumstances, however, compelled him to marry, though against his own desires. He was then ordained a deacon. But in a short time the Lord loosed him from the bonds of matrimony: his wife died not long after. Remaining free, this Father Deacon went frequently to the Sarov Hermitage. There he became close to the hermits Father Seraphim and Mark. The elders, seeing his sincere zeal for a godly life, gladly took him under their guidance and were his mentors and teachers. Their words fell on good soil. The Father Deacon entered monastic life and in the rank of hierodeacon served as steward of an episcopal household. The bishop of Nizhny Novgorod wished to ordain him to the rank of hieromonk. But “I,” Timon would say of himself, “by no means consented, for all my desire was to live alone in the wilderness, with God alone.” Many years later the bishop sent him as builder to a city monastery. Once, having come to the monastery to serve, the bishop said that it was not fitting for a hierodeacon to be builder, and ordained him a hieromonk, though he had not sought it. “But I,” said Father Timon, “desired to retire to the Kostroma diocese, to the Krivozersky Monastery, which I had known before.” The Holy Synod released him from the monastery, and the abbot of Krivozero gave him a blessing to settle in the inner wilderness, where he lived alone for nearly twenty years. Near the place of Father Timon’s inner wilderness stood a monastery farm and a small old church. Food was brought to the hermit from the farm. Then “for the sake of my great sins,” Father Timon would narrate, “the Lord commanded me to leave the wilderness and come to the farm, to live there and to found a monastery. But I by no means wished to be parted from the wilderness and I resisted my Lord. For this the Lord punished me: I was struck with paralysis and lay as one dead. The monastery laborers came for timber and, bringing me food, found me without consciousness and without speech, entirely stricken, and they took me and brought me to the farm. But my Lord God healed me miraculously in a short time, as if I had never been ill. And I gave thanks to my Lord God and ceased any further to resist God’s will, and remained in that place to live, and the Lord blessed that place. And I, with God’s help, in a short time built this community.” This community is now called the Nadeevskaya Pustyn and is in the Kostroma diocese.

If outside his wilderness cell the elder unexpectedly encountered anyone in the Sarov forest, he would ordinarily, without entering into conversation, bow to him with humility and withdraw: “No one has ever repented of silence,” he would say later in his instructions. Upon people who did not know Father Seraphim personally, such a sudden encounter with him in the wilderness, given his attire, produced a wondrous impression, never to be erased, and frequently taught them virtue no less than his conversation itself. The strictness of his life and of his relations with others corresponded to his first essays of teaching in the ascetic spirit, distinguished by faithfulness of thought, brevity, and force of expression:

“Perfect love for God,” he taught, “unites those who love with God and with one another mutually; the mind that has acquired spiritual love thinks nothing at variance with love.”

“Solitude, prayer, love, and abstinence are a four-part chariot that lifts the spirit to heaven.”

“Exhaust your body by fasting and vigil—and you will repel the tormenting thought of sensuality.”

“As it is God’s work to govern the world, so it is the soul’s work to govern the body.”

“Lust is destroyed by suffering and sorrow, whether voluntary or sent by Providence.”

“By whatever measure you apportion to your body, by that same measure will God render to you the just recompense of the goods awaited.”

“God is the unfailing promiser of future blessings; believing in Him, the ascetic desires the future as if it were already present.”

“If the mind, entirely forgetting the things of this world, increasingly strives to know the things to come, this is a sign that it lives in blessed expectation.”

“Dispassion is a good thing: God Himself gives and establishes this state in souls that love Him.”

“Do not be negligent in the active life—and your mind will be illumined; God Himself promises this: I will give you treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places (Is 45).”

“Solitude and prayer are great means toward virtue: purifying the mind, they render it far-sighted.”

“Asceticism demands patience and magnanimity: for love of the world is eradicated only by long-practiced diligence.”

“He who endures with prayer the blows of involuntary temptations becomes humble, full of hope, and experienced.”

“Patience is the diligence of the soul, and diligence consists both in voluntary labors and in the endurance of involuntary temptations. The mind that has received some measure of dispassion is at times unshaken, but without deeds it remains inexperienced.”

“To whom faith is given, of him is required abstinence, which, taking root, gives birth to patience—a habit gained through much toil. The sign of patience is love of labors; resting upon them, the mind hopes to receive the promise of future blessings.”

“The promise of future blessings binds the mind to that which is awaited, so that we forget and relinquish the present.”

Seeing the so sincere, zealous, and in truth exalted asceticism of Elder Father Seraphim, the devil, the ancient enemy of all good, armed himself against him with various temptations. By his cunning, beginning with the lightest, he first sent upon the ascetic various terrors. Thus, according to the account of one elder hieromonk of the Sarov Hermitage advanced in years, once during prayer he suddenly heard from beyond the cell walls the howling of a beast; then, as if a crowd of people had gathered, they began battering down the door of the cell, knocked out its doorposts, and flung at the feet of the praying elder a log of enormous thickness—a stump—which eight men carried out of the cell with great effort. At other times, both by day and especially at night during prayer, he would suddenly see visibly before him as though his cell was falling apart in four directions, and as though from every side terrible beasts were rushing at him with savage and furious roaring and shrieking. Sometimes there would suddenly appear before him an open coffin, from which a dead man rose up.

Since the elder did not yield to these terrors, the devil raised against him most savage attacks. Thus he would, by God’s permission, lift him up into the air and then hurl him against the floor with such force that, were it not for his guardian angel, even his bones might have been shattered by such blows. But even by this he did not overcome the elder. Most probably, amid these temptations, the elder with his spiritual eye—which penetrated into the heavenly world—beheld the evil spirits themselves. Perhaps the spirits of malice even appeared to him visibly in bodily forms, as they did to other ascetics… At any rate it is evident that the elder actually saw the evil spirits. For one layman, in simplicity of heart, asked him:

“Father dear! Have you seen evil spirits?”

The elder replied with a smile:

“They are hideous… Just as it is impossible for a sinner to look upon the light of an angel, so it is terrible to behold the demons: for they are hideous.”

All the visions, temptations, and assaults of the enemy the elder overcame by the power of the sign of the Cross and by prayers. After them he would dwell for a long time in peace in his wilderness, giving thanks to the Lord for this peace and tranquility.

The ecclesiastical authorities knew Father Seraphim and understood how beneficial it would be for many to appoint such an elder as abba, as prior of some hermitage. The position of archimandrite in the city of Alatyr became vacant in 1796. Father Seraphim was designated to go there as prior, with elevation to the rank of archimandrite. In the preceding and current centuries the Sarov Hermitage had more than once given from among its brotherhood good priors to other communities. But Elder Seraphim earnestly besought the then prior of Sarov, Isaiya, to deflect this appointment from him. Does not this circumstance alone sufficiently prove that Father Seraphim sought in monasticism the salvation of his soul and truly wished to be an ascetic in the true and genuine sense of that word? Builder Isaiya and the Sarov brethren were sorry to let Elder Seraphim go from them—a fervent man of prayer and a wise instructor. The wishes of both parties came together: all began asking another hieromonk from Sarov itself, Elder Avraamy, to take upon himself the rank of archimandrite in the Alatyr Monastery; and the brother, solely out of obedience, accepted this rank upon himself.

Seeing the humility of Elder Seraphim, the devil raised against him a great persecution, stirred up in his soul a spiritual warfare of the mind, and sustained this struggle with such pressure and force as had once brought down the great Theophilus among the Fathers, the steward of the Church of Adana (see the Lives of Saints, July 23). In this grievous trial of soul Elder Seraphim turned to the Lord, the Establisher of our salvation, Jesus Christ, and to His Most Pure Mother; and resolved himself to intensify his monastic labors, so as to destroy, with help from above, the terrible snares of the devil that plunged him into despondency. Having received a blessing, he took upon himself a new and higher labor of prayer.

In the deep forest, halfway between the cell and the monastery, lay a granite stone of extraordinary size. Recalling the difficult labor of the holy Stylites, Father Seraphim resolved to take part in asceticism of this kind. For this purpose he would ascend—so as not to be seen by anyone—in the nighttime hours onto this stone to intensify his labor of prayer. He would pray ordinarily either standing on his feet or kneeling, with hands raised upward like Saint Pachomius, crying out in the voice of the publican: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” In order to balance his nighttime labors with those of the day, Father Seraphim also had a stone in his cell, on which he prayed during the day from morning until evening, leaving the stone only for rest from exhaustion and to refresh himself with food. This manner of prayer labor he bore at intervals over the course of a thousand days.

In his instructions Father Seraphim would always say that “although all effort must be directed toward the soul, the body is to be sustained only insofar as it assists in the strengthening of the spirit; but if we exhaust our body through self-will to the point where the spirit too is exhausted, such affliction is senseless, even if it be done for the acquiring of virtue.” Thus brightly did Father Seraphim look upon the ascetic life! Thus too did he act! From standing on the stones, from the difficulty of this prayer labor, his body was notably altered, and the illness in his legs recurred—and from that time until the end of his days it never ceased to torment him. Father Seraphim understood that the continuation of such labors would have led to the exhaustion of both spirit and body, and he ceased his prayer on the stones. These labors he performed in such secrecy that not a single human soul knew of them or suspected them. After Isaiya, the abbot Nifont received a confidential inquiry concerning Father Seraphim from the bishop of Tambov. In the papers of the hermitage there is preserved a draft reply from Nifont, in which the prior answered: “of the labors and life of Father Seraphim we know; but of any secret deeds, and likewise of his standing for one thousand days and nights on the stone, no one had any knowledge.” Near the end of his days, so as not to remain an enigma to people—after the manner of other ascetics—among other manifestations of his life he told certain of the brethren, for their edification, of this labor as well.

One of the listeners of this account, moved by wonder at the labors of prayer on the stones, remarked that this was beyond human strength.

The ascetic, explaining the complete possibility of the matter, remarked with humility: “Saint Symeon the Stylite stood on his pillar for forty-seven years; and do my labors resemble his feat?”

His interlocutor added on his own part: “In this labor, surely, the help of strengthening grace was perceptible to you?”

“Yes,” replied the elder, “otherwise human strength would not have sufficed… Inwardly I was strengthened and consoled by this heavenly gift, descending from above from the Father of lights…”

Then, having been silent for a little while, he added: “When there is tender compunction in the heart, God is with us.”

In these last words, against the elder’s own will, the spirit of his prayer revealed itself. He prayed with tender compunction, and his prayers were so near to God that he sensed within himself the presence of God and was strengthened by the gracious gift of this feeling.

The stones on which Father Seraphim had labored are preserved to this day, as we shall see below; and for some time after his death they remained in their places where they lay. The brethren of the hermitage and pilgrims would go to see them, so that to Seraphim’s wilderness, in place of the former narrow path, a wide road was afterward opened, along which carriages could drive. Many would chip off and take home pieces of his stones. In certain devout homes these fragments are encountered, bearing on them an image of Father Seraphim kneeling in an attitude of prayer.

In all the temptations and attacks upon Father Seraphim, the devil’s aim had been to drive him from the wilderness. Yet all the enemy’s efforts remained fruitless: he was vanquished, withdrew in shame from his conqueror, but gave him no rest. Devising new means to remove the elder from the wilderness, the evil spirit began to wage war against him through wicked men. On the twelfth of September 1804, three men unknown to the elder approached him, dressed in peasant garb. Father Seraphim was at that time felling trees in the forest. The peasants, insolently advancing upon him, demanded money, saying that “worldly people come to you and bring you money.” The elder said: “I take nothing from anyone.” But they did not believe him. Then one of those who had come threw himself upon him from behind, intending to knock him to the ground, but instead fell down himself. From this mishap the villains were somewhat daunted, yet did not wish to abandon their purpose. Father Seraphim possessed great physical strength and, armed with an axe, might have defended himself with some hope of success. This thought flashed for an instant through his mind. But he then recalled the Savior’s words: all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword (Matt. 26:52), did not wish to resist, calmly laid the axe on the ground, and said gently, folding his arms crosswise on his chest: “Do what you must.” He resolved to endure all things without cause for the Lord’s sake. Then one of the peasants, picking up the axe from the ground, struck Father Seraphim on the head with the butt with such force that blood poured from his mouth and ears. The elder fell to the ground and lost consciousness. The villains dragged him toward the cell porch, continuing to beat him furiously, like quarry taken in hunting—some with the axe-head, some with a stick, some with their own hands and feet; they even talked of throwing the elder into the river… And when they saw that he was already truly as one dead, they bound his hands and feet with rope and, having laid him in the vestibule, themselves rushed into the cell, imagining they would find untold riches there. In the humble dwelling they quickly went through everything, looked over all, broke up the stove, tore up the floor, searched and searched, and found nothing for themselves: they saw only a holy icon, and a few potatoes came to hand. Then conscience spoke powerfully within the villains, repentance stirred in their hearts that they had beaten a devout man needlessly, with no profit even to themselves; some kind of fear came upon them, and in terror they fled out. Meanwhile Father Seraphim, from the savage death-dealing blows, could barely come to his senses, somehow untied himself, gave thanks to the Lord that he had been accounted worthy to bear wounds for His sake without cause, prayed that God would forgive the assailants, and, having spent the night in the cell in suffering, made his way the following day with great difficulty—yet on his own—to the hermitage, arriving just at the time of the Liturgy. His appearance was terrible! The hair of his beard and head was dampened with blood, matted and tangled, covered with dust and debris; his face and hands were beaten; several teeth were knocked out; his ears and mouth were crusted with blood; his garments, crumpled and blood-soaked, had dried and in places adhered to his wounds. The brethren, seeing him in such a state, were horrified and asked what had befallen him. Without answering a word, Father Seraphim asked to have the prior Father Isaiya and the monastery confessor called to him, to whom he told in detail everything that had occurred. Both the prior and the brethren were deeply grieved by the sufferings of the elder. By reason of this misfortune Father Seraphim was compelled to remain in the monastery to recover his health. The devil, who had raised up the villains, appeared now to be celebrating a victory over the elder, imagining that he had driven him from the wilderness for good. The first eight days were very hard for the sick man: taking neither food nor water, he had no sleep either from the unbearable pain. The hermitage had no expectation that he would survive his sufferings. The prior, Elder Isaiya, on the seventh day of the illness, seeing no turn for the better, sent to Arzamas for physicians. Examining the elder, the physicians found his condition as follows: his head was fractured, his ribs broken, his chest crushed by trampling, and his whole body covered in various places with mortal wounds. They marveled how the elder could have remained alive after such a beating. According to the traditional method of treatment, the physicians considered it necessary to bleed the patient. The prior, knowing that the patient had already lost much blood from his wounds, did not agree to this measure; but, at the earnest insistence of the medical council, resolved to propose it to Father Seraphim. The council assembled again in Father Seraphim’s cell; it consisted of three physicians, with three medical assistants. While awaiting the prior they again examined the patient, deliberated for a long time in Latin among themselves, and determined to bleed him, bathe him, apply plasters to his wounds, and use spirits in certain places. They also agreed that relief must be administered as soon as possible. Father Seraphim noted their attentiveness and solicitude for him with deep gratitude in his heart. While all of this was taking place, a voice suddenly announced: “The father prior is coming, the father prior is coming!” At that moment Father Seraphim fell asleep: his sleep was brief, light, and peaceful. In sleep he beheld a wondrous vision. The Most Holy Theotokos approached from the right side of the bed, clothed in royal purple, surrounded with glory. Behind Her followed the holy Apostles Peter and John the Theologian. Stopping by the bedside, the Most Pure Virgin pointed with the finger of Her right hand at the patient and, turning Her most pure countenance toward the side where the physicians stood, said: “Why do you toil?” Then again, turning Her face toward the elder, She said: “This one is of our race”—and the vision ended, unbeknownst to those present. When the prior entered, the patient came to consciousness once more. Father Isaiya, with a feeling of deep love and concern, proposed that he avail himself of the counsel and assistance of the physicians. But the patient, after so much solicitude for him, in his desperate state of health, replied to the astonishment of all that he did not now desire help from men, asking the father prior to leave his life to God and to the Most Holy Theotokos, the true and faithful physicians of souls and bodies. There was nothing to be done; the elder was left in peace, his patience respected and the strength and firmness of his faith marveled at. He himself was filled from the wondrous visitation with ineffable joy, and this heavenly joy lasted for about four hours. Then the elder quieted, returned to his normal state, felt relief from his illness, strength and vigor began to return to him; he rose from his bed, began to walk a little about the cell, and in the evening at the ninth hour refreshed himself with food, tasting a little bread and white fermented cabbage. From that same day he began again little by little to give himself to spiritual labors.

In an earlier time, Father Seraphim, while working in the forest, had at one point been struck and pressed down by a tree he was felling, and from this circumstance had lost his natural uprightness and bearing, becoming bent. After the attack of the brigands, from the blows, wounds, and illness, the curvature increased still more. From this time onward he began to walk supporting himself with a small axe, a mattock, or a staff. Thus this curvature, this wound in the heel, served throughout all his life as the crown of victory of the great ascetic over the devil.

From the day of his illness Elder Seraphim spent about five months in the monastery, not seeing his wilderness. When his health returned to him, when he felt himself once more strong enough to continue the eremitic life, he petitioned Prior Isaiya to release him again from the monastery to the wilderness. The prior, at the urging of the brethren, and himself sincerely feeling pity for the elder, sought to persuade him to remain in the monastery permanently, pointing to the possibility of the repetition of similarly dire misfortunes. Father Seraphim answered that he counted such attacks as nothing and was ready—following the example of the holy martyrs who suffered for the name of the Lord—to endure even unto death whatever offenses might befall him. He feared only the robbers of the soul, firmly remembering the word of the Savior: Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt. 10:28). Yielding to the elder’s Christian fearlessness of spirit and love for the eremitic life, Father Isaiya gave his blessing to the elder’s desire, and Elder Seraphim returned once more to his wilderness cell. It is not known what the state of his spirit was in the first moments of this second settlement in the wilderness; but knowing his boundless love for solitude, we shall not err if we represent it in the following words of Saint Basil the Great.

“O solitary life! House of heavenly teaching and school of divine understanding, in which God is all that we study. The wilderness is a paradise of sweetness, where both the fragrant flowers of love—now blazing with fiery color, now gleaming with snow-white purity—and together with them peace and stillness abide. Dwelling in lowly places, they remain unmoved by the wind. There is the incense of the perfect mortification not only of the flesh, but—what is more glorious—of the will itself; and the censer of ceaseless prayer, burning sweetly, seethes without ceasing with the fire of divine love. There the various flowers of virtue, gleaming with various adornments, flourish with the grace of unfading beauty. O wilderness, delight of holy souls, paradise of inexhaustible sweetness! Thou art the furnace in which the holy youths, by prayer, cool the force of the burning flame, and by the ardor of faith quench the fire blazing around them, in which burn also the arrows and the fetters, but those bound do not burn. Only the bonds of sin are loosed and the soul is raised to the singing of divine praises, crying out: Thou hast opened wide my mouth! To Thee will I offer a sacrifice of praise.”

Thus in this struggle with the elder, too, the devil, with the elder’s second settlement in the wilderness, suffered a most complete defeat. But an even greater and more terrible blow was preparing for him than any he might have expected. The peasants who had beaten the elder were found. They were serfs of the landowner Tatishchev, from the village of Kremenki in Ardatov district. And what then? Father Seraphim himself forgave them and entreated the prior to make no prosecution of them. To the landowner as well he wrote, asking that they not be punished. “Otherwise,” said Father Seraphim, “I will leave the Sarov Hermitage and withdraw to other holy places unknown to anyone.” Likewise, when speaking with the prior, he agreed rather that he himself should be removed from the hermitage than that any punishment should be inflicted upon them. Such was Father Seraphim’s meekness! Such offenses could he forgive to his enemies! What better shame could have been inflicted upon the enemy who had waged war against the elder? Father Seraphim, by the Lord’s commandment, forgave his enemies, leaving vengeance to the Lord God. The wrath of God did indeed kindle over them; in no long time a fire consumed their dwellings. The chastisement of God in this misfortune was so evident, at least to the brigands themselves, that they came and with tears of repentance again asked Father Seraphim’s forgiveness and his holy prayers.

From the entire prolonged and varied struggle with the devil, Elder Seraphim acquired a sound and true understanding of the life and labors of the hermit-dweller, which was of great benefit to others for the salvation of the soul. Thus one monk, intending to settle in complete solitude, came to Father Seraphim in the wilderness and, agitated by various thoughts concerning the eremitic life, asked him:

“Father! some say that withdrawal from community life into the wilderness is pharisaism; that by such a change one shows contempt for the brethren, or even casts condemnation upon them. What do you think?”

The elder replied:

“It is not our business to judge others. But we withdraw from the society of the brethren not out of hatred for them, but chiefly because we have received and bear upon ourselves the angelic rank, which is incompatible with being in a place where the Lord God is angered in word and deed. And therefore, withdrawing from the brethren, we remove ourselves only from hearing and seeing what is contrary to the commandments of God, as inevitably occurs in the midst of a large number of brethren. We flee not men, who are of the same nature as ourselves and bear the same name of Christ, but the vices committed by them—as the great Arsenius was told: flee from men and you will be saved (Lives of Saints, May 8).”

To another monk who, after careful examination, had been given by the prior a blessing to begin the eremitic life, the prior had also written a letter to Father Seraphim, asking him to receive this monk and instruct him in the path of the wilderness life. Father Seraphim received him very warmly and gave him a blessing to build a wilderness cell not far from his own. When the monk beforehand began asking him for instruction concerning the eremitic life, the elder, out of the deepest humility, and still more out of great wisdom and experience in this matter, answered: “I myself know nothing.” Then, as if wishing to satisfy the monk’s desire for learning, he added: “The Savior said: Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls (Matt. 11:29). According to the understanding of Saint John Climacus, not from an angel or a man, but from the Lord Himself must we learn.”

In general, he was reluctant to advise others to settle in the wilderness, and in warning explained that one living in the wilderness must be as if crucified on the cross; that in the monastery monks struggle with the opposing forces as with doves, but in the wilderness it is truly as with lions and leopards. And therefore, if he did incline to the side of the eremitic life, he gave no blessing to anyone to go into solitude alone, but advised withdrawing for wilderness labors two or even three brethren of one accord. In support of this he would always cite the following words from Scripture: Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up: and a threefold cord is not quickly broken (Eccl. 4:9–12). A brother helped by a brother is as a strong and high city, and is established as a firm kingdom (Prov. 18:19).

The best testimony to the truth and soundness of Father Seraphim’s views on monastic and eremitic life are his ascetic writings, the text of which is given below—such as, for example, those on ascetic labors, on thoughts and bodily impulses, on the guarding of the heart, on peace of soul, on the preserving of peace of soul, and the like.

The Lord God, in reward for the ascetic labors and victory over the devil, adorned Father Seraphim with the gift of clairvoyance, the workings of which were manifested for the first time precisely here, in the distant wilderness. One God-loving visitor to the Sarov Hermitage, having been captivated by its sacred beauty, formed in his soul a firm intention to enter it for the salvation of his soul in the monastic rank; but upon returning home he was drawn away by worldly life, then entered into marriage and had two children. His conscience, however, would remind him of the vows of his heart, and he, coming again to Sarov as a penitent, bowed to the feet of the Sarov elders in the church after the divine service, asking them to weigh his guilt and give him counsel and a blessing for entering the hermitage. One of the elders advised him to turn to Father Seraphim, who at that time was pursuing his salvation here in the distant wilderness. Coming here and seeing Father Seraphim, who had come out of his cell with a spade in his hands, the God-loving visitor threw himself at his feet, imploring him to give good counsel in his spiritual disorder and to pray to the Lord that He might receive him onto the desired path of the monastic life. Having listened to him in silence, Father Seraphim asked: “Will you fulfil all the monastic rules according to your vow?” When the visitor, forgetting on that occasion his wife and children, swore to be a faithful fulfiller of the monastery’s rules even unto death, expressing moreover his readiness and zeal to bear some penance, Elder Seraphim, foreseeing the possibility of the fulfillment of his promises, said: “If you will truly according to your vow fulfil all the monastic rules, then go with peace upon your way!” With these words he blessed the visitor and dismissed him. This was one of the first experiences of the elder’s clairvoyance. Shortly after the conversation his wife died, and after her the children followed too—the man who had desired the monastic life. And he, bound by no worldly ties, came to the Sarov Hermitage, was there tonsured a monk, and died a true monk.

It is altogether understandable that Father Seraphim, by virtue of his ascetic labors and spiritual experience, was held in universal esteem in the Sarov Hermitage. The successor of Builder Pakhomy, Elder Isaiya—spiritual father and godfather of Father Seraphim—held him in great honor, loved him, and valued his conversation. In satisfaction of such feelings, when he was fresh, vigorous, and in good health, he would himself frequently go to the wilderness to visit Father Seraphim. In 1806, Isaiya, from old age and from the labors borne for his own salvation and that of the brethren, became especially weak in health and, at his own petition, was released from the duties and rank of prior. The lot of occupying his place in the hermitage, by the common wish of the brethren, fell to Father Seraphim. Once again the elder was being chosen for a position of authority; but this time too, by his own humility and out of his extreme love for the wilderness, he declined the offered honor. Then by the voice of all the brethren the elder Nifont was chosen as prior—he who until that time had performed the obedience of treasurer. Having entered the number of the brethren, the former prior Isaiya lived yet one more year on this earth, and all that time was in illness. Unable, by reason of his ailments, to walk six versts to Father Seraphim in the wilderness, unwilling also to distract him from his beloved eremitic life, Elder Isaiya was nonetheless by no means willing to deprive himself of the consolation of conversing with him. The brethren, out of their zeal, would take their former prior—the ailing elder—in a small cart to the wilderness, and Father Seraphim by his conversation would comfort his godfather and spiritual father and sweeten the last moments of his life. On the fourth of December 1807, at sixty-seven years of age, the valiant elder fell asleep in the sleep of the righteous, leaving behind him in all a good memory. The loss of such a companion, spiritual father, and superior pierced with deep sorrow the love-filled and tender heart of Father Seraphim. Thoughts of the transience of this present life, of the inevitability and unpredictability of the hour of death, and of the dread judgment of God presented themselves more vividly to Father Seraphim’s heart in the image of the departed elder and spiritual friend. Now there were no longer living any of the closest and best friends and guides of the elder. The bones of Joseph, who had taught him the fatherly way, had long been resting in the grave. The righteous soul of Elder Pakhomy—whom Father Seraphim regarded not only as a benefactor but as a spiritual friend—likewise sojourned in the world beyond the grave. Gone too was Elder Isaiya, who had loved Father Seraphim as his spiritual child and had honored in him a lofty ascetic and a wise companion in conversation. Throughout his whole life Father Seraphim prayed to God with sincere zeal for the repose of these three venerable fathers. Every time he passed by the cemetery, he considered it his duty to stop at their graves, bow his knees before their sacred dust, and offer a prayer for them to the Lord of the living and the dead. In conversation with the superior of the Ardatov community, Evdokiya, he gave the following instruction: “When you come to me, stop at the graves, make three prostrations, asking God to grant rest to the souls of His servants: Isaiya, Pakhomy, Joseph, Mark, and the others; and then bow down before the tomb, saying inwardly: forgive me, holy fathers, and pray for me.” Thus he would urge others also to pray for their spiritual guides and for the Sarov ascetics in general—calling them, by the height and ardor of their prayers, pillars of fire from earth to heaven; thus he himself prayed. In the death of Builder Isaiya, Father Seraphim was greatly consoled by the thought that his place had been taken by Elder Nifont, a man of rare qualities who valued and loved him. Nevertheless, with the death of Isaiya, the subsequent life of Father Seraphim took a new, in the ascetic sense, higher spiritual direction.

The writings of Father Seraphim’s teaching, which are mentioned in the text and whose contents have not been set out there, are placed below in a special appendix.

Concerning this Elder Timon, the hieromonk Parfeny, former builder of the Guslitsky Monastery, in his well-known account of his journeys (Moscow, 1855, in 4 parts) recounts the following:

“Once, having chosen a convenient moment, I obtained leave to go to Elder Timon and set out on my way. At that time I was so deaf that I could not hear the ringing of a three-hundred-pood bell, and conversed by signs or in writing. But as I was drawing near to the Nadeevskaya Pustyn, my ears were opened—though not completely—and I began to hear human speech and church singing. When, having arrived at the wilderness hermitage, I saw the blessed elder hieromonk Father Timon and his venerable gray hair, my soul rejoiced greatly and my heart trembled. He blessed me and led me into his cell, opened his honey-flowing lips, and began to water me from his abundant sources of living water; and with just a few words he melted my heart like wax, and made me such that it was as though I had never been a schismatic; and at that very same time I made the sign of the cross over my face with three fingers in the name of the Holy Trinity, and from that time I have never again made the sign of the cross with two fingers, even to this day. In truth, the Lord God has given to this elder such a gift of wisdom that no one could resist him; and in all my many years of wandering I have seen no one his equal in the gift of speech. Then I thanked him greatly and asked his holy prayers, that until the end of my life my faith in my Lord God Jesus Christ and in His Holy Church might not fail” (part I, pp. 193-195).“”

5. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion

Elder Seraphim, after the death of the prior Isaiya, while continuing to dwell in the wilderness, took upon himself the monastic labor of silence. “Above all things one must adorn oneself with silence,” he would say, “for, as Saint Ambrose of Milan says, through silence I have seen many saved, but through much talking, not one. And again one of the fathers says: silence is the mystery of the age to come, while words are the instruments of this world.” From this time onward his life became even more still than before: for now not only the wilderness itself, but the elder’s own lips seal it from us.

In what aspect, then, does the life of Father Seraphim now present itself to the observer? In general, he now took as his guide the deeds of two ancient ascetics—Arsenius the Great and John the Silentiary and hermit. In particular: if visitors came to him in the wilderness, he would not appear to them. If he himself happened to encounter someone unexpectedly in the forest, the elder fell face down and would not raise his eyes until the person had passed by. In this manner he preserved his silence for about three years. Some time before the end of that period he also stopped visiting the hermitage on Sundays and feast days. One brother carried food to him in the wilderness, especially in winter when Father Seraphim had no vegetables of his own. Food was brought once a week, on Sunday. It was hard for the appointed brother to perform this obedience in winter! There was no path to Father Seraphim’s wilderness cell. He would trudge through blizzards, sinking in snow up to his knees, carrying a week’s supply of food for the silent elder!… Upon entering the vestibule, the visiting brother would customarily say the prayer. The elder, silently saying “Amen” to himself, would open the door from the cell into the vestibule. With hands folded crosswise on his chest, he would stand at the door with his face cast down toward the ground: he would neither bless the brother nor even glance at him. And the visiting brother, having said his prayer according to custom and bowed to the elder’s feet, would place the food on a small tray that lay on a table in the vestibule. For his part, Father Seraphim would place on the same tray either a small piece of bread or a little cabbage. The visiting brother took careful note of this. By these signs the elder silently indicated what should be brought the following Sunday: bread or cabbage. And again the visiting brother, having said the prayer, would bow to the elder’s feet and, having asked for his prayers on his behalf, would return to the hermitage without having heard a single word from Father Seraphim. All of this was only the visible, outward sign of the practice of silence. But the essence of the feat consisted not in outward withdrawal from social interaction, but in the silence of the mind, in renunciation of all worldly thoughts for the sake of the most pure dedication of oneself to the Lord. Such silence, as the elder himself described it, bore many fruits. It decisively disarmed the devil in his struggle with the desert-dweller. “When we remain in silence,” Father Seraphim would say, “the enemy, the devil, accomplishes nothing against the hidden person of the heart: and this must be understood as silence in the mind. It gives birth in the soul of the one who practices it to various fruits of the Spirit. From solitude and silence,” he would say, “are born tenderness of heart and meekness: the action of the latter in the human heart may be likened to the still waters of Siloam, which flow without noise or sound, as the prophet Isaiah speaks of them: the waters of Siloah that flow gently (Isa. 8:6). In combination with other spiritual occupations, the practice of silence raises a person to piety. Dwelling in the cell in silence, in exercise, in prayer, and in meditating day and night on the law of God makes a person devout: for, in the words of the holy Fathers, the monk’s cell is the Babylonian furnace, in which the three youths found the Son of God. Silence brings a person near to God and makes him like an earthly angel. Only sit in your cell in attentiveness and silence, and with all your might strive to draw near to the Lord: and the Lord is ready to make you from a man into an Angel: for upon whom, He says, shall I look, but upon the meek and silent one who trembles at My words (Isa. 66:2). Among the fruits of silence, besides other spiritual gains, is peace of soul. Silence teaches stillness and constant prayer, while self-restraint keeps the mind from distraction. Finally, one who has acquired this awaits a state of peace.” Such was the way Elder Seraphim practiced the feat of silence! Such was what he sought to attain by this path, casting all his care upon the Lord (1 Pet. 5:7).

Many of the brothers deeply regretted the elder’s withdrawal from life in community with them. By taking upon himself the practice of silence, he deprived them of his counsel and guidance. Those closest to him even asked: “Why does he withdraw into solitude, when by remaining in close fellowship with the brothers he could edify them by word and example, without any loss to the ordering of his own soul?” The elder replied, using the words of the holy Fathers: “Love the idleness of stillness above satisfying the hungry in the world, said Saint Isaac the Syrian. And Saint Gregory the Theologian said: it is beautiful to do theology for God, but better than this, if a person purifies himself for God.”

The practice of silence was not, however, the feat upon which Elder Seraphim resolved to end his life. Through it, as if by a ladder, having attained greater perfection, he passed on to the higher asceticism known as reclusion. The occasion for this was the following circumstance. At the time being described, the superior was, as already noted, Father Nifont—a God-fearing, virtuous man, fatherly in his love for the brothers, attentive to the needs and circumstances of each brother, a zealot for the rule and order of the Church. Father Seraphim, from the time of the death of Elder Isaiya, having imposed upon himself the labor of silence, lived in his wilderness cell without ever leaving it—exactly as in a reclusion. Previously he had been coming to the hermitage on Sundays and feast days to receive Holy Communion. Now, since the time of his standing on the rocks, his legs had been ailing; he could not walk. It was unknown who was giving him Holy Communion, though we do not doubt for a moment that he did not remain without partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ. Did this circumstance not give some occasion for scandal, to which people are so prone?… And so the prior convened a monastic council of the senior hieromonks, and the question of Father Seraphim’s reception of Holy Communion was put before them for deliberation. The matter was decided thus: to propose to Father Seraphim that he either walk—if his legs were sound and strong—to the hermitage as before on Sundays and feast days to receive Holy Communion, or, if his legs would not serve him, to move permanently to a monastic cell. By common counsel it was decided to inquire through the brother who carried food on Sundays what Father Seraphim would choose. The brother, on his very next visit to the elder, carried out the decision of the Sarov council, but Father Seraphim, having listened in silence to the council’s proposal, dismissed the brother as usual, without saying a word. The brother reported the matter as it stood to the prior, and the prior told him to repeat the council’s proposal the following Sunday. Bringing food the next week, the brother repeated the proposal… Then Elder Seraphim, having blessed the brother, set off with him on foot to the hermitage. By accepting the second proposal of the council, the elder showed that he had been unable, owing to illness, to walk to the hermitage as before on Sundays and feast days. This was in the spring, on the eighth of May 1810. Entering the monastery gates after fifteen years of dwelling in the wilderness, Father Seraphim, without stopping at his cell, went directly to the infirmary. It was daytime, before the evening vigil service began. When the bell was rung, Father Seraphim appeared at the all-night vigil in the Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God. How many years had it been since the elder had been in the hermitage! The brothers were astonished when the news instantly spread that Father Seraphim had resolved to dwell in the hermitage. But their astonishment grew even greater when the following events occurred. The next day, on the ninth of May—the feast of the Hierarch and Wonder-Worker Nicholas—Father Seraphim came, as was customary, to the infirmary church for the early Liturgy and received Holy Communion. Upon leaving the church, he directed his steps to the cell of the prior Nifont, and, having received his blessing, settled into his former monastic cell; he received no one, went nowhere himself, and spoke not a word to anyone—that is, he took upon himself the new and most arduous feat of reclusion. Father Seraphim’s practice of silence was visibly a transition to the reclusion.

And was not his utterly solitary life, lived out in the silence of the wilderness, already the beginning of reclusion—or even reclusion itself? In his monastic cell, Father Seraphim evidently continued what had already been begun some three years earlier in the wilderness, with which, perhaps, he would have combined the reclusion as well, had the circumstances described not intervened.

Of Father Seraphim’s feats in reclusion even less is known than of his life as a hermit. In his cell he wished to have—for the cutting off of his own will—nothing at all, not even the most necessary things. An icon before which an oil lamp burned, and a stump of a log serving in place of a chair, were everything he had. For himself he did not even use fire. During this time, for the mortification of the flesh so that the spirit might be saved, he wore upon his shoulders beneath his shirt, on cords, a large five-vershok iron cross, which in earlier accounts of his life was probably referred to as chains. But he did not in fact wear chains or a hair shirt, and he did not advise others to put them on either. When someone offends us by word or deed, and we bear the offense according to the Gospel—there are our chains, there is our hair shirt! These spiritual chains and hair shirt are higher than the iron ones which people nowadays put on themselves. True, many of the holy Fathers wore both the hair shirt and iron chains, but they were men of wisdom and perfection, and they did all of this out of love for God, for the complete mortification of the flesh and the passions and for the subjection of these to the spirit. Such among our Russian Orthodox saints were: the venerable Theodosius of the Caves, Theodosius of Totma, Basil the Blessed, and others. But we are still infants, and the passions still reign in our bodies and resist the will and law of God. What good is it, then, if we put on chains and a hair shirt, but sleep, drink, and eat as much as our soul desires? We cannot bear even the slightest offense from a brother magnanimously. A word of rebuke from a superior plunges us into utter despondency and despair, so that we begin thinking of moving to another monastery, and pointing with envy to those among our fellow brothers who are in favor and trusted by the superior, we take all his decisions as an insult, as inattentiveness and ill will toward ourselves. It appears, then, that there is little or no foundation at all in us for the monastic life! And all this because we reflect and attend to it too little. Is it possible in such a state of spirit and life to attempt the feat appropriate to the wise and perfect fathers—to wear chains and a hair shirt?

Father Seraphim’s clothing at this time was the same as it had been in the wilderness. His drink was water alone, and for food he ate only oat groats and white chopped cabbage. Water and food were left for him by a neighboring brother, Father Pavel. Coming to the cell, the brother would say the prayer and set the food by the door. The recluse, so that no one might see him, would cover himself with a large sheet of linen and, taking the dish while kneeling, as if receiving food from the hands of God, would carry it into the cell. Having refreshed himself with the food, he would place the dish back in its former spot, again covering his face with the linen. The covering cast over the face is explained by the example of the most ancient hermit-dwellers, who concealed their appearance with a cowl, so as not to behold vanity. It also happened that the elder did not appear to the brother at all, and the one who had brought the food would carry everything back again: the elder would leave himself without any food.

His prayer labors in reclusion were great and varied. As in the wilderness, he now performed hisrule and all the daily services, except for the most divine Liturgy. In addition to this, he gave himself to the labor of the prayer of the mind, reading alternately in his heart the Jesus Prayer and the Prayer to the Mother of God.

Sometimes, while standing in prayer, the elder would sink into prolonged mental contemplation of God: he would stand before the holy icon neither reading any prayer nor making prostrations, but only with his mind contemplating the Lord in his heart… How lofty and deep is this silent, reclusive prayer!

In the course of a week he would read through the entire New Testament in order: on Monday, the Gospel of Matthew; on Tuesday, that of Mark; on Wednesday, that of Luke; on Thursday, that of John; and on the remaining days, the Acts and Epistles of the holy Apostles. In the vestibule, through the door, it was sometimes audible how he, while reading, would comment to himself on the Gospel and the Acts of the holy Apostles. He would comment on the Acts of the holy Apostles aloud for a rather extended period of time. Many would come and listen to his word with delight, consolation, and edification. At other times he would sit over a book without turning its pages, being wholly immersed in contemplation of a pure and exalted thought of the Holy Spirit. Not a single organ of his body would stir: his eyes were fixed motionlessly on one object.

Father Seraphim’s complete immersion in the truths of the Gospel did not, of course, remain without heavenly grace from above. The most important witness to this is that he was found worthy of an incomprehensible rapture into the heavenly dwellings, like the Apostle Paul and the holy Andrew the Fool for Christ’s sake, who were caught up to the third heaven, and like the venerable Varsanufiy.

Concerning this vision—or revelation—incomprehensible to ordinary human understanding, the novice Ioann Tikhonov (later the hieromonk Ioasaf) recounts the following: “Once, already after Father Seraphim’s emergence from reclusion, a God-loving brother came to visit me, with whom we usually shared every joy and every consoling word we had heard from Father Seraphim, for our mutual edification. Among various conversations, he suddenly asked me: had Father Seraphim revealed to me that great secret, how he was found worthy to be caught up into the heavenly dwellings? I answered that I had heard nothing of this great mercy of God, while in my own heart I grieved that the Elder had not revealed to me this great secret. However much I questioned the brother to tell me something of what he had heard from Father Seraphim, despite all his desire, he could convey nothing that was intelligible to my understanding.”

“And so, having seen the brother off and impatiently waiting for evening, I set out as usual, at about the sixth hour, to Father Seraphim, with the intention of beseeching him to gladden my soul himself with an account of the great mercy of God he had received. The elder, upon my arrival, received me as a father who loves his children and, right after me, latched the door shut.”

“When we had sat down facing each other and I was just about to beg him to tell me his great secret, he at that same moment stopped my mouth with his hand, and his first word was: ‘Guard yourself with silence.’”

“And right then he began to unfold before me the history of the Prophets, the Apostles, the holy Fathers, and the Martyrs with characteristic simplicity. He said that all the Saints whom the Church of Christ glorifies left us, after their repose, their lives as an example for imitation, and that all of them were of like passions with us, but by fulfilling exactly, with all their soul, the commandments of Christ, they attained perfection and salvation, found grace, were found worthy of the various gifts of the Holy Spirit, and inherited the Kingdom of Heaven—and that before it all the glory of this world is as nothing; all the pleasures of the world have not even the shadow of what is prepared for those who love God in the heavenly dwellings; there is eternal joy and celebration.”

“In order, then, to give our spirit the freedom to soar there and be nourished by the sweetest converse with the Lord, one must humble oneself through ceaseless vigil, prayer, and remembrance of the Lord.”

“‘Behold, I, unworthy Seraphim, pass through the Gospel daily for this purpose. On Monday I read from Matthew from beginning to end; on Tuesday from Mark; on Wednesday from Luke; on Thursday from John; and on the remaining days I divide the Acts and Apostolic Epistles, and I do not miss a single day without reading the daily Gospel and Apostle and the reading for the saint. Through this, not only my soul, but”

“even my very body is gladdened and quickened, because I converse with the Lord, keep in my memory His life and sufferings, and day and night I glorify, praise, and give thanks to my Redeemer for all His mercies, poured out upon the human race and upon me, the unworthy.’”

“After this the Elder again said to me: ‘my joy! I beg you, acquire a peaceful spirit, and then thousands of souls will be saved around you.’ And he repeated this two more times.”

“Thereupon, in an indescribable joy, with a rising voice, the Elder said: ‘Now, I will tell you of unworthy Seraphim,’ and then, lowering his voice, continued: ‘I was gladdened by the words of my Lord Jesus Christ, where He said: in My Father’s house are many mansions—that is, for those who serve Him and glorify His holy Name. On these words of Christ the Savior, I, the unworthy one, paused and desired to behold those heavenly dwellings, and the Lord did not deprive me, the unworthy one, of His mercy: He fulfilled my desire and prayer—and so I was caught up into those heavenly dwellings; only I do not know whether it was with the body or apart from the body—God knows, it is beyond reach. But of that joy and heavenly sweetness which I tasted there, it is impossible to tell you.’ And with these words Father Seraphim fell silent. At that moment he leaned slightly forward, his head with closed eyes bowed downward, and with the open palm of his right hand he passed very softly and evenly before his heart. His face gradually changed and began to emit a wondrous light, and finally brightened to such a degree that it was impossible to look upon it; and on his lips and in his whole expression there was such joy and heavenly rapture that one could truly call him at that moment an earthly angel and a heavenly man. Throughout the time of his mysterious silence he seemed to be contemplating something with tenderness and listening to something with wonder. But what exactly was ravishing and delighting the soul of the righteous man, God alone knows.”

“God’s righteous one, by the weakness of human language, could not explain in words his wondrous rapture into the heavenly dwellings, but showed it to me by the wondrous light of his face and his mysterious silence. And I, although I was a firsthand witness of this wondrous event, will always say one and the same thing: God knows how all this came to pass.”

“After a rather prolonged silence, of about half an hour in my estimation, Father Seraphim spoke again and in most joyful feeling, with a sigh, said with tender emotion in his voice: ‘Ah, if only you knew, my most beloved Father Ioann, what joy, what sweetness awaits the soul of the righteous in heaven—you would resolve in this temporal life to bear every affliction, persecution, and slander with gratitude. And if this very cell of ours were filled with worms’ (here he pointed to his cell) ‘and if those worms were to eat our flesh throughout all of this temporal life—we ought to consent to this with every willingness, so as only not to be deprived of that heavenly joy which God has prepared for those who love Him. There is no pain there, no sorrow, no sighing; there is sweetness and unspeakable joy; there the righteous will shine like the sun. But if the holy Apostle Paul himself could not describe that heavenly glory and joy (2 Cor. 12:4), then what other human tongue can describe the beauty of the heavenly dwelling, in which the souls of the righteous shall abide?’”

Having been silent for a little while longer, he began to speak of the eternal torments of sinners.

“‘It is terrible to read the words of the Savior where He pronounces His righteous judgment upon unrepentant sinners: these shall go into eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46); where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:46–48); there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8:12). If even Satan himself fears and trembles before these torments, in what state, in what terror shall unrepentant sinners find themselves? And if the righteous man is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear (1 Pet. 4:18)?”

“‘Those who have stifled their conscience and walked in the desires of their hearts—there, in the hell that awaits them, there is no mercy whatsoever. There is no mercy there for those who showed no mercy here. They will then hear the Gospel words: remember, son, that in your lifetime you received your good things (Luke 16:25). In this present, temporal life, a guilty person can still somehow excuse himself from punishment through circumstance or friends; but there it is one of two things: either come or depart! The mouth of God, like a two-edged sword, in that terrible moment will decide all, and there will be no return. The righteous shall inherit the heavenly dwellings, while sinners go into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’”

Toward the end of the conversation, the elder seemed to have completely forgotten about that inexpressibly sweet state of his spirit when he had spoken of the rapture into the heavenly dwellings. He now recognized only the weakness of his own nature and called himself the foremost of sinners. Finally, having given me his fatherly blessing, he dismissed me to my cell in peace (Tales of the Feats and Events of the Life of Elder Seraphim, 3rd ed., St. Petersburg, 1877, pp. 47-54).

Throughout all the years of the reclusion, the elder received Holy Communion—the Body and Blood of Christ—on every Sunday and feast day. In order to preserve the reclusion and the practice of silence in full purity, the most heavenly Mysteries were brought to him, by the blessing of the prior Nifont, from the infirmary church to his cell after the early Liturgy.

So that he might never forget the hour of death, and might hold it more vividly and more closely before his eyes, Father Seraphim asked that a coffin be made for him and placed in the vestibule of his recluse’s cell. At his request the coffin was prepared; it was hollowed out—along with its lid—from a solid oak log, and unpainted, it stood always in the vestibule. There the elder prayed often, preparing himself for his departure from this present life. In his conversations with the brothers of the Sarov Hermitage, Father Seraphim frequently spoke of this coffin: “When I die, I implore you, brothers, lay me in my own coffin.”

Among the hidden ascetic labors of this period, one became known by accident—a labor in which the elder combined spiritual work with bodily toil, refreshing his chest with clean air. It was discovered by chance by a brother whose obedience in the monastery was that of bell-ringer. One morning, rising earlier than usual, the novice John Tikhonov (later the hieromonk Joasaph, abbot of the Pavel-Obnorsky Monastery) made his way to the cemetery near the cathedral church, where the blessed and ever-memorable hermits rest. Standing among the gravestones, the brother noticed near Father Seraphim’s cell a figure moving swiftly back and forth. The monk’s imagination was startled. He made the sign of the cross over himself and, with a prayer, began to peer at the nocturnal apparition. It proved to be the ascetic himself, the elder Seraphim. Reciting the Jesus Prayer in a barely audible whisper, he was quietly moving a small stack of firewood from one spot to another close to the cell. Overjoyed at the sight of the recluse, who had not shown himself to anyone for a long time, the bell-ringer threw himself at his feet and, kissing them, asked for his blessing. The elder blessed him and said: “Guard yourself with silence and attend to yourself.”

The elder spent about five years in strict reclusion, then relaxed its outward form somewhat. The door of his cell was left open: anyone could come to him and see him, and the elder did not feel constrained by the presence of others during his spiritual exercises. Some who entered the cell put various questions to him, having need of the elder’s counsel and guidance; but having taken upon himself a vow of silence before God, the elder gave no answers to their questions, continuing his usual occupations.

The bishops of Tambov, who were devoted to the Sarov Hermitage, visited it eagerly, usually every year in August for the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God. During one such visit, Bishop Jonah (later Exarch of Georgia), wishing to see Father Seraphim, came to his cell; but the elder, faithfully keeping his vows before God and fearing the sin of people-pleasing, did not break his silence or his reclusion. In this instance Father Seraphim could also have been guided by the example of Arsenius the Great, whom he imitated in the labors of reclusion and silence. Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, wishing to visit Arsenius, first sent word to inquire whether he would open his door. Arsenius answered: “If I open it for you, I will have to open it for everyone.” Theophilus said: “Then it is better that I do not go to him.” And so for Father Seraphim as well the time had not yet come—though it was already near—to leave his reclusion. The abbot Niphon had proposed removing the door from its hinges, thinking that perhaps the elder had already departed to the Lord; but Bishop Jonah did not agree, saying: “What if we should sin!” Leaving the elder, he departed from the monastery into the world. A week after this incident, the then-governor of Tambov, Alexander Mikhailovich Bezobrazov, arrived in Sarov with his wife, and both of them desired to receive Father Seraphim’s blessing. It was evident that by this time the period of strict reclusion and silence which Father Seraphim had imposed upon his heart had come to an end. When the governor and his wife approached the cell, the elder himself opened the doors of his reclusion to them first and blessed them. This was in the autumn of 1815. From that time on, many of the brothers began to come to him, and he began to enter into conversation with them.

Among the brothers, monk Gabriel visited Father Seraphim frequently. After entering the monastery, he had gone two years without seeing Father Seraphim and afterward felt great regret over this; but when he did come to Father Seraphim, the elder drew his heart to himself from the very first meeting. For his part, Gabriel also found favor with the elder, for he had a heart that was pure and forthright, and he dealt with everyone as before God, keeping far from all concealment. After this, Gabriel spent five years under the guidance of the wonderful elder, outliving him in the monastery and witnessing his death. Whenever something troubled the young monk or inclined him toward temptation, he would go to the elder Seraphim, troubled by fear, but after conversing with him he would return to his cell in peace and spiritual delight. And in all things the simple-hearted Gabriel acted exactly as the dear Father Seraphim guided him. Much was said to him for his future benefit. The dear Father Seraphim did not conceal from him how much sorrow lay ahead for the young monk on the path of life. After Father Seraphim’s passing into eternity, Gabriel recalled with delight the elder’s life and their conversations together, and with deep grief he spoke of the magnitude of this loss to him. As a consolation for his heart and his life, he took and always kept with him a portrait of the elder Seraphim.

Here we may offer in broad outline the instructions which the elder gave to the monks of the Sarov Hermitage who came to him. Everything was directed toward strengthening them in the observance of the rules of monastic life. He exhorted the brothers to perform the church services without fail according to the church’s typikon, and when present in the church he himself kept watch over this; he advised everyone to attend the church services, and while at prayer in church to stand with eyes closed, in interior attention, opening them only when one grows faint or when sleep begins to weigh upon one—and in such a case to turn one’s eyes toward an icon or a burning candle. Developing this thought in greater detail, Father Seraphim taught as follows: “We must look upon our life as a candle, ordinarily made of wax and a wick, burning with flame. The wax is our faith, the wick is hope, and the flame is love, which binds everything together—both faith and hope—just as wax and wick burn together by the action of fire. A candle of poor quality gives off a foul odor as it burns and goes out—and so too is the life of a sinner foul in a spiritual sense before God. Therefore, looking at a burning candle, especially when we stand in God’s temple, let us remember the beginning, the course, and the end of our life; for just as a candle lit before the face of God melts away, so with every passing moment our life also diminishes, drawing us nearer to its end. This thought will help us to be less distracted in the temple, to pray more earnestly, and to strive that our life before God should be like a candle of pure wax that gives off no foul odor.” Turning further to a general list of subjects, we note that Father Seraphim urged unceasing engagement in mental prayer, that each one should perform his obedience without fail and with diligence, that one should not eat before the time appointed by the rule; that one should go to the common table without fail, even if one has no desire to eat, so as not to scandalize the brothers by one’s absence; that at table one should sit with reverence and the fear of God, receiving what is offered with thanksgiving; that one should not go beyond the monastery gates without a valid reason and a blessing, and still less should one leave the monastic path altogether; that one should restrain self-will, whose ruinous consequences are beyond reckoning; that one should patiently bear all temptations for the salvation of the soul (Matt. 10:22), and preserve mutual peace. God dwells only in the dwelling of peace, as it is said: “His place is in peace” (Ps. 75:3).

The superior of the Sarov Hermitage, Abbot Seraphim, served as sacristan in the infirmary church from 1824 to 1826. His obedience required him each day, after every liturgy, to bring Father Seraphim a portion of the blessed antidoron set aside specially for him. The recluse sometimes received this gift himself, and sometimes did not appear to the brother who brought it. In the latter case, the brother would place the antidoron in a clean little pouch hung for this purpose at the door and, having said the customary prayer, would go on his way. From the infirmary church as well, on Sundays and feast days, the Holy Gifts were brought to his cell for Communion.

Soon after the elder had opened the door of his cell to the brothers, certain visitors earnestly asked him to receive laypeople as well. Thereupon, with his consent, outside visitors began to come to him. Now the life of the elder took a new direction—one that was Christian and social. Until now he had visibly cared only for himself and for the salvation of his own soul. His activity on behalf of his neighbors had consisted exclusively of prayer for the whole world, for the living and the departed among Orthodox Christians. By the very nature of the eremitic and reclusive life, the practical benefit of others and the guidance of neighbors had not yet entered into the scope of his actions. Until now, working spiritually upon himself, he had only been preparing to go forth into the field of public service. Now the time had come when Father Seraphim, having risen in the spiritual life above the great multitude of Christians and feeling the support of God’s grace, devoted himself to the labors of faith, the saving edification of others, and the guidance of his neighbors.

The elder received all who came to him with readiness, gave his blessing, and offered each one brief instructions of various kinds according to his spiritual needs. The doors of his cell were open to all from the early liturgy until eight o’clock in the evening. The elder received those who came dressed in an ordinary white cassock and a half-mantle; around his neck he wore an epitrachelion (a priestly vestment) and on his hands—cuffs. He did not always wear the epitrachelion and cuffs when receiving visitors, but only on those days when he received Holy Communion—that is, on Sundays and feast days. Those in whom he discerned sincere repentance for their sins, and who showed fervent zeal for the Christian life, he received with particular warmth and joy. After conversing with them, he would have them bow their heads, and then he would lay the end of the epitrachelion and his right hand upon the head, inviting them to repeat after him the following prayer of repentance: “I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned in soul and body, in word and deed, in mind and thought, and in all my senses: in sight, in hearing, in smell, in taste, in touch, willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly.” He would then himself pronounce the prayer of absolution from sins: “The Lord our God Jesus Christ, by the grace and mercy of His love for mankind, forgive you, child (name), all your sins; and I, the unworthy hieromonk Seraphim, by the authority given to me from Him, forgive and absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” At these last words he would bless the bowed head of the person who had come. The elder did this according to the custom existing to the present day in the East among the ordained—that is, abbots who hold the rank of the priesthood. Those who received absolution felt a relief of conscience and tasted a spiritual pleasure unlike any earthly good. After this act was complete, he would anoint the forehead of the visitor with a cross-shaped anointing of oil from the lamp burning before a holy icon; and if it was before noon—that is, before the taking of food—he would give them to drink from a chalice of the great holy water, meaning the water blessed at Theophany, would bless them with a piece of antidoron or with the blessed bread consecrated at the all-night vigil service. Then, kissing the visitor on the lips, he would say at any season: “Christ is risen!” and would give them to venerate the icon of the Mother of God or the cross which he wore on his chest. Sometimes, especially to distinguished persons, he would advise them to step into the church to pray before the holy icon of the Mother of God—either the icon of her Dormition or of the Life-Giving Spring.

If the person who came had no need of particular instructions, the elder would offer general Christian edification. Above all he advised everyone always to keep the remembrance of God and for this purpose to call unceasingly upon the name of God in the heart, repeating the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” “Let this”—he would say—“be your whole attention and your whole practice! Walking and sitting, working and standing in church before the beginning of the service, going in and going out, keep this always on your lips and in your heart. By calling upon the name of God in this manner, you will find peace, attain purity of spirit and body, and the Holy Spirit—the source of all good things—will dwell in you and will guide you in holiness, in all piety and purity.”

Another of Father Seraphim’s frequent instructions was this:

“For the sake of the blessedness to come, acquire chastity and preserve virginity. A virgin who preserves her virginity for love of Christ has the honor of angels and is a bride of Christ: Christ is her bridegroom, who leads her into his heavenly bridal chamber. Every human soul is a virgin; but the soul that abides in sin is a careless widow, dead in self-indulgence while yet alive.”

Many who came to Father Seraphim complained that they prayed to God only a little and even neglected the necessary daily prayers. Some said they did so because they could not read; others, because of lack of time. For such people Father Seraphim prescribed the following rule of prayer:

“Upon rising from sleep, every Christian, standing before the holy icons, should read the Lord’s Prayer—‘Our Father’—three times, in honor of the Most Holy Trinity; then the hymn to the Mother of God—‘Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos’—also three times; and finally the Creed—‘I believe in one God’—once.”

“Having performed this rule, every Christian should go about his own work, to which he has been appointed or called. During work at home or on a journey somewhere, let him read quietly: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,’ or ‘a sinner’ for a woman; and if others are around him, then while going about his work let him say only in his mind: ‘Lord, have mercy,’ and continue this until dinnertime.”

“Just before dinner, let him perform the same morning rule described above.”

“After dinner, while going about his work, every Christian should also read quietly: ‘Most Holy Theotokos, save me, a sinner,’ and let him continue this until bedtime.”

“Whenever it happens that he must spend time in solitude, let him read: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of the Mother of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’—or ‘a sinner’ for a woman.”

“When going to sleep, every Christian should once again read the morning rule described above—that is, ‘Our Father’ three times, ‘Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos’ three times, and the Creed once. After that, let him fall asleep, having made the sign of the cross over himself.”

Regarding the worth of this short rule, Father Seraphim explained that “by holding to it one can attain the measure of Christian perfection; for the three prayers mentioned are the foundation of Christianity: the first—as a prayer given by the Lord himself—is the model of all prayers; the second was brought from heaven by the Archangel as a greeting to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Lord. And the Creed contains in brief all the saving dogmas of the Christian faith.”

If for someone it was impossible, owing to legitimate circumstances, to fulfill even this short rule as one ought, the elder advised reading it in any situation: during work, while walking, and even in bed, remembering the words of the Lord: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32; Rom. 10:13).

And whoever has more time than this rule requires, and is moreover a literate person, should add to it other soul-profitable prayers and readings—such as reading several sections from the Holy Gospels and the Apostolic Epistles, reading canons, akathists, psalms, and various other prayers. And while reading, let him thank the Lord with all humility for the fact that he has had time to offer Him yet something more from the sacred fruits. In this way a Christian can gradually rise to the height of Christian virtues.

Among those who visited him were also prominent men of state. Father Seraphim treated them with due honor and Christian love, and conversing with them in that spirit, he would draw their attention to the importance of their rank, exhorting them from this to be faithful to the holy Orthodox Church, to their natural sovereign, and to their fatherland. Pointing to the medals and decorations adorning their chests, he reminded them of Christ Jesus crucified on the cross for our salvation, and said that these distinctions should serve as a living sermon about their duty: to be always ready to sacrifice everything, even if necessary their very lives, for the good of their homeland and the Church. Above all, in light of the needs of that time, he implored them to guard the great, holy, Orthodox, catholic Church, which was being severely shaken by both external afflictions and the vain philosophies of the age. “This”—he would say—“is what the Russian people expect of you; your conscience should compel you to it; the sovereign has chosen and exalted you for this purpose; to this the holy Church and the Lord God himself, her founder and guardian, oblige you.” Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich, visiting (incognito) the Sarov Hermitage while passing through Tambov and Penza, also came to the elder Seraphim and received his blessing.

Even more numerous were the common people who came to him, requiring not merely counsel but at times practical help.

On one occasion a simple peasant came running to the monastery, hat in hand, hair disheveled, asking in despair of the first monk he met: “Good father! Are you Father Seraphim?” He was directed to Father Seraphim. Rushing there, he fell at his feet and said urgently: “Dear father! My horse has been stolen, and now without it I am utterly destitute—I don’t know how I will feed my family. They say you can see things hidden.” Father Seraphim, gently taking him by the head and pressing it to his own, said: “Guard yourself with silence and make haste to such-and-such a village”—naming it. “When you approach it, turn off the road to the right and pass behind the backs of four houses: there you will see a small gate; enter through it, untie your horse from the post, and lead it away in silence.” The peasant immediately ran back with faith and joy, stopping nowhere along the way. Word afterward reached Sarov that he had indeed found his horse in the place indicated.

Another similar incident was recounted by Father Paul, a monk of Sarov.

“On one occasion”—he said—“I brought to Father Seraphim a young peasant who had a bridle in his hands and was weeping over the loss of his horses, and I left the two of them alone. Some time later, meeting that peasant again, I asked him: ‘Well then? Did you find your horses?’”

“Indeed I did, dear father”—answered the peasant.

“Where and how?” I asked him further.

And he answered: “Father Seraphim told me to go to the market, and there I would see them. So I went out, and sure enough I saw them and took my horses back.”

The wife of the estate manager of the village of Elizaryevo, in the Ardatov district of Nizhny Novgorod province, A. I. Molyayeva, recounted the following case of Father Seraphim’s clairvoyance from this same period:

My husband, Nikolai Kirillovich Molyayev, having lost his position as estate manager in the village of Elizaryevo, soon received a similar position in the village of Cherevatovo, also in the Ardatov district, and there he fell gravely ill; this was in 1822. Knowing my devotion to Father Seraphim and his goodwill toward me, my husband sent me to ask for his holy prayers and blessing, and to inquire whether he might hope for recovery or not.

I set out for Sarov, and upon my arrival there I found that Father Seraphim had shut himself away and was receiving no one. Nevertheless, I made my way through the great crowd of people waiting for Father Seraphim to appear, right up to his cell; and suddenly the man of God, as if foreseeing my desperate need to see him, appeared in the doorway of his cell, and paying no attention to the rest of the crowd, he turned to me and said: “Daughter Agripina, come to me quickly, for you must hasten home.” When I approached him, he, anticipating my words, gave me holy water, antidoron, red wine, and several dried bread-crusts, and said: “Now take this quickly to your husband.” Then, taking my hand, he placed it on his shoulder and let me feel the large iron cross he wore, saying: “Here, my daughter, at first it was heavy for me to carry this, but now it is very pleasant. Make haste now, and remember my burden. Farewell.” With these words he blessed me and withdrew again into his cell, where he once more shut himself away and received no one.

“Upon returning home, I found my husband in his final moments of life; his tongue had already failed him. Then I remembered the elder’s cross and understood that he had been foretelling mourning for me. I had barely given the sick man the red wine with the antidoron, and then the holy water, as Father Seraphim had instructed—when the sick man began to speak again and said: ‘Forgive me, holy father—for the last time I receive your blessing from you.’ After these words he blessed our children once more, said farewell to me, and said: ‘Great are the works of Father Seraphim!’ Then he lay back down and peacefully departed to the Lord.”

At this same time Father Seraphim also won the trust of Mikhail Vasilyevich Mantorov, the landowner of the village of Nuch, situated six versts from the town of Ardatov—a man whose name is bound up with the circumstances of the founding of the Seraphim-Diveyevo community. While stationed in Livonia on military duty, he had fallen into an illness whose nature the best physicians were unable to determine and which they consequently abandoned attempting to treat. These distressing circumstances compelled him to leave military service and settle on his estate. The village of Nuch was forty versts from Sarov. By that time Father Seraphim was already manifesting the gift of healing; news of this spread throughout all the surrounding region of Sarov, and people began advising Mikhail Vasilyevich to visit the ascetic of Sarov. Mantorov resolved to ask for the elder’s prayers for his healing and was carried to him in the arms of his servants. Seeing him in such a condition, the elder Seraphim first asked three times: “Do you believe in God without any doubt?” To each question Mikhail Vasilyevich answered affirmatively: “I believe without any doubt.” Then Father Seraphim, taking oil from the lamp that hung before the icon of the Mother of God of Tenderness—which he called the icon of the Mother of God, the Joy of All Joys—anointed the afflicted places; and all the sores that covered the body instantly fell away on the spot. Mikhail Vasilyevich, having received his health, walked out of Father Seraphim’s cell without anyone’s assistance. Always mindful of this benefaction, Mikhail Vasilyevich Mantorov came to Sarov very frequently to visit Father Seraphim, to whom he was attached with his whole soul. We note—this took place in 1823.

Princess A. Kolonchakova recounted the following instance of Father Seraphim’s clairvoyance. In 1824, on the fourteenth of September, I was granted the privilege of being with Father Seraphim and receiving his blessing. I came to him with the intention of asking about my brother, who was in military service and from whom we had received no word for about four years. I had not yet managed to say a single word about my intention when the elder, anticipating my words, said: “Do not grieve too much: in every family there is mourning.” When I began to speak to him about my brother, he replied: “About this I cannot but tell you to pray for him as for one who has reposed.” His clairvoyance was indeed vindicated: three months after our conversation I received word from the regiment where my brother had served that he was no longer in this world.

Another instance of clairvoyance was related by a certain Mrs. N. N.

“In 1825, for the first time I visited the Sarov Hermitage together with my sister, with a fervent desire to see the elder Seraphim and receive his blessing. My sister was the first to be granted the privilege of seeing him after matins and was full of delight at his warm welcome. I, however, could not see him at the same time as she, because I had not been at matins owing to a severe headache. After the liturgy ended, we both went together to the pious elder’s cell. On the way I noticed that my sister’s servant was carrying two bottles behind us, and I was curious enough to ask my sister what he was carrying. She replied that she had wished, following the example of other visitors to Sarov, to bring Father Seraphim a small gift of church wine and oil. I, not having known about this beforehand and having nothing with me at the time that I might also bring as a gift to Father Seraphim, was very distressed. But my sister, seeing my confusion, offered to let me take one of the bottles and present it to the elder as from myself. I was very glad of this offer, and so we arrived at Father Seraphim’s cell. When I looked upon the righteous elder, I no longer wished to look at anything else in his cell. I could not take my eyes from his face, which breathed goodness, humility, and holiness. He received us as a father receives his children, gave us prosphora and red wine, took the cross from his neck and let us kiss it. My sister handed him the bottle of church wine she had brought, and he received it most graciously and blessed her. Then I presented him with the bottle of oil. The elder, receiving it with equal graciousness, suddenly said to me: ‘In future, dear mother, if you think to bring me something, bring what is your own,’ and noticing the confusion and embarrassment into which these words plunged me, he immediately added in the gentlest of tones: ‘What I wanted to say, dear mother, is that if you live in the country, you surely have bees there; so you could have them make candles from the wax—that would be truly your own.’ After that he began to converse with us for the benefit of our souls, speaking at length about the saving Christian path, and every word of his was imprinted upon our hearts.”

While receiving all visitors, Father Seraphim himself, however, went nowhere from his cell, and having removed the seal of silence from his lips, did not abandon his reclusion. In this manner he lived for fifteen years. But at last, with God’s blessing, Father Seraphim resolved to leave his reclusion and, without leaving the monastery, to visit the hermitage and labor there in the Lord for the salvation of himself and his neighbors.

He reposed on October 5, 1878.

6. The Near Hermitage and Father Seraphim’s Dwelling There

About two versts from the monastery there was a spring. No one in the Sarov Hermitage knows who first dug it; it had existed from time immemorial, long before Father Seraphim entered the monastery. In 1825 it had the following appearance: the basin was covered with a timber framework and heaped over with earth; the water flowed from it through a single pipe. Near the spring, on a small post that appeared to have been set there deliberately, stood an icon of the holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian. For this reason the spring was known as the Theologian’s spring. While Father Seraphim was still living at the distant hermitage, he would go to this place and engage in bodily labor near the source. The elder had a great fondness for the spot.

A quarter of a verst from the Theologian’s spring, on a small hill, stood a cell in which a monk of the Sarov Hermitage, Hieromonk Dorofei, was laboring toward his salvation. In the middle of September 1825, this devout solitary passed to another, better, heavenly world, toward which his soul had aspired throughout his life. Meanwhile Elder Seraphim, through long years of ascetic struggle, had been brought to a state of extreme exhaustion: from the time he had stood upon the rocks his feet had not ceased to pain him, and to the pain in his feet was now added a severe pain in his head as well. He was advised, for the sake of his health, to take movement and fresh air. Feeling all the necessity of this counsel, Father Seraphim began to go out from his cell. His very first outing was remarkable: it belongs to the number of those hidden feats and deeds of his that were mentioned briefly before. Spring had come in 1825. Great Lent had already begun—the time of special ascetic effort for the monks of Sarov. One day a brother of the monastery named Filaret, rising very early in the morning and completing his private rule, went out from his cell into the monastery enclosure. Unexpectedly he caught sight in the distance of a man wrapped in darkness and complete stillness, carrying something heavy in his arms.

“Who is there?” cried Filaret, making the sign of the cross with a prayer.

“Humble Seraphim, Seraphim the humble” was the reply. “Say nothing, my joy!”

Filaret then approached the elder and, as was the custom, received his blessing. He saw that Father Seraphim was carrying in his arms a stone of considerable size. He had taken it from outside the monastery, from beneath the hill, near the church of St. John the Forerunner. Filaret followed to see where the elder was taking this stone, and observed that Father Seraphim laid it down beside the altar of the cathedral church. At the same time, word of this was conveyed to the treasurer, Father Isaiah. Subsequent events explained the matter. The blessed remains of Father Seraphim now rest in the very place where that stone was laid. Thus it was that the elder, from within his reclusion, was already pressing toward the grave—from the contemplation of God as in a mirror darkly, toward the open knowledge of His glory. This incident was also the first hint the elder gave regarding the circumstances of his death, which he afterward foretold more plainly.

He then began in prayerful address to God to seek a heavenly permission for the open conclusion of his reclusion, for he never undertook anything without a blessing from on high. On November 25, 1825, on the feast day of St. Clement, Bishop of Rome, and of Peter of Alexandria, the Mother of God appeared to Father Seraphim in a vision during sleep, accompanied by the saints of the day, and gave him leave to come out of reclusion and to visit the hermitage. On that very same day, rising from sleep and completing his usual rule, Father Seraphim asked of Abbot Nifont and received without any hindrance a blessing to go out, on account of the illness in his feet and especially in his head, to spend the day in the desert cell of Hieromonk Dorofei. That same day was the first on which the elder, after his reclusion, openly went out again into the forest. From that time Father Seraphim began to walk each day to the Theologian’s spring and to the desert cell of Father Dorofei.

During his absences from the monastery the elder sometimes visited his former cell in what was called the distant hermitage and prayed there. One of the most important occasions of such a visit was the following. On December 9, 1825, two Diveyevo sisters who were staying at the guesthouse came to him: Paraskeva Stepanovna and Maria Simeonovna. As soon as the bell rang for Matins, Father Seraphim went with them into the forest, and at the great bell for the late Liturgy they arrived at the Theologian’s spring. The sisters noticed that Father Seraphim had brought with him candles, oil, and dried bread. On the way the elder told them that “he had not walked these places for many years, from the time he had entered his reclusion.” Approaching the spring, Father Seraphim remarked that there was some work awaiting him at this spot. At last they came to Father Seraphim’s former hermitage. There the elder, standing before the Crucifix that hung on his wall, placed the sisters on either side: Maria Simeonovna on his right and Paraskeva Stepanovna on his left, placed in their hands lighted candles, and prayed for about an hour. Then he venerated the Crucifix and bade the sisters do the same. The candles were put out, they left the cell, and the whole day was spent in cleaning out the cellar that stood near the hermitage. In the evening they all returned to the hermitage. One may reasonably surmise that during this first visit to the distant hermitage Father Seraphim was praying for the Diveyevo community, and that here he received the first thought of building a mill for them; for after this, as we shall see below, he began actively to prepare materials for the mill.

In the summer of the following year, 1826, the Theologian’s spring was restored at the elder’s wish. The timber frame that had covered the basin was removed; a new log casing was made with a pipe for the outflow of water. Near the basin the elder now began to engage in bodily labor. Gathering pebbles from the Sarovka River, he tossed them onto the bank and with them lined the spring’s basin. He laid out garden beds here for himself, enriched them with moss, and planted onions and potatoes. The elder had chosen this spot because his illness prevented him from walking to his former cell five versts from the monastery. It was even becoming difficult for him, after his morning labors on foot, to visit during the midday rest the cell of Father Dorofei, which stood only a quarter of a verst from the spring. A small new log structure was built for Father Seraphim on the hillside near the spring, three arshins in height, three in length, and two in width, with a roof sloping to one side. It had neither windows nor a door. The entrance to this little shelter was an earthen passage on the hillside side, dug beneath the wall. Crawling under the wall, the elder could rest in this refuge after his labors, sheltering from the midday heat. Then in 1827, on that same hillside near the spring, a new cell was built for him with a door but without windows; inside it was a stove, and outside some boards were nailed together to form a small porch. During 1825 and 1826 the elder did not go to this place every day. But once a cell had been built for him, he began to spend all his days there in the hermitage continuously, returning to the monastery in the evening. Going to the monastery and from the monastery he wore his usual old white linen cassock, a plain kamilavka without a veil, and carried an axe or hoe in his hands; on his back he bore a sack weighty with stones and sand, inside which lay the holy Gospel as well. Some asked why he did this. He answered with the words of St. Ephrem the Syrian: “I afflict the one who afflicts me.” The place has been known ever since by the name of the near hermitage of Father Seraphim, and the Theologian’s spring began to be called Father Seraphim’s well.

From the time the new cell was built, in 1827, the activity and labors of Father Seraphim were continually divided between two places: the monastery and the near hermitage were in turn the field of his endeavors.

In the monastery he remained on Sundays and feast days, receiving communion of the holy Mysteries at the early Liturgy in the hospital church. On weekdays he went almost every day into the forest to the near hermitage. His nights he spent in the monastery. But during the day, from four o’clock—or even from two o’clock in the morning—he would withdraw to the near hermitage, remaining there until seven or eight o’clock in the evening. The number of those who visited him increased greatly. Some waited for him in the monastery, longing to see him, receive his blessing, and hear a word of edification. Others came to him in his desert cell. For the elder, weakened in strength, it was burdensome to extend his activity over the vast multitude of people. To reduce the number of visitors, to avoid too much distraction, and not to be worn out by the labors of conversation, Father Seraphim, in the early days of his settlement at the near hermitage, received communion of the holy Mysteries in his cell, as he had done during his reclusion. Some began to take offense at this. How was it, they said, that the elder walks to the hermitage over two versts from the monastery, and yet receives communion of the holy Mysteries in his cell? But there was nothing to take offense at. The elder continued to receive communion in his cell precisely in order to avoid the numerous visitors whom he was not yet strong enough to receive. Nevertheless, to forestall offense to those of tender conscience—which the Orthodox Faith guards as something sacred—a directive came from the Bishop of Tambov that Elder Seraphim should himself come to the church to receive communion of the holy Mysteries. Hearing of this arrangement, he said that he would not cease to receive communion of the holy Mysteries even if he had to go on his knees to do so, and he accepted the bishop’s directive with humility. But it seems this was an arrangement from a higher than earthly authority, with the purpose of bringing the elder into closer contact with the needs of the faithful. For when Father Seraphim began to go to the hospital church for the early Liturgy, the number of those who sought him out grew to an enormous figure. The elder had almost no rest, neither in the hermitage, nor on the road, nor in the monastery. Abbot Nifont, who loved Elder Seraphim, used to say of the multitude of visitors: “When Father Seraphim lived in the hermitage—the first and distant one—he blocked all the paths to himself with trees, so that people would not come; but now he has begun to receive everyone, so that I have no possibility of closing the monastery gates before midnight.”

It was a touching sight to see how the elder, after receiving communion of the holy Mysteries, made his way from the church to his cell. He walked in his monastic mantle, epitrachelion, and cuffs, as he customarily approached the Sacrament. His procession was slow on account of the great crowd of people pressing around him, each straining, if only briefly, to catch a glimpse of the elder. But at such a time he spoke to no one, blessed no one, and appeared to see no soul about him: his gaze was cast downward, and his mind was immersed within himself. In those moments he was entering with his soul into meditation upon the great mercies of God bestowed upon men through the Sacrament of Holy Communion. And all who revered the wondrous elder dared not even touch him. Upon arriving at his cell he would receive all those who sought him with open welcome, bless them, and for those who wished he would offer a word that was profitable for the soul.

No less touching was the sight of this humble, white-haired, stooping elder, leaning on his hoe or axe, at work in the hermitage—chopping wood, tending his garden beds—in his plain kamilavka, white cassock, and the familiar sack behind his shoulders. At other times he was seen wearing a dressed skin, as though in imitation of those of whom the holy Apostle Paul wrote: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts (Heb. 11:37).

But most delightful of all was his conversation. Father Seraphim possessed a luminous mind, a firm memory, a truly Christian outlook, a heart accessible to all, an unbending will, a living and abundant gift of speech, and a love for labor that never failed. His words were so efficacious that whoever heard him received benefit for his soul. His discourses were filled with a spirit of humility, warmed the heart, removed from one’s eyes as it were a certain veil, illumined the minds of his listeners with the light of spiritual understanding, brought them to a sense of repentance, and aroused a decisive change for the better; they carried the wills and hearts of others along irresistibly, and spread in them peace and stillness. Both his own actions and his words Elder Seraphim founded upon the Word of God, confirming them above all by passages from the New Testament, the writings of the holy Fathers, and the examples of the saints who had pleased God. All of this had still greater power because it was applied directly to the needs of those listening. By the purity of his spirit he possessed the gift of clairvoyance: to some he would give instruction, before they had disclosed their circumstances, that bore directly upon their inner feelings and the most secret thoughts of their hearts.

The elder, adorned with high spiritual experience, nonetheless observed certain rules in revealing his gracious gifts to others. These rules he set forth in a teaching on the guarding of known truths.

“One ought not”—he said—“to open one’s heart to another without necessity: among a thousand one can perhaps find only one who would keep your secret. If we ourselves do not keep it within us, how can we hope that it can be kept by another?”

“With a man of the soul one must speak of human things; but with a man who possesses spiritual understanding one must speak of heavenly things.”

“Those filled with spiritual wisdom judge the spirit of any person by Holy Scripture, seeing whether his words are in accord with the will of God, and on that basis form their judgment concerning him.”

“When one finds oneself among people in the world, one ought not to speak of spiritual things, especially when no desire to hear them is observed in those present.”

“In such a case one must follow the teaching of St. Dionysius the Areopagite (On the Heavenly Hierarchy, ch. 2): having yourself become divine by the knowledge of divine things, and having hidden holy things in the secret of the mind from the uninitiated people, keep them as things of one form; for it is not right, as Scripture says, to cast before swine the spiritual pearls—the pure, luminous, and precious adornment. One must keep in memory the word of the Lord: Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you (Matt. 7:6).”

“Therefore one must strive by every means to conceal within oneself the treasure of gifts: otherwise you will lose it and not find it again. For, by the experiential teaching of St. Isaac the Syrian, the help that comes from guarding is greater than the help that comes from deeds (Word 89).”

“But when necessity requires it, or when the occasion has come, one must act openly for the glory of God, according to the word: Those who glorify Me I will glorify (1 Sam. 2:30), because the path has already opened itself.”

By such rules of spiritual discernment Father Seraphim was guided in his dealings with others.

Father Seraphim held especial love and reverence for those holy hierarchs who had been zealots of the Orthodox Christian Faith: such as Clement, Pope of Rome; John Chrysostom; Basil the Great; Gregory the Theologian; Athanasius of Alexandria; Cyril of Jerusalem; Epiphanius of Cyprus; Ambrose of Milan; and those like them—calling them pillars of the Church. He held up their lives and labors as examples of firmness and unshakeable steadfastness in the faith. He urged others to stand firmly for the truth of the dogmas of the Orthodox Church, citing as example the blessed Mark of Ephesus, who showed unshakeable zeal in the defense of the Eastern Catholic Faith at the Council of Florence. He himself offered various teachings on Orthodoxy, explaining wherein it consists, that it alone contains the truth of Christ’s faith in its wholeness and purity, and how it must be defended. He loved to speak of the hierarchs of the Russian Church—Peter, Alexis, Jonah, Philip, Dmitry of Rostov, Stephen of Perm, the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, and other Russian servants of God—holding up their lives as a rule on the path to salvation. The Lives of the Saints as described in the Menaion of St. Dmitry of Rostov, and the works of many Fathers of the Church, he knew so firmly that from memory he could recount entire sections from them, counseling all to imitate the lives of God’s saints and follow their teaching.

A distinctive quality of his conduct and his discourses was love and humility of mind. Whoever came to him—whether a poor man in rags or a rich man in fine attire, whatever needs anyone brought, whatever sinful state his conscience might be in—he embraced all with love, bowed to the ground before all, and in blessing would himself kiss the hands even of those who were not ordained. He struck no one with harsh reproaches or severe rebukes; he laid upon no one a heavy burden, bearing the cross of Christ himself with all its sorrows. To some he did speak reproofs, but gently, tempering his word with humility and love. He strove to awaken the voice of conscience through counsel, pointed out the paths of salvation, and often did so in such a way that the listener at first did not even understand that the matter concerned his own soul. Afterward, however, the power of the word, seasoned with grace, unfailingly produced its effect. None went away from him without genuine instruction—neither the rich nor the poor, neither the simple nor the learned, neither nobles nor common people: for all there was ample living water flowing from the lips of this former silent one, this humble and lowly elder. The people who flocked to him—especially in the last ten years of his life—numbered whole thousands every day. Daily, amid the great multitude of those who had come to Sarov, there were about two thousand and more gathered in his cell. He was not burdened by this, and with each person he found time to converse for the profit of the soul. In a few words he would explain to each person precisely what was needful for him, often opening the most hidden thoughts of those who had come to him. All felt his welcoming and truly kindhearted love and its power, and streams of tears would sometimes break from people who possessed the hardest and most stony of hearts. We cannot, at this point, pass over in silence one most striking occurrence.

There came to Sarov a retired lieutenant general, L. The purpose of his visit was mere curiosity. And so, having looked over the monastery buildings, he was already preparing to take his leave of the monastery without having received any spiritual gift for his soul. But unexpectedly he encountered there a landowner, Alexei Neofitovich Prokudin, and fell into conversation with him. His companion proposed that the general go in to see the recluse Elder Seraphim, but the general, proud of himself, refused, and only with difficulty yielded to Prokudin’s persuasions. No sooner had they entered the cell than Elder Seraphim, coming forward to meet them, bowed to the ground before the general. Such humility struck the pride of L. Prokudin, perceiving that he ought not to remain in the cell, went out into the porch, and the general, adorned with his decorations, spent about half an hour conversing with the recluse. After a few minutes the sound of weeping was heard from the elder’s cell: the general was weeping just like a little child. After half an hour the door opened and Father Seraphim led the general out by the arms—he continued to weep, covering his face with his hands. His decorations and his cap had been forgotten by him, in his grief, with Father Seraphim. Tradition has it that his decorations fell from him by themselves during the conversation. Father Seraphim brought them all out and placed the decorations on the cap. Afterward this general said that he had traveled all of Europe, knew a multitude of people of every kind, but for the first time in his life had seen such humility as that with which the Sarov recluse had received him, and never before had he known of such clairvoyance as that by which the elder laid bare his entire life down to its most secret details. Among other things, when his decorations had fallen away, Father Seraphim said: “That is because you received them undeservedly.”

With particular zeal Elder Seraphim cared for those in whom he saw a disposition toward good: on the path of goodness he strove to establish them by every spiritual and Christian means within his power. However, despite his love for all, Father Seraphim was for some hard to look upon: for his way of life seemed unlike that of others, and his paths were different from theirs (Wis. Sol. 2:15). Yet even with those who did not love him he was peaceable, conducted himself gently and lovingly. It was never observed that he attributed any deed to himself or praised himself; rather, always blessing the Lord God, he would say: Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory (Ps. 113:9). And when he saw that those who came to him heeded his counsel and followed his teachings, he did not exult in this as though it were the fruit of his own doing. “We”—he would say—“must drive away from ourselves every earthly joy, following the teaching of Jesus Christ, who said: In this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20).”

Besides the gift of clairvoyance, the Lord God continued to reveal in Elder Seraphim the grace of healing ailments and bodily diseases. Thus on June 11, 1827, there was healed Alexandra, wife of Varvolomei Timofeev Lebedev, a household serf from the village of Elizaryevo, Ardatov district, Nizhny Novgorod province. At the time this woman was twenty-two years of age and had two children. On April 6, 1826, on the day of the village feast, she had returned home after the Liturgy, dined, and then went out through the gate to walk with her husband. Suddenly, God knows from what cause, she was seized with faintness and dizziness; her husband could barely lead her to the porch. There she fell to the floor. Vomiting began, along with terrible convulsions; the sick woman went numb and fell into complete unconsciousness. After half an hour, coming to herself as it were, she began to grind her teeth, to bite at everything that came her way, and finally fell asleep. A month later these painful attacks began to recur with her every day, though not always with equal severity.

At first the sick woman was treated by the local village physician, Afanasy Yakovlev, but the remedies he employed had no success at all. Then Alexandra was taken to the Ilyevsky and Voznesensky iron foundries, where there was a foreign doctor; he undertook to treat her, prescribed various medications, but seeing no improvement, declined to continue treatment and advised that she be taken also to Vyksa, to the cast-iron foundries. “At Vyksa, according to the account of the sick woman’s husband, there was a foreign doctor with a great reputation.” With the kind consent of the manager, who took an interest in the patient’s case, the Vyksa doctor exhausted all his attention, knowledge, and skill, and at last gave this advice: “Now place your trust in the will of the Most High, and seek His help and protection; for among men there is none who can cure you.” This conclusion to the treatment greatly sorrowed everyone, and plunged the sick woman herself into despair.

On the night before June 11, 1827, the sick woman had a dream. There appeared to her an unknown woman, very old, with sunken eyes, who said: “Why do you suffer and do not seek a physician for yourself?” The sick woman was frightened and, making the sign of the cross, began to recite the prayer to the Holy Cross: “Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered.” The apparition answered her: “Do not fear me: I am a human being just like you, only not of this world any longer, but of the kingdom of the dead. Rise from your bed and hasten to the Sarov Hermitage, to Father Seraphim: he is expecting you tomorrow and will heal you.” The sick woman ventured to ask her: “Who are you, and whence do you come?” The apparition answered: “I am from the Diveyevo community, the first superior there, Agafya.” On the following morning the family harnessed a pair of the master’s horses and set out for Sarov. But the sick woman could not be driven quickly: she was continually seized by fainting spells and convulsions. The sick woman reached Sarov only after the late Liturgy, during the brothers’ meal. Father Seraphim had shut himself in and was receiving no one; but the sick woman, drawing near to his cell, had barely finished making the sign of the cross with a prayer when Father Seraphim came out to her, took her by the hands, and led her into his cell. There he covered her with his epitrachelion and quietly recited prayers to the Lord and the Most Holy Mother of God; then he gave the sick woman to drink of holy Theophany water, gave her a particle of holy antidoron, and three pieces of dried bread, and said: “Each day take one piece of bread with holy water, and also go to Diveyevo to the grave of the servant of God Agafya, take some earth from that place, and perform there as many prostrations as you are able: she—Agafya—has compassion on you and desires your healing.” Then he added: “When you feel downcast, pray to God and say: ‘Father Seraphim! Remember me in your prayers and pray for me, a sinner, that I may not fall again into this illness through the adversary, the enemy of God.’ ” Then the affliction visibly departed from the sick woman with a great sound, and she was well from that time forward and remained unharmed. After this illness she bore four more sons and five daughters. The husband of the healed woman’s own handwritten account of this concludes with the following postscript: “The name of Father Seraphim we preserve to this day deep in our hearts, and at every memorial service we commemorate him together with our own relatives.”

Among those who were at Sarov at that time there also came to Father Seraphim certain persons who needed not only spiritual consolation or healing, but also a share in their orphanhood and homelessness. From among such visitors—maidens and widows—he had, from as early as 1820, been sending them to the Diveyevo community, where the superior received them for permanent residence, that they might pursue spiritual labors for the salvation of their souls. In the course of five years, several persons were thus settled there, whose names we will encounter again later. And to Father Seraphim especially at this time they flocked, as bees to their queen,

[…]Two pages of the original are missing.—Note of the electronic edition.

7. Elder Seraphim’s Relationship to the Diveyevo Community

To the Sarov Hermitage, she stopped to rest in the village of Diveyevo, twelve versts away, and, in her simple manner, sat down on some logs not far from the wooden church of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker that stood there at the time. In the brief, sweet drowsiness of a traveler’s rest, she beheld the Mother of God, who urged her to remain in that place and charged her to erect a church in honor of the Kazan wonderworking icon. Rousing herself from her slumber and surveying the surroundings, she set out for the Sarov Hermitage. The community so captivated her heart that she would certainly have remained there to seek her salvation, had it been a convent for women. Returning from there to the village of Diveyevo, she became acquainted with the worthy local priest, Father Vasily Dertev—who later died as a hieromonk in the Sarov Hermitage under the name Varlaam—and took up permanent residence in the hamlet of Osinovka, a village belonging to the Diveyevo parish, in a small house built on a modest plot of land she had acquired from the Osinovka landowners. When her nine-year-old daughter died and her last tie to the world was severed, she sold her estate, moved to the home of Father Vasily of Diveyevo, built a separate cell in his yard, and labored there for twenty years. Her cell-based ascetic practices she kept secret before her heavenly Father, and they remain largely unknown to us today. By the blessing of the Sarov elders she read each day the appointed Gospel lesson and the lesson for the saint of the day. She also devoted considerable time to reading the Great Menaion Reader and works of spiritual asceticism—for example, John Climacus and Ephrem the Syrian. The Jesus Prayer never left her lips. Out of humility, forgetting her birth, rank, and wealth, she willingly took on every kind of domestic work in Father Vasily’s household. If any solitary peasant with many children had grain standing too long in the field, she would quietly go out, reap it, and bind it into sheaves. For poor young women entering into marriage, she would embroider headdresses (known as soroki) with her own hands and give them as gifts along with towels. On Sundays and feast days, after leaving church, she would stop to speak with the peasants and offer them various instructions. During her years at Father Vasily’s home, over the course of five years beginning in 1774 or 1775, she used her own funds to build, in place of the old wooden Church of Saint Nicholas, a stone church in honor of the Kazan Mother of God, with two side altars: one dedicated to Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker and the other to the first martyr and archdeacon Stephen. After all three altars were consecrated, Agafia Semyonovna, not long before her death, resolved to establish a community near the Kazan Church.

On the advice of the Sarov elders—whose abbots, Pakhomy and Isaiah, served as her spiritual fathers—and with the permission of the diocesan authorities in Vladimir, Agafia Semyonovna obtained from the Zhdanov family a plot of 1,300 square sazhens near the Kazan Church. On it she built a house with outbuildings and invited several women to live with her: from the village of Vertyanova in Ardatov district, the maiden Evdokia Martynova (who died around 1836); from the estate of Mr. Batashev, the peasant widow Anastasia Kirillova; from the village of Sarminskoye-Maydan, the peasant maiden Ulyana Grigoryeva; and from the hamlet of Osinovka, the peasant widow Fekla Kondratyeva. In this house she lived with them until her death, leading a spiritual life according to the spirit and rules of the Sarov Hermitage, governing these women—as the sisters were called—with gentleness, and supporting both herself and those living with her from her own means, with the help of the charitable hand of the Sarov builder Father Pakhomy. Such was the founding of the Diveyevo community, to which the name of the Sarov Hermitage—and in particular that of Elder Father Seraphim—is inseparably bound!

After the death of Agafia Semyonovna, her successor in leadership was Anastasia Kirillovna. Under her direction, up to twenty women of the merchant and peasant classes gathered from various places to live in community; she governed them according to the rules of the first foundress and received support from the Sarov brotherhood in exchange for sewing cassocks, knitting stockings, and spinning thread. After Kirillovna’s death, her place as head was taken by Ksenia Mikhailovna, widow of Prokofiy Kocheulov, a craftsman at the Tula Arms Factory—a woman of strict spiritual life whom the Sarov abbot Nifont called a spiritual rasp. Under her leadership the number of sisters living in God grew to forty by 1826. Some of them had been sent in the last five years by Elder Seraphim. The Sarov elders Pakhomy and Isaiah, whenever they left the hermitage, would always stop at Diveyevo and, while providing the community sisters with material support, chiefly strengthened them through their conversations and their moral influence in the spiritual life those sisters had chosen. Father Seraphim, after the deaths of builder Pakhomy and Isaiah, and in fulfillment of a promise made in the final moments of their lives, took an active part in the Diveyevo community, watching over and guiding the sisters toward salvation. In the last years of his own life he took the most energetic part of all.

From 1825 onward, the sisters began coming to Father Seraphim for his blessing, and before long the virtuous head of the Diveyevo community, Ksenia Mikhailovna, came as well. The Diveyevo priest Father Vasily also visited him, and Elder Seraphim held him in great affection and regard. In response to Father Vasily’s request that he not abandon the community, the elder replied: “How could we abandon those for whom the blessed Agafia Semyonovna herself entreated me, poor Seraphim? She was a great woman, a holy one. Her service was beyond reckoning, her tears unceasing, her prayer to God the purest, her love for all without pretense. She wore the simplest clothing—patched many times over—and girded herself with a sash tied in a knot. And yet, whenever she walked, great ladies would take her by the arms. Such was the esteem in which her life was held! How then could we spurn her request? I am now the last remaining of those elders she entreated not to forsake the community she founded. And so I ask you too, father: do what lies within your power—do not abandon them.”

That same year, Father Seraphim took decisive action in the affairs of the community. He divided it into two parts, saying that such was the will of the Lord and the Mother of God. The matter came about as follows. The growth of the Diveyevo community required that it expand; but the land it occupied was so cramped that there was no possibility of extending it in any direction. Moreover, he found the rule received from the Sarov brotherhood not easily observed by all persons of the weaker female sex. He had proposed to the head, Ksenia Mikhailovna, that this rule be replaced with a new one, but she did not agree. Beyond that, he was also troubled by the arrangement whereby maidens lived in community together with women who had been married. A woman who had spent several pleasant years in marriage might speak of it to the maidens, with a destructive effect on the peace of spirit so necessary for the faithful keeping of spiritual vows. Another might have been unhappy in marriage, and her accounts of its hardships would cast an unjust dark shadow over the institution of matrimony ordained by God for the human race. The elder also observed that in married life a woman often acquires such stubbornness of character that it becomes hard to cure afterward. This quality could, through mutual association, naturally be passed on to the maidens as well, setting them on a path contrary to the self-denial of one’s own will that was required at Diveyevo. “In a communal convent,” he would say, “it is easier to deal with seven maidens than with one widow.” For all these reasons he considered it more beneficial for the community to divide it into two halves, so that in one the formerly married would seek their salvation, and in the other the pure virgins, even if the governance and leadership over both remained one and the same. In this he had in mind the example of the Suzdal women’s Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery, established in the twelfth century. That monastery had indeed been arranged in two sections: in one lived virgins who had consecrated themselves to God, and in the other, separated from them by a fence, widows. Neither was permitted to enter into conversation with the other. “And nowhere was found”—notes the author of the Life of the venerable Euphrosyne—“such a monastery throughout all of great Russia for the ordering of good conduct and peace from labor for the nuns, nor such excellent and hardworking nuns who shone in fasting, as these diligent ones; for that is the foundation of the fasting life and a model for those who would take monastic vows.” With such foundations, Father Seraphim left the existing Diveyevo community in its former place and in its former state. He himself began earnestly to pray to the Lord and the Most Pure Mother that they would indicate a different, more spacious site for the new community; and the Queen of Heaven, hearkening to his prayer, herself chose for this purpose a site some hundred sazhens, or a little more, from the former community and the Kazan Church. In 1823, Mikhail Vasilyevich Mantorov, after being healed of illness by the prayers of Father Seraphim—a healing in which his own faith played its part—came to the Sarov Hermitage for the second time. The elder blessed him, gave him spiritual instruction, and as he sent him off, placed in his hands an oak stake, hewn from a block of wood, with the following command: “When you drive home, stop at Diveyevo, go up to the middle window of the altar of the Kazan Church, and look out into the field: you will see a boundary marker—follow its direction to the clearing at the far end of it. When you reach the clearing, find its center and drive this stake into the ground there, noting its location by some landmark you can remember.” When Mr. Mantorov came to Sarov the following year, Father Seraphim gave him four hewn stakes and told him to place them in the same clearing so that the original stake would stand in the middle. Mikhail Vasilyevich did as Father Seraphim directed, not understanding what was to come of it. But it is now clear that the elder, two full years before he took decisive action in the community, had already conceived the plan of building a mill and forming around it a separate branch of the Diveyevo community.

The land on which Father Seraphim had marked the site for the new community belonged to the heirs of Mr. Batashev. The Lord so ordered things that around this time one of the inheriting members of the family, Vera Andreyevna Postnikova, born Batasheva, visited Sarov and called on Father Seraphim. The elder asked her for this land, and Vera Andreyevna gladly ceded it, promising to take this parcel as her share of the estate. She simply forgot to register this with the central office that administered the land.

Having thus secured the land as well, Father Seraphim—after the well-known prayer he performed with the sisters in the distant hermitage—on December 9, 1825, the Feast of the Conception of the Most Holy Mother of God, received the resolve and was strengthened in spirit to proceed with the work. In the remaining days of 1825 and throughout nearly all of 1826, he himself prepared posts and timber for the mill, which he wished to establish for the Diveyevo community on the model of the Alekseyevsk community. Permission to use the Sarov forest for this purpose was granted by the Sarov abbot Father Nifont. The sisters of the Diveyevo community helped Father Seraphim in gathering the timber. Father Seraphim built a stove in the cell of his distant hermitage so that it would be warm there to rest after labors in winter. On the Feast of the Conception of the Mother of God, December 9, 1826—exactly one year after the prayerful beginning of the work—posts and logs were brought for the first time on Sarov horses to the place chosen for the new settlement of the Diveyevo sisters. After this, the sisters themselves were given the blessing to haul Sarov timber for the mill.

The neighboring landowner A. N. Prokudin, who had faith in and great respect for Father Seraphim, sent a millwright and twelve carpenters, by whom the mill was built in short order. Construction began in the spring of 1827, and by summer—on July 7, the eve of the Feast of the Kazan Mother of God—it was grinding. Since the mill was being built on land not yet formally transferred from its owners, the elder, in order to encourage the workers, urged them to fear no one, saying that the Queen of Heaven herself had given all this land to the community. The stewards appointed by the Batashev family to manage the land naturally found fault with the workers and hindered them; but the workers bore all the affronts patiently and continued their work, citing Father Seraphim’s instructions. When the mill, built with two grinding sets, was finished, Father Seraphim transferred six sisters from the Diveyevo community at the Kazan Church to live there: namely, Paraskeva Stepanovna, Paraskeva Ivanovna, Evdokia Yefremovna, Anna Alekseyevna, Darya Zinovyevna, and Ksenia Ilyinichna. He designated Paraskeva Stepanovna as senior among them. For their spiritual guidance he entrusted them all to the new Diveyevo priest, Father Vasily Sadovsky, whom he appointed to be their confessor as well, saying that this was the will of God and the Queen of Heaven and his own blessing. The chosen sisters were among those virgins whom the elder himself had earlier placed in the community of Agafia Semyonovna Melgunova. Having no cell yet, the sisters lived on the mill itself until late autumn and occupied themselves with various tasks. At the end of October they built their own cell, and all of them moved into that single dwelling. Before long Father Seraphim acquired a storehouse for them, which was set up across from the cell. After that he blessed them to build additional cells for newly arriving sisters. Father Seraphim directed that the buildings be arranged in two rows, with the mill at the center or set against the gap between them. For about a year after the mill community was established, the sisters went to take meals in the original community, and this daily journeying caused them no little grief. Then Father Seraphim blessed them to bake their own bread and brew their own kvass separately from the Diveyevo sisters, and he himself would sometimes taste their food when they brought it to him at his wish. Once, Sister Paraskeva Ivanovna, after laboring in the forest, shared a midday meal of dry bread and water with Father Seraphim. The elder remarked: “That, my dear, is our daily bread; but when I was in seclusion I ate weeds: I would pour hot water over goutweed and eat it that way. That is hermit’s food—and you should eat it too.” From that time onward, by the blessing of the elder, the community began preparing goutweed, boiling it in salted water. Moreover, whenever the sisters came to visit him, he would send them back after his spiritual consolation never without a load of dried bread crusts or oatmeal. One of the sisters, by name Maria Ivanovna, was assigned to prepare the communal meals. During the founding of the community, the sisters went more than once, at Father Seraphim’s instruction, to the Ilevsk factory to petition the Batashev estate steward for formal transfer of the land on which the mill stood; but for nearly three years no progress was made. The steward did not report the matter to the heirs. When it was finally reported, General Postnikova, recalling her verbal promise, said: “Yes, Father Seraphim asked me for land in Diveyevo, and I promised to give it to him. I will take this parcel as my own portion when the estate is divided.” Her instruction to donate this land was delivered to the community in writing. When Father Seraphim was informed of this, he was overcome with a rapture and joy that words cannot convey. Mr. Mantorov happened to be in Sarov at that time. Father Seraphim sent through him a small barrel of honey to the sisters in Diveyevo, and the sisters—having marked out together with the steward sent from the main office the boundary of their holdings—ate this honey with soft bread together with the head, Ksenia Mikhailovna, and the Diveyevo priest. Sister Elena Vasilyevna Mantorova wrote in sincere terms a letter of thanks to General Postnikova on behalf of the Diveyevo sisters and Father Seraphim; and the elder sent her his dried bread crusts as a blessing. This was in 1830.

The refectory sister Maria Ivanovna, in the course of her obedience, went down to the cellar one spring morning early, while the other sisters were still sleeping. On her way to the cellar she suddenly saw a burning candle stuck into the ground behind the cell. In fright the sister ran back to the cell and woke the sleeping sisters. All rushed with sinking hearts to the spot where the mysterious fire had burned. In indescribable joy they all leapt up to run there—but it was already gone. And this apparition had been nothing other than a vision. In the morning, when it grew light, the sisters found that the earth at that spot had been dug up. This occurred on the eve of the Feast of the Holy Trinity. From that time the elder blessed the sisters to dig a trench three arshins deep around the place of the vision, and they spent exactly three years at this work, encircling themselves on all sides with a ditch and within it an earthen bank on which, by his blessing, they planted gooseberry bushes.

Because of the hardships of life in the community, some of the sisters fell into faint-heartedness and wanted to move away somewhere else. One of them, Ksenia Ilyinichna, having this in mind, came to Father Seraphim to ask his blessing. The elder, without letting her voice her intentions, counseled her as a father for eight hours, and the sister, freed from her tempting thoughts, remained in the community for good. Another sister, Paraskeva Ivanovna, having decided to go back into the world, did not even want to tell Father Seraphim about it. Unexpectedly, the elder himself sent for her. The sister came to him in agitation. Father Seraphim began telling her about his own life in the monastery, and repeatedly returned to the following thought: “I, my dear, have lived the whole of monastic life and never—not even in thought—left the monastery.” With this conversation, wisely directed to the heart of the sister, he healed a spiritual ailment that had been grievously tormenting her, so that when the conversation ended she felt as though a sick limb had been removed—and she was at peace.

The elder Matrona Pleshcheyeva of the Diveyevo community related the following wonderful circumstance: “When I entered the Diveyevo community, I carried out, by the blessing of Father Seraphim, the obedience of preparing food for the sisters.”

Once, through weakness of health and the temptation of the enemy, I fell into such agitation and despondency that I resolved to leave the community entirely and quietly, without a blessing—so burdensome and unbearable had this obedience come to seem to me. Father Seraphim undoubtedly foresaw my temptation, for he suddenly sent me word to come to him.

Carrying out his summons, I set out for him on the third day of the Apostle Peter’s feast, after the midday meal, and wept the whole way. Arriving at his Sarov cell, I said the customary prayer, and the elder, saying “Amen,” received me as a loving father and, taking me by both hands, led me into the cell. Then he said: “There, my joy, I have been waiting for you all day.” I answered him through tears: “Father, you know what my obedience is—I could not come sooner; I had barely fed the sisters when I set out for you that very moment, and I wept the whole way.” Then Father Seraphim wiped my tears with his handkerchief, saying: “My dear, your tears do not fall to the floor in vain”—and then, leading me to the icon of the Queen of Heaven of Tenderness, he said: “Kiss it, my dear; the Queen of Heaven will console you.” I kissed the icon and felt such joy in my soul that I was utterly revived. After that, Father Seraphim said: “Well, my dear, now go to the guest quarters, and tomorrow come to the distant hermitage.” But I objected: “Father, I am afraid to go alone to that distant hermitage.” To this Father Seraphim replied: “You, my dear, walk to the hermitage and read aloud the whole way: Lord have mercy; and he himself sang it aloud several times: Lord have mercy. But do not go to Matins; rather, when you rise, make fifty prostrations and then set off.” I did exactly as Father Seraphim had blessed me: I rose, made fifty prostrations, and went, saying aloud the whole way: Lord have mercy. From this I felt not the slightest fear but on the contrary experienced the greatest joy in my heart, through the prayers of Father Seraphim.

Approaching the distant hermitage, I suddenly saw Father Seraphim sitting near his cell on a log, and beside him stood a bear of terrible size. I froze with fear and cried out at the top of my voice: “Father, it is my death!”—and fell down. Father Seraphim, hearing my voice, struck the bear and waved his hand at it. The bear, like a rational being, immediately went off in the direction Father Seraphim had waved, into the dense forest. I, seeing all this, trembled with terror, and even when Father Seraphim came up to me saying, “Do not be afraid, do not be frightened”—I continued to cry out as before: “Oh, it is my death!” To this the elder replied: “No, my dear, this is not death; death is far from you—this is joy.” And then he led me to that same log on which he had been sitting before, and on which, after praying, he seated me—and sat down himself! Scarcely had we sat down when the very same bear came out of the dense forest and, approaching Father Seraphim, lay down at his feet. I, being in close proximity to such a fearsome beast, was at first in the greatest terror and trembling; but then, seeing that Father Seraphim dealt with it without any fear whatsoever—as with a gentle lamb—and even fed it from his own hands with bread he had brought with him in a bag, I began little by little to be revived by faith. What struck me most wondrously at that moment was the face of my great father: it was bright as an angel’s, and full of joy.

At last, when I was completely calm and the elder had fed out nearly all the bread, he handed me what remained and told me to feed the bear myself. But I answered: “I am afraid, father—it will bite off my hand.” Father Seraphim looked at me, smiled, and said: “No, my dear, believe that it will not bite off your hand.” Then I took the bread he offered me and fed it all to the bear with such consolation that I could have wished to go on feeding it, for the beast was gentle and meek even toward sinful me, through the prayers of Father Seraphim.

Seeing me at peace, Father Seraphim said to me: “Do you remember, my dear, how at the venerable Gerasimus on the Jordan a lion served him—and at poor Seraphim’s side a bear serves? You see, even the wild animals obey us, and yet you, my dear, fall into despondency. What do we have to be despondent about? Why, if I had brought scissors with me, I would have given him a trim.”

Then I said simply: “Father, what if the sisters were to see this bear—they would die of fright.” But he answered: “No, my dear, the sisters will not see him.” “And what if someone were to kill him?” I asked. “I feel sorry for him.” The elder answered: “No, no one will kill him: no one but you will see him.” I was still thinking how to tell the sisters about this terrible wonder—but Father Seraphim, reading my thoughts, replied: “No, my dear, do not tell anyone of this until eleven years after my death; then the will of God will reveal to whom it should be told.”

In later years, Elder Matrona came for some reason to the cell where a peasant named Yefim Vasilyev—known for his faith and love for the elder—was engaged in icon painting by the blessing of Father Seraphim. Seeing that he was drawing Father Seraphim, she suddenly said to him: “It would be quite fitting here to paint Father Seraphim together with the bear.” Yefim Vasilyev asked her why she thought so, and she told him—as the first person to hear it—the account of this wondrous event. Exactly eleven years had passed, as the elder had appointed.

Although many others outside the community also knew of Father Seraphim and the bear, since these persons are unknown it is impossible to transmit their testimonies—save for one, related by the Sarov monk Pyotr.

By holding back the faint-hearted sisters, Father Seraphim continued to increase the population of the mill community with new members. In the very year after the mill was built, he began sending many new young women to live in this community, while women who had been widowed he directed to the original community, under the head Ksenia Mikhailovna.

A certain lady, E. M. Z., while her husband was still living and serving at the Zlatoust factories, asked Father Seraphim for a blessing to enter the Diveyevo community for the salvation of her soul. The elder answered her: “No, my dear, wait—first live out your time with your husband; and when he dies, labor for another ten years or so as a prosphora baker for your local churches—and in doing so you will deliver your husband from torment.” But she objected: “It is still unknown, father, which of us will die first—my husband or I.” “No, my dear,” the elder answered, “your husband will die in about three years.” The husband, who died three years later, left behind him a large debt, which she paid off entirely, thereby—one may suppose—delivering him from torment. After that she served as prosphora baker for two churches and at last resolved to ask Father Seraphim a second time for a blessing to enter the Diveyevo community. The elder would not give his blessing this time either, and told her to live in the world. When she said that she was obliged to live among young people, Father Seraphim touched her with his hand and said: “The Lord is merciful! Even though young people may try to tempt you, nothing improper will even enter your mind.” And so she remained a prosphora baker for about ten years, carried out this obedience diligently, and at the end of the ten-year term she did indeed enter the Diveyevo community.

Some dedicated their lives to God in the Diveyevo community out of gratitude for healings received through Father Seraphim. An eleven-year-old orphan girl, V. K., from the village of Pogibleva in Nizhny Novgorod province, was present at her own brother’s wedding when, completely unexpectedly and without any apparent cause, she fell down at the entrance gate of the yard and lay there in an unconscious state. A woman from the same village who happened to be there took the sick girl into her home out of compassion. The girl developed a severe internal pain with numbness and hardening of the abdomen. Over the course of two years the attacks of illness intensified and recurred frequently. One time, for the bright feast of Pascha, the sick V. K. was brought to Sarov to see Father Seraphim. When the elder, standing outside his cell, was giving blessings to the people, she came up to him in the crowd. Father Seraphim took her by the hand, led her into the cell, laid his hands on her head, and then anointed her with oil from the lamp—and from that time on she recovered her health. When she turned seventeen she entered the Diveyevo community.

Another woman, E. N., had suffered for two years without the free use of either her arms or her legs, and was finally brought to Father Seraphim for healing. The elder was laboring at that time with the sisters Praskovia Ivanova and Irina Vasilyeva at the haymaking, for the benefit of the community. Catching sight from a distance of the sick woman being led with difficulty by others, Father Seraphim began to beckon her toward him, urging her to walk faster; and when she drew near, the elder, without a word, put a rake in her hands and set her to gathering hay. The sick woman immediately felt a strengthening in her legs and arms and began to work as though she were well. The sisters who were there, not yet knowing that her health had returned, were distressed in their souls and reproached her: “Why had she, ill as she was, dragged herself out to work with them?” But the elder, perceiving their thoughts in spirit, said: “Receive her into Diveyevo, among yourselves—she will spin and weave for you.” Then Father Seraphim fed her dinner in reward for her labor and sent her home. Finding herself completely well at home, E. N. entered the Diveyevo community.

Some others Father Seraphim, in his gift of foresight, designated from childhood, and in the spirit of that calling guided them toward entering the Diveyevo community. Among these was Sister Anastasia Protasova. “The first time I visited Elder Seraphim”—she related afterward—“I was still a small child, together with my parents and with the head of the Diveyevo community, Ksenia Mikhailovna. My mother had long wished to see Father Seraphim, and we all went to him with complete faith. When we approached his cell, there was no one yet there, and we said the customary Jesus Prayer. The father immediately opened the door for us. He was dressed in a white cassock, and his face seemed extraordinarily bright. He said to us: ‘Come in here!’ and told us to venerate the icon of the Mother of God that stood on the table. Then we all bowed to the ground before him, and he, blessing us and giving us the cross to venerate—the crucifix that hung on his chest—said to us: ‘The Lord, who is everywhere present and fills all things, will not leave you either without his mercy. The prophet said: ”I have not seen the righteous man forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.“‘ After that he himself gave each of us a portion of antidoron with church wine, and placed a few dried bread crusts in mother’s kerchief. Finally he blessed us once more and said: ‘Go in peace.’”

“The second time I visited him I was seven years old, with my mother and the Diveyevo head Irina Prokopyevna.”

He likewise blessed us all and told us to venerate the icon of the Mother of God; and since I could not reach the icon standing on the table, he lifted me himself and let me kiss the Queen of Heaven. Then he took my hand, placed it in the hand of Irina Prokopyevna, and began speaking to my mother about the prophet Samuel and various other parables, and asked her: ‘Do you understand, my dear?’ She answered: ‘I cannot understand, father.’ Then he blessed us all and sent us home. My mother, returning to our lodgings, thought that all of this pointed to my imminent death, and she wept all night. In the morning she went again with me to Father Seraphim, unwilling to leave without taking leave of him. The moment he opened the door for us and we bowed to him, before even blessing us, he placed his hand over my mother’s lips and said: ‘Not that, not that, my dear—do not despair.’ And straightaway he let her venerate the Cross he wore. After that my mother was completely at peace.“”

“When I reached the age of twelve and we came again to Father Seraphim, he asked my mother, pointing to me: ‘How old is she?’ She answered: ‘Going on twelve, father.’ Then he said to her: ‘It is time for us, my dear, to betroth her to a bridegroom.’ My mother objected that she was still young; but Seraphim answered her: ‘You, my dear, seek out a widow and bow to her, asking her to take the girl for her son—and she will take her.’ Mother smiled and thought that he was speaking plainly to her about my future bridegroom. But he continued: ‘On the feast days of the Twelve, sew her new clothes, my dear—a little white dress and little red shoes; and at the midnight hour rise yourself to pray, and rouse your husband, but do not rouse her. When she grows and is strengthened in body and spirit, then she herself will be bold for ascetic labor.’ And from that time on, whenever we came to him, he always made mention of the widow.”

“When I had reached the age of sixteen, he plainly told my parents about me, that ‘her path is to Diveyevo, to my community, to the orphans’—and for two years running after that he sent Sister Anna Petrovna from the community to fetch me; and every time we visited him (which happened about three times a year), he kept telling me: ‘The Dormition is waiting for you, and you have no path, my dear, to live with your parents—the Mother of God chose you at age seven, and they are keeping you with them’—this he said about my parents. He also asked my father that we absolutely must build ourselves a cell on a stone foundation, and that no more than four of us should live in it; ‘and the roof’—he said, turning to me—‘you yourself, my dear, put on, and nail it down firmly.’ Once I told him that I was sorry to be parted from my sister; and he answered: ‘Then we will take her along here too.’ I then began to feel sorry for my parents, thinking that without the two of us they would be even more grieved. And so, when I visited him the next time, he said among other things: ‘Now, about the sister—what we discussed: it seems to me we had better leave her with your parents for now, so that she may live as a consolation to them’—and, handing me a prosphora to give to her, he added: ‘Tell her, my dear, that poor Seraphim sent her this.’ From that time we no longer grieved for each other as we once had. When my three-year-old brother Ivan was brought to him, he took the child from the arms of his nurse and, handing him to me, asked: ‘Do you have a garden?’ I answered: ‘We do.’ Then he said: ‘Walk him through the garden, my dear, and say continuously: Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy! He will grow up and become our treasured joy; and feed him yourself, from your own hands.’”

“Once, when I was with him at the hermitage, he sent me to the spring to drink and wash from it, saying that this spring heals illnesses. Then, pointing to the surrounding land in the direction of Diveyevo, he said: ‘This place was chosen for you by the Queen of Heaven herself, and no one can take it away from you. I will build you a little shelter, and you will walk around it, gather the hay, and rest here. And you will have much bread and potatoes, and your own churches, and the church rule will be as at Sarov, as the holy Fathers handed it down to us. The Queen of Heaven will help you in all things, and I, poor Seraphim, always bow my knees on your behalf, and for your parents and kinsmen.’”

“Finally, when he began earnestly asking my mother to build a cell for me quickly and send me to Diveyevo, my mother wept and said: ‘Now we will send her, father, with hope in you; but if you are no longer here, perhaps they will all scatter.’ To this he answered her: ‘No, my dear, before me there were Father Pakhomy and Father Isaiah, who cared for them; now I, poor one, care for them, and after me the Queen of Heaven will care for them.’”

“Sending me off to the community, he told me, among other things, the life of the venerable Macrina, and added: ‘There, my dear—she herself went into the monastery and urged her brother Basil as well. He was a pillar of the Church; but when he was in his studies and grew proud toward his sister Macrina, she brought him to humility through her chastity.’”

The sisters who had entered the community led a strict life, engaged in physical labor and spiritual exercises. For labors beyond a woman’s strength, a male worker-elder also lived at the mill. In the original community, from the time of the first foundress, the sisters observed the rule of the Sarov monks. Father Seraphim, finding this rule difficult for the female sex, gave them his own daily rule, which is ordered as follows:

Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen. O Heavenly King; Holy God (three times). Glory, both now and ever. O Most Holy Trinity. Lord have mercy (three times). Glory, both now and ever. Our Father. Lord have mercy, 12 times. Glory, both now and ever. O come, let us worship (three times). Psalm 50: Have mercy on me, O God. I believe in one God. Then 12 selected psalms, beginning: The Lord is my light. The Prayer of Remembrance: Remember, O Lord Jesus Christ our God. Then a brief daily reading from the Prologue; during Great Lent, read Ephrem the Syrian. During Holy Week—on the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, from various books. One hundred waist-deep prostrations with the prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. One hundred prostrations with the prayer: O my Lady, Most Holy Mother of God, save us sinners.

It is truly meet. Our Father (three times). Rejoice, O Virgin Mother of God (three times). I believe in one God (once). O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner (twice). O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners (once). O Lord Jesus Christ, through the Lady Virgin Mary the Mother of God, have mercy on me, a sinner (twice). O Lord Jesus Christ, through the Lady Virgin Mary the Mother of God, have mercy on us sinners, 12 prostrations; with the prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us, 12 prostrations; also with the prayer: O my Lady, Most Holy Mother of God, save us sinners, 12 prostrations. Then they pray and make remembrance for the health and repose of the community’s benefactors and for all Orthodox Christians. In all other circumstances the sisters of the Diveyevo community were likewise under the obedience of Father Seraphim; they began nothing without his blessing; and if any of them wished to be absent from the community for a time, she would present herself to the elder for his blessing before departing and again upon returning. The following account of the elder’s gift of foresight is known in connection with this practice, related by Sister Evdokia the Deaf.

“I had a married sister who lived in the village of Alamasovo. One day she fell ill and wished me to visit her in her sickness. I at once went to the head, Ksenia Mikhailovna, to ask her blessing for the journey; but the head told me that I should first go to Father Seraphim and do as he should bless.”

I set out, but on the way I became confused and for a long time debated with myself: should I go to Father Seraphim or not? What if he would not give his blessing? And in the end I decided it was better not to stop in on him but to go directly to my sister. To quiet somewhat the conscience that was tormenting me, I fell to the ground, kissed Father Seraphim’s hands and feet in my thoughts, and venerated the brass crucifix that he always wore on his chest. I imagined that he had, as was his custom, blessed me and given me dried bread for the road. Having thus calmed myself, I set out for my sister’s home in the village of Alamasovo.

After staying with her for a considerable time and leaving her in better condition, I returned to my community in a most troubled state of spirit, for I had left without a blessing, of my own will. But the moment I stepped through the convent gates, I was met by one of our sisters, Ekaterina Yegorovna, who told me that during my absence she had visited Father Seraphim twice, and that each time he had spoken to her about me. The first time he said: “Just now, before you arrived, Evdokia the Deaf was here with me; she asked permission to go to the village of Alamasovo to visit her sick sister, bowing to the ground before me, kissing my hands and feet, and venerating my brass cross; I blessed her to go and gave her dried bread for the road.” The second time he simply asked first: “Well, my dear, has Evdokia the Deaf returned from Alamasovo?” and then continued with the same account he had given the first time: “She came to me on such-and-such a day and hour, and so forth, and I blessed her to go.” Hearing this account, I could not help but weep—both from awareness of my guilt and from joy at having found in Father Seraphim such warm good will toward me, a sinner, and such a gift of foresight.

Until 1829, the sisters living at the mill attended services at the Church of the Kazan Mother of God, built by the nun Alexandra. Materials for the construction of a separate church for the mill sisters were being gathered by the blessing of Father Seraphim from as early as 1827. The builders of the new church were Mikhail Vasilyevich Mantorov and his sister Elena Vasilyevna, who, by Father Seraphim’s blessing, served as head of the newly founded community at the mill. Mr. Mantorov, as noted above, had been healed of an incurable illness through Father Seraphim’s prayers, and in token of gratitude resolved to sell his small estate in the village of Nucha, twenty-five versts from Diveyevo, in order to build a church for the community with the proceeds. Two circumstances prompted the building of the new church: the growth in the number of sisters, and the crowdedness of the Kazan Church, which was a parish church in Diveyevo. By the blessing of His Grace Afanasy, Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod, obtained for Father Seraphim through the intercession of others, construction began in 1828 and was fully completed the following year, according to a plan approved in advance by the building committee. This church was erected in connection with the bell tower of the Kazan Church on its western side, built of stone, and had two floors. On August 6, 1829, the altar in the upper church was consecrated in the name of the Nativity of Christ, and on September 8, 1830, the altar in the lower church was consecrated in honor of the Nativity of the Mother of God. The archimandrite Ioakim of the Annunciation Monastery of Nizhny Novgorod, who consecrated both churches, on the last occasion made a detour to Sarov and visited Father Seraphim in his hermit’s cell. By that time, in the front corner of the cell, a raspberry bush had grown up through the floor and on it three berries had ripened. With these Father Seraphim treated Archimandrite Ioakim, thanking him for his labors in consecrating the church. This church exists to this day; early liturgies are celebrated in it and the Psalter is read day and night. Before the local icon of Christ the Savior a vigil lamp burns without ceasing, and before the icon of the Nativity of the Mother of God an oil lamp burns without ceasing, by the testament of Father Seraphim. Father Seraphim sent someone especially to the Nizhny Novgorod fair for the bells for this church, and to Moscow for the sacred vessels, for which he gave his own money. Another set he gave from his own hands to the church warden Ksenia Vasilyevna; a third was sent from Moscow by Princess Golitsyna before the consecration of the church. Certain items belonging to the priestly vestments Father Seraphim transmitted to the community church through the priest Father Vasily Sadovsky. Having thus established the church, Father Seraphim furnished it as well with all that was necessary for divine services. Beyond this, at various times he sent the following icons to the community as blessings: 1) a small icon of the Kazan Mother of God; 2) a medium-sized icon of the venerable Sergius of Radonezh the Wonderworker; 3) an icon of the venerable Cyril and Maria; and 4) a triptych in a silver setting depicting the Savior, the Mother of God, Saint John the Baptist, and certain other saints of God. All these icons are preserved in the community to this day.

After the consecration of the Church of the Nativity of Christ, Father Seraphim blessed the parish priests Father Vasily Sadovsky and Father Ioann Dertev to serve in it every day for a period of six weeks, in alternation. Since the community sisters were women who had dedicated themselves to the service of God, and since they also observed the monastic rule, they performed the non-liturgical services themselves, as is customary in monasteries, without engaging the readers of the Kazan Church—by the instruction of Father Seraphim. The pious church-builder Elena Vasilyevna Mantorova and her novices Ksenia Vasilyevna and Paraskeva Ivanovna carried out the functions of altar server. The choir sisters, who could read and sing, at first sang by ear, then were taught simple congregational chant by the priest Father Vasily Sadovsky; and finally the Sarov fathers Nazary and Kornily taught them to sing the eight tones according to the Sarov melody. To sheet music they also sang the Paraklesisto the Most Holy Mother of God.

Father Seraphim bequeathed, through Father Vasily Sadovsky, the following rules for the mill community: 1) in the chapels dedicated to the Nativity of Christ and the Nativity of the Mother of God, services were to be held without fail on all Sundays and the twelve great feasts; on Saturdays and other days as need required, at the wish of benefactors, or on the occasion of commemorating deceased sisters; 2) on Sundays before the Liturgy, the Paraklesis to the Mother of God and the canon were to be sung without fail, the entire canon chanted: “for this,” he added, “no misfortune will befall you; but if you cease to observe it, you will bring trouble upon trouble”; 3) twelve sisters were to read the Psalter daily in the church, taking turns every two hours, and to read aloud without fail, as it is written: “you will give joy and gladness to my hearing”; “even the angels rejoice,” he would add, “when they hear the reading of the Psalter”; the reading of the Psalter was to continue throughout the year, except during Pascha; during the day-and-night reading of the Psalter, he instructed them to commemorate for health the reigning Imperial House and benefactors, and for the repose of the departed Orthodox tsars and benefactors; 4) all the Diveyevo sisters were to fast, confess, and receive Holy Communion without fail during all four fasting seasons, and some, as they wished, on all the twelve great feasts; 5) the sisters were to chant and read on the kliros; 6) the vestry was to be maintained and all church property kept in order, while the duties of sacristan were to be performed by the church sisters—that is, by chosen devout sisters; 7) before the holy icon of the Savior a lamp was to burn without ceasing, and before the image of the Mother of God—an oil lamp.

In prescribing occupations beyond mill work, the elder bequeathed labors and handicrafts most suited to simple people. Drawing, gold embroidery, and other work requiring deep concentration of the mind and belonging to the arts he did not wish to permit. Ever faithful to his principle, he grounded this injunction on the rules of St. Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian, who urged that in a monastery one should occupy oneself only with those things that serve the monastery’s needs. But in all occupations Father Seraphim counseled strict adherence to the rule: “work in your hands, and prayer on your lips.”

All these rules and injunctions of Father Seraphim were faithfully observed by the abbesses and sisters of the Diveyevo community. Departures from them brought very unpleasant consequences upon the convent. We already know of Father Seraphim’s injunction that in the church of the Nativity of Christ which he had founded, the Psalter should always be read—after the custom of the convent of the Unsleeping Ones—that before the icon of the Savior an unquenchable candle should burn, and before the image of the Mother of God an oil lamp, and that if all this were observed exactly, the community would suffer neither want nor trouble, and the oil for this purpose would never run out. And indeed, the Angel of Peace guarded the convent as long as this injunction was kept—given as it was with special force and as a condition. But one day the church sister Ksenia Vasilyevna, who was under the obedience of Elena Vasilyevna Mantorova, poured out the last of the oil into the lamp, and there was no way to obtain more. This occurred during a church service. When everyone had left the church, she approached the icon and saw that all the oil had burned away and the lamp had gone out. With a heavy heart she stepped back from the lamp and, involuntarily recalling Father Seraphim’s injunction, thought to herself: “if Father Seraphim’s words have proved untrue—for there is now neither oil nor money for the lamp—then perhaps his other predictions, whose fulfillment we have awaited with certainty, will also fail to come to pass.” Thousands of doubts troubled the sister’s soul, and her faith in the elder’s clairvoyance began to leave her. In this distressing state of mind, Ksenia Vasilyevna covered her face with her hands and stepped back several paces from the icon of the Savior. Suddenly she heard a crackling sound. Raising her head, she saw that the lamp had lit; she drew nearer and noticed that the lamp’s glass was full of oil, and on its surface floated two small banknotes. Shaken in spirit, she locked the church and hurried to tell her elder Elena Vasilyevna of the wondrous sight. On the way she was met by a sister who was accompanied by a peasant who had been looking for the church sister and wished to give her something. This peasant, upon seeing Ksenia Vasilyevna, asked:

“Are you, dear mother, the church sister here?”

“I am,” answered sister Ksenia. “And what do you need?”

“Well, Father Seraphim left you instructions about the unquenchable lamp, so I have brought you 300 rubles in banknotes for oil for the lamp, so that it may burn for the repose of my parents.”

With these words he named his departed parents and handed over the money.

The sister’s doubts about the elder’s clairvoyance and the truth of his injunction were immediately dispelled: she was ashamed of them and grieved over her unbelief.

Later, when a new wooden church was built at Diveyevo, Father Seraphim’s church was locked up, the Psalter was removed from it, and the candle and lamp ceased to burn. After this the convent suffered many trials, and among its ascetics there exists a conviction that the Lord permitted this as a consequence of the failure to observe Father Seraphim’s rules. This departure from them was the result of outside interference in the governance of the Diveyevo community.

At the present time, by God’s help and through the prayers of Father Seraphim, his rules have been restored: in the church, as before, the candle and lamp burn without ceasing.

Not content with the injunctions he had given, and looking far into the future, Father Seraphim during his lifetime prepared a site for the construction of a cathedral. He foretold to the sisters the building of it and various other circumstances of the convent. Once there came to him the Diveyevo elder Matrona, who visited Seraphim’s hermitage perhaps more often than any of the other sisters. Instead of the clothing worn by the inhabitants of the convent, she had dressed herself in the poor rags of a wanderer, to avoid reproach and reproof for the sisters’ frequent visits to the elder. Father Seraphim, as if not recognizing her, first asked: “Who are you, dear mother, and where are you from?” When she named herself as Diveyevo Matrona, the elder disowned her, as though he had never seen her and was hearing for the first time that she was from Diveyevo. Distressed by her mistake in coming in unfamiliar clothing, the elder fell at Father Seraphim’s feet and wept bitterly—from repentance, and also at the thought that she had no reason now to go on living if Father Seraphim was rejecting her. The elder, like the most tender of fathers, raised her up, saying: “Rise, my joy, rise: I know who has come to me.” Then, after a pause, he asked: “Which of the three is better: consolation, prayer, or conversation?” Still weeping without ceasing, the elder replied: “Prayer, dear father, is the most beneficial of all”; and he said to this: “You, dear mother, have answered wisely.” He then began to speak to her in consolation, urging her on no account to leave the convent, even when he was no longer in this world. “For us, dear mother, the Queen of Heaven herself has granted the land on which you live. The Mother of God obtained it from the Lord as a gift, and I, poor Seraphim, asked for it from the Queen of Heaven—so no one shall take it from us.”

“We shall have our own cathedral, dear mother. On our own land we shall have our own flocks—sheep and wool. Why should we be downcast, dear mother? We shall have everything of our own. The sisters will plow and sow grain; and you, as the full mistress of the household, cut yourself as much bread as you like, salt it, and eat it to your health. Both widows and maidens will come to us, bringing young girls with them. But we, dear mother, have particular feelings about widows. They judge us quite contrarily. A maiden is gladdened only by the most sweet Jesus. She contemplates Him in His sufferings and, wholly free in spirit, devotes herself to the service of God; but a widow—her mind is all on worldly memories: ”How fine our dear departed was!“ they say. ”What a good man he was!“” The elder Matrona, consoled and having received his blessing, returned home.

Meanwhile Father Seraphim, thinking about the construction of the cathedral, found a convenient location for it not far from the Kazan church, midway between the old and new convents, on land belonging to the landowner E. I. Zhdanov. This gentleman, after the death of his parents, remained the eldest in his family, and single-handedly managed all affairs—which were in a very disordered state. Out of deep respect for Father Seraphim, he sincerely wished to donate the plot of land belonging to him and his family for the construction of the cathedral at no charge. But Father Seraphim would not agree to this. He gave the Diveyevo sister Elena Vasilyevna Mantorova money for the purchase of this site, and, sending her together with the elder Ulyana Grigoryevna to E. I. Zhdanov, he said: “The holy king and prophet David, when he desired to build a temple to the Lord on Mount Moriah, did not accept the threshing floor of Ornan without payment, but paid its price. So here too it is pleasing to the Queen of Heaven that the site for the temple should be acquired by purchase and not received without cost. People offered to give me the land for nothing, but this is not pleasing to her.” After the deed of purchase was completed, he instructed sister Elena Mantorova to copy it by hand in a semi-uncial script and bring it to him. And when this sister had departed to the Lord, Father Seraphim summoned the original deed of purchase to himself. Handing it to the deceased’s brother, Mikhail Vasilyevich Mantorov, who had been away in Simbirsk Province and had just arrived in Sarov, he earnestly entreated him to keep it as safely as possible, and when the time came to build the cathedral, to ensure it was erected on this precise plot and not on any other ground. In June 1848, the late Bishop Yakov of Nizhny Novgorod, acting on the direction of Mr. Mantorov, in whose hands the deed of purchase was held, on this very site laid with his own hands the first stone for the construction of the cathedral church. But the enemy of mankind, who had persecuted the blessed elder Seraphim during his lifetime, after his repose raised up obstacles to the completion of this holy undertaking already begun, so that the church was consecrated only twenty-seven years later, in 1875. Meanwhile, Mr. Zhdanov, after receiving money from Father Seraphim for the land under the cathedral, began—without himself understanding how—to prosper, and brought his affairs into excellent order. He later became the marshal of nobility of the district, had ten children, and enjoyed abundance.

In this way Father Seraphim formed the distinct community known as the Seraphim-Diveyevo community, separate from the convent of Agathia Semyonovna Melgunova.

The subsequent fate of both these communities after Father Seraphim’s death no longer belongs to the story of his life. We note only that they remained in the order established by Father Seraphim until 1842. In that year both branches were united into a single convent, which was named the Seraphim-Diveyevo community and was placed under the protection of ecclesiastical and civil authority. In 1861 the community was converted into a third-class convent for women, and it now numbers about nine hundred souls seeking salvation.

Let us now explain, for the sake of completeness, how Father Seraphim viewed his community and how he related to its members. In spirit he did not separate the mill community from the Diveyevo community, and he regarded the nun Alexandra as the foundress of both; he himself held her in reverence and impressed the same upon the sisters. Thus, in conversation one day with the sister Yustinia Ivanovna, he said: “If you only knew, dear mother, what a servant of God it was who founded this place and rests among you in the convent. Her clothing was much mended, her headscarf threadbare, and her eyes never dried from tears. I myself even now kiss her footsteps. Go every day, dear mother, go to her grave. And at the grave, having bowed down, say these words: ‘Our lady and mother, forgive me and bless me, and pray for me, that as you have been forgiven by the Lord, so may He forgive me also, and remember me before the throne of God.’” These thoughts and this reverence, which he himself was the first to practice, Father Seraphim instilled in all the sisters of the community. He looked upon himself as the spiritual founder of the new community. “I will tell you, my joy,” he said to sister Evdokia Yefremovna, “I have spiritually begotten you, and in all your bodily needs I will not abandon you. I now choose you as sisters to myself, and those who come after my time will be my daughters.” He regarded the newly founded community as pleasing to God and recognized the Mother of God as its patroness. “Know this, dear mother”—he said to sister Paraskeva Stepanovna—“know that the Queen of Heaven herself chose this place for the glorification of her name: she will be your wall and your protection.” Looking into the future, Father Seraphim grieved that there would be no one to whom to entrust the convent after his death, and he often said: after me, poor Seraphim, you will have no father. There is Father Ilarion—a starets (a hieromonk of the Sarov Hermitage)—but he cannot take responsibility for you; likewise Father Isaiah will not take it on; and Father Savvaty could take responsibility for you and be a father to you after me, but he does not wish to (also a monk of Sarov; he later took the great schema under the name Stephen). So I tell you that after me you will have no father.“ As a result he always commended the sisters to the Lord and to the Mother of God. A week before his death, he said to sister Paraskeva Stepanovna: ”Now you and all of you lack nothing; but after my death much sorrow will come upon you. Well, what is to be done? Bear it patiently—that is just the path appointed for you. This is only the beginning now. It was not I who chose you, but the Queen of Heaven herself chose you and gave you to me, simple girls; and afterward people of all ranks and stations will come to you, and after my death, poor Seraphim, great persons will seek you out. They will ask questions—tell them everything then, all that you have heard from me; do not be afraid. But for now, until the time has come, be silent.“ These words of Father Seraphim were fully vindicated by the history of the community. And it is to his injunction to conceal nothing after his death that we owe our ability to describe in detail, from the words of those who conversed with him, his relationship to the community.”

8. The Elder Seraphim’s Influence on the Ardatov Convent and the Zelenaya Gora Community

In conversation with the abbess of the Ardatov convent, E. A., Father Seraphim once said that during the days of his life as a hermit the Mother of God had appeared to him together with the twelve Apostles, radiant with ineffable light and glory, and had entrusted him with the guidance and direction of three convents: the Diveyevo, the Ardatov, and the Zelenaya Gora. Events confirmed this account—both with regard to Diveyevo (as we have already seen) and with regard to the Ardatov convent and the Zelenaya Gora community.

The foundress and first abbess of the Ardatov community was a young woman from the townspeople class, Vassa Dmitrievna Polyukhova.

Out of love for her neighbors, she gave shelter in her parents’ cottage—standing outside the town of Ardatov, apart from the other buildings, on the right bank of the Lemetka River—to a few homeless maidens. For four years they spent their time there in physical labors and devout ascetic endeavors, especially in prayer. Being unable, owing to their distance from town, to attend church as often as they wished, the Ardatov maidens, around 1810, pooled their resources and purchased for themselves a small house in Temnikov Street in the town, not far from the cathedral, together with land of 243 square sazhens. Having moved there, they took on the black monastic habit and introduced a defined order concerning their labors, their cell prayers, and their church attendance. Their house became known by the name of an almshouse. The number of maidens grew over time. They added a new building that served as their refectory and the place for their morning and evening gatherings for prayer. Wishing to form themselves into a community, the establishment finally assumed the form and rules of a monastic common life, and recognized its foundress Vassa Dmitrievna as abbess on account of the strictness and purity of her life. When this abbess died (on the twenty-first of November, 1823), the Ardatov community already numbered about forty sisters. Even before her death, from the time the common life was introduced, the sisters had been under the moral influence of the Sarov elders, especially Father Seraphim and Ilarion.

After the death of Vassa Dmitrievna Polyukhova, the sisters found themselves in extreme uncertainty: they offered the leadership to one another, but none of the senior sisters dared to take upon herself the burden of that office in what was still a difficult time for the community. Wishing to resolve their disputes, the senior sisters went to Father Seraphim, hoping that he would, through his clairvoyance, indicate an abbess to them. They explained their sorrowful situation to the elder, asking his advice and support. Father Seraphim, without answering them directly, turned to one of those who had come, a woman named Evdokia Andreyevna, and began giving her rules concerning the duties of an abbess. It became clear to everyone that the Mother of God was entrusting to her the keeping of the convent; but Evdokia Andreyevna tried to decline this honor, insisting that she lacked the decisive character needed for the office of abbess, and that in the event of the shortages which a community often endures, she would not know how to provide for the sisters. But the elder closed her mouth with the words: “Pray to the Mother of God, stay at home—and God will send from all sides.” These rather inconclusive words were taken by everyone to mean that he was entrusting Evdokia Andreyevna only with temporary governance; and so a year passed without a proper abbess for the Ardatov sisters, while sister Evdokia was regarded among them merely as the senior sister and caretaker. Finally elder Ilarion came and definitively confirmed her in the office of abbess of the community.

Meanwhile Father Seraphim’s hope in Divine Providence for the Ardatov community was vindicated on more than one occasion. During a time of general famine, the community, by God’s dispensation and through the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God, suffered no lack of bread. It happened once that only enough bread and flour for two days remained in the community and there was nowhere to obtain more. Gathering the sisters together, the abbess announced with heartfelt sorrow their extreme want. In such circumstances the sisters had but one choice: either to endure hunger or to disperse. The grievous situation distressed everyone deeply. The sisters, having prayed to God with all their hearts, sent one of their number to Father Seraphim, asking the elder to speak a word of comfort to those who were suffering and to intercede for them before God with his prayers. The one they sent found him at work not far from the hermitage; with bitter tears she fell at the elder’s feet and told him of her needs. On this occasion the elder, departing from the rules of his customary compassion, did not listen to the sister’s words, with visible displeasure forbade her to be despondent and to complain, and even drove her away from himself, saying: “You bow without need, you bow without need!” The sister returned to the convent in even greater sorrow, reported the elder’s words, concealing neither how unwelcomingly she had been received by him. But on the third day, in the morning—when nothing remained to the sisters except their hope in God—they received from an unknown benefactor assistance in the form of flour, from which they strengthened themselves with food that very day, glorifying the Lord.

There were other occasions on which Father Seraphim, by way of warning against calamities, allegorically foretold to the abbess an impending famine, an epidemic among livestock, and similar misfortunes. Thus once, handing her a silver ruble, he said: “This is for you for clean bread”; and then, unfolding and handing over what was at that time a blue banknote, he said: “and this is for the extras” (meaning porridge). Thinking that these words referred to the impending events, Evdokia Andreyevna lowered her head, became slightly lost in thought, and paid no attention to the banknote. The elder, taking the note from her hands with the feeling of a father taking something from a child who does not know its value, unfolded it and tied it in her kerchief, saying that “the sisters should not now neglect money: for soon a need will arise and money will be required.” After this explanation there followed a conversation about the salvation of the soul and the virtues necessary for nuns. Comforted by the conversation and sent off with blessings, the abbess and the sisters returned safely to the convent; the banknote and its mysterious significance were nearly forgotten. But before long they heard that famine was setting in everywhere and that poor people, in order to make their small stores last longer, were mixing pigweed into their bread. “But we,” said the Ardatov sisters, “throughout all that hungry time, by God’s mercy and through the prayers of Father Seraphim, were nourished with clean bread” (without any admixture of pigweed).

Elder Seraphim also guided the sisters of the Ardatov community in all other matters. One of them, zealous for higher ascetic endeavors, asked Father Seraphim for his blessing to wear a hair shirt and to impose upon herself a fast beyond the days prescribed in the Orthodox Church. The elder most wisely did not approve of her intentions and said: “No hair shirt, no extra fasting is needed; live with the sisters as the sisters live, just that: only do not eat anything to satiety; leave room for the Holy Spirit.” Then, as if wishing to reassure her completely, he added that “the place where the convent stands (and the convent stood not far from a church of God) is full of grace, and therefore one can save one’s soul in it simply by following the prescriptions of the monastic rule and not taking upon oneself excessive endeavors beyond one’s strength.”

Father Seraphim took care that the sisters should not be left without counsel and guidance even in those cases when he himself, due to his occupations, was not in a position to give them his time. “When I am occupied,” he would say, “go to Father Ilarion: it is all the same whether it is I or he.” In general he advised them to seek the intercession and prayers of the ascetics of the Sarov Hermitage, perceiving with his spiritual eyes how powerful their prayer was before God. To the abbess Evdokia Andreyevna he often used to say: “Your enclosure is not of stone, but it is more reliable than stone; your neighbors are all as your own.” Despite this, he instructed that the sisters, for the sake of order and propriety, as well as for greater safety, should never abandon the all-night watch. Father Seraphim saw far into the future and years in advance determined the circumstances of the building of a church for the Ardatov community. At that time the sisters attended public worship at the parish church of the Holy Prophet Elijah, half a verst distant from their cells. Someone asked Father Seraphim for his blessing to move the sisters to that parish; but he did not give his blessing and said: “Prepare a rope; I will come myself, measure out the place for the church; the refectory will be below.” Later events explained that by the refectory he meant the spiritual one, that is, the altar, which indeed turned out to be on a lower level because the monastery church stands half underground. On another occasion he sent gilders to the community, saying to them: “Go to Evdokia, go to Evdokia: she will give you work; she needs an iconostasis gilded.” At that time the community did not yet have a church at all. The sisters were much surprised by this strange commission, assuming that these words did not refer to them.

Shortly before Father Seraphim’s death, the sisters of the Ardatov community visited him together with their abbess Evdokia Andreyevna. The elder gave the abbess various instructions concerning her duties and the guidance of the sisters, and finally, completely unexpectedly, began to say: “No, they must be taught, they must be taught.”

The sisters were already singing by themselves at that time, and the abbess, not understanding where the conversation was leading, said: “But we do sing.”

The elder replied to this: “They sing, they sing—but they don’t know the tones: the church will soon be here.”

Full of joy and bewilderment, the abbess asked: “Are we perhaps moving to the Prophet Elijah’s?”

“There will be famine there,” answered Father Seraphim.

“Well then, surely to the Field Church?” (In Ardatov, the cemetery church of the Theotokos of All Sorrows and All Saints was called the Field Church.)

“You will be buried in snow,” answered Father Seraphim. “But God’s will shall descend from above, and great persons will enter into your situation. If you begin—there will be obstacles from outside; but when the great persons step in—all will fall silent.”

All these prophecies of Father Seraphim concerning the building of the church and the gilding of the iconostasis have now been completely fulfilled: the Ardatov community now has its own church in honor of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God, with two side-chapels, built at the expense of benefactors. The main iconostasis in the church blazes with gold. The walls are painted with sacred images. The church has been enriched abundantly with sacred vessels, vestments, and all necessities.

In general, Father Seraphim was truly a good shepherd of the souls of the Ardatov community. The sisters sincerely loved him and obediently followed his experienced guidance in the matters of the spiritual life. He directed them on the path of salvation. He exhorted the older sisters to humble themselves, to be a model of meekness and guilelessness, to bear with the weaknesses and shortcomings of their neighbors, to attend above all to themselves and to care for their own salvation. He advised the abbess to read more often and reflect more deeply on the life of St. Sava the Sanctified. Father Seraphim maintained his care for the Ardatov community until the end of his life. His last act of guidance was the appointment of a new abbess for the Ardatov community. A few days before Father Seraphim’s death, a young woman named Evpraxia arrived at Diveyevo from a thousand versts away. The sisters of the Ardatov community, having learned of her qualities and disposition, earnestly asked Father Seraphim’s blessing to receive her as their abbess; but the elder would not hear of it and would not allow her into his presence. Evpraxia persistently requested to be admitted to him, to be allowed to fall on her knees before him, receive his blessing, and ask for his prayers; but Father Seraphim seemed angered by this and sent the petitioner away from his cell door. But when she, having lost hope and patience of seeing the elder, left him and disappeared from view, he called to himself the sisters of the Ardatov community who had come with her, and pointing with his hand toward the one who had left, said: “Here is your God-given Evpraxia. Love her, obey her in all things, and follow her example.” Concerning this circumstance, Maria Kar., who was then in Sarov, wrote to the recluse Georgy. In explanation of this circumstance her letter added: “And I can only think that Father Seraphim, through his clairvoyance, knew her from a distance and had been awaiting her for the Ardatov community.” Father Seraphim’s helper in the affairs of the Ardatov community was constantly another venerable elder of the Sarov Hermitage, Father Ilarion. In 1861 the Ardatov community was reformed into a women’s cenobitic monastery.

Concerning Father Seraphim’s involvement with the Zelenaya Gora convent, we unfortunately do not have such full and detailed information as it was our good fortune to gather regarding his influence on the Diveyevo and Ardatov convents. It is known only that the Zelenaya Gora convent from its very founding was the object of Father Seraphim’s fatherly care until his death.

While still young and in his early monastic obediences, Father Seraphim was sent nearly every year by the brotherhood to the Zelenaya Gora fair to acquire goods needed by the monastery. On these occasions he always walked around the place where the men’s monastery had formerly stood, reflecting with sorrow on its destruction. Once, during such a walk, he noticed that in a corner of the half-ruined monastery enclosure a small cell had appeared, in which some person had settled for the salvation of his soul. Father Seraphim rejoiced in spirit, perceiving in this event the beginning of the convent’s rebirth. From that time forward he never ceased to support the convent with his prayers, encouragement, advice, and various other forms of assistance until his blessed repose. And already during his lifetime there were not a few women there seeking salvation, and among them Lazarevna, the eldest of the sisters, was venerated as a saint. Today a women’s convent has been established there, with its own abbess.

9. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life

We have already mentioned certain conversations of Father Seraphim spoken shortly before his death. The examination of events has imperceptibly brought us now to the penultimate years of his life. The enemy does not leave a person in peace until the very grave. So it was with Father Seraphim: having ascended to the heights of the spiritual life, he was not hidden there from the temptations of the devil. In many people he stirred up envy and malice over the fact that he received everyone who came to him and did good for all, without distinction of sex. One brother even ventured to say to him: “People of both sexes disturb you greatly, and you admit everyone indiscriminately.” Father Seraphim, defending himself from this empty reproach, cited the example of St. Hilarion the Great, who forbade his doors to be shut on account of strangers. “Suppose,” he said, “that I were to lock the doors of my cell. Those who come to it, needing a word of comfort, would beg me in God’s name to open the doors, and receiving no answer from me, would go home in sorrow. What justification could I then offer to God at his dread judgment?” From this it is clear that Father Seraphim regarded the receiving of all who came to him as a matter of conscience, an obligation of his life for which God would require an accounting at the judgment.

Someone expressed the same thought even more bluntly: “Some are scandalized by you,” he said. The elder answered thus: “But I am not scandalized either by the fact that some are benefited by me, or by the fact that others are scandalized by this.”

Far more painful for him was a conversation with the abbot of the Sarov convent, Father Nifont. Once, returning from the hermitage to his cell, elder Seraphim encountered Father Nifont. In his humble-mindedness, having been first to bow before the superior, he greeted him with brotherly love, as is the custom among clergy. Father Abbot Nifont, while extolling the elder for his ascetic endeavors, at the same time conveyed to him the thought of the brotherhood, who in the strictness of their outlook did not approve of Father Seraphim’s receiving people of every sex and kind—even if it was for edifying instruction. “In particular,” he said, “they are scandalized that you show merciful care for the Diveyevo orphans.” We consider it necessary to note that Abbot Nifont loved and respected elder Seraphim deeply, and addressed him with such words solely because the brotherhood were scandalized. Having heard the abbot’s word, the elder again fell at his feet and gave him a wise and saving answer—not to surrender in future to false suggestions, and not to accept just any word from the brothers against a neighbor without reflection. “You are the shepherd,” he said; “do not allow everyone to speak idle words, to trouble you and the wayfarers walking toward eternity. For your word is powerful, and the staff, like a whip, is feared by all.” Elder Nifont expressed his agreement that Father Seraphim should not change his manner and should continue as before to receive everyone who came to him, for the good of their souls.

A peasant named E. V. Likhachevsky, who worked in Sarov, was once approaching the hermitage of Father Seraphim when he saw from a distance that sitting with him in conversation was a young girl of about sixteen whom he did not know, very well dressed. Being inexperienced in the spiritual life, he thought to himself: “What can the father be talking to her about at such length? What sort of instruction would be suited to a girl of her age?” The moment he drew near with these thoughts in his mind, the elder, pointing to the marks of his own great old age, said: “I am dead to everything—and what is it that you are thinking?” The peasant then fell at his feet and confessed his fault. Father Seraphim graciously blessed him, absolved him of his guilt, and said: “Be at peace, and do not repeat this again.”

A) The loving-kindness of Father Seraphim in his dealings with his neighbors

The love and tender concern with which the elder received all who came to visit him are very clearly reflected in the following account of Mrs. Elizaveta Nikolaevna Pazukhina, a landowner from Simbirsk.

“From my earliest childhood I had heard of the clairvoyance and holiness of the Sarov hermit and recluse Father Seraphim, and I therefore greatly wished to see him and receive his blessing. My wish was at last fulfilled, by the mercy of God, in 1830.”

“In Arzamas, on the road to the Sarov Hermitage, the owners of the lodging where I was staying told me that if I did not arrive in Sarov in time for early liturgy the following Sunday, I would not see Father Seraphim at all, since after early liturgy he ordinarily retired to his little hermitage and remained there until Wednesday. As the weather at the time was very severe and my health was poor, feeling myself unable to seek Father Seraphim at his hermitage, I set out immediately, without resting in Arzamas, on Saturday afternoon; I traveled through the night and arrived in Sarov in the morning. My very first question upon entering the guesthouse was: ‘Has early liturgy ended yet?’ And when the monk to whom I put my question announced that liturgy had already concluded, I was completely crushed and lost all hope of seeing Father Seraphim. But it pleased the Lord God to comfort me and not let me fall into despondency. I made my way, as if on a chance, to his cell, together with a great many other visitors to Sarov, and we found the door of his cell bolted from the inside. This was a sign that the elder had remained at home, and we decided to ask his blessing to see him and to be comforted by his soul-saving words. But none of us dared be the first to say the prayer. Some tried, but the door did not open. At last I turned to a lady standing beside me, right at the door, who had a small girl with her, and asked her to have the little one say the prayer, saying that she was more worthy than any of us. And the very moment the little girl said the prayer, the door opened at once. But how great was our common alarm when Father Seraphim, having opened the door, began to close it again! I was standing closest of all to the door and fell into utter despair, thinking: ‘Lord, surely I am the least worthy of all, since he, having caught sight of me, resolved to close himself in again.’ But hardly had I formed this thought than Father Seraphim, standing in the half-open doorway, turned to me and said: ‘Be at peace, dear one, be at peace, wait just a little.’ And then, opening the door a second time, he turned to me again and asked: ‘Please come in, dear one; tell me, what is your need? What can I do for you?’ I wept for joy and told him that I had one desire—to receive his blessing and ask for his holy prayers. At once he blessed me and said: ‘May the Lord bless you; may His grace be with you!’ And at the same time he gave me three pieces of prosphora. After that he began to bless the others who came up to him, and to each one, after the blessing, he said: ‘Go with God.’ To me alone he did not say this, and so I remained in my place. Seeing me as the only one left after everyone else had gone, he said to me graciously: ‘After vespers, dear one, please come to me,’ and closed himself in again.”

“Upon returning to the guesthouse, I first of all told my maidservant to cut the pieces of prosphora given me by Father Seraphim into very small portions. I intended, on reaching home, to share them among all who held the elder in devotion. Then I began to wait for vespers with the greatest impatience, so that I might go to Father Seraphim and bring him the gift I had brought: a small amount of homespun linen, oil, and wax candles. However, it turned out that the man to whom I had entrusted the purchase of candles and oil had forgotten to carry out my errand, and so I decided to bring him the linen and the money set aside for the candles and oil. I was assured that Father Seraphim accepted nothing from anyone; but I did not change my intention, thinking that if he refused to take these things, I would donate the linen to the monastery and use the money the following day to buy oil and candles.”

“After vespers I found the elder in the entrance hall of his cell, lying on his knees at the coffin. When he saw me he rose quickly and, giving his blessing, said: ‘Please come in, dear one, please come in.’ At these kind words, wavering between fear and hope, I dared to offer him the linen, saying: ‘Holy father! Deign to accept this linen as a token of my sincere devotion.’ And how great was my joy when, taking the linen from my hands, he said: ‘Thank you humbly, dear one; everything is suitable for the house of God.’ Then I dared to offer the money as well, explaining that I had not had time to purchase oil and candles. He accepted the money also with gratitude. When I later told Father Damaskin, a monk of Sarov, about this joy of mine, he could not cease marveling at such a singular act of grace toward me on the part of Father Seraphim.”

“The conversation I then had with the elder prompted me, among other things, with the thought of confessing to him the following day; I shared this desire with Father Damaskin. But he said the desire was absolutely impossible to fulfill. Nevertheless I spent the whole night in thought and prayer, asking God that He would grant me, a sinner, to make my confession to the holy elder Seraphim. In the morning I again made my way to him, and when my servant opened the door to the entrance hall of his cell, I saw the elder once more beside his coffin. He led me into the cell, told me to make the sign of the cross, and gave me holy water to drink three times, holding it himself to my lips; then he asked for my kerchief. I held out the end of the shawl I was wearing, and he filled it with a handful of dried bread, saying: ‘There, dear one, do not trouble yourself—this is for distribution; give it to those who hold me in devotion.’ I instantly recalled what I had done the previous day with the three pieces of prosphora the elder had given me, and I marveled at his wondrous clairvoyance. After that, with reverence and fear of offending the righteous elder, I dared to declare to him my wish to confess to him, saying: ‘Holy father! Allow me to say one word to you.’ He replied: ‘Please do, dear one.’ Then suddenly, to my inexpressible astonishment and awe—and at the same time to my joy—he took both my hands and began to read the prayer: ‘O God, release, remit, forgive me my sins, which I have committed against You,’ and so on. I repeated the prayer after him, weeping aloud; then I fell to my knees, and he also knelt beside me, and throughout the reading of this prayer he held my hands. After the dismissal, such as is ordinarily given at the end of confession, he let me venerate his copper cross and, taking my right hand, said: ‘May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all your life, at the hour of your passing, and after your repose.’ I was beside myself with joy and kissed his hands.”

“After that, blessing me for the return journey, he said: ‘The Lord will help you.’ And indeed, by his holy prayers the Lord granted me a safe arrival home, even though at that time a most terrible cholera was raging all around me, everywhere.”

“I must also recount one event, showing how the Lord God heard the prayer of the righteous elder Seraphim. A certain woman had many children, but all of them died in the first year of their lives. The poor mother earnestly begged me to take her along, with her latest newborn daughter, with me to the Sarov Hermitage. I promised to fulfill her request and on my first journey to Sarov took them with me. When the mother brought the little girl to Father Seraphim and began to ask him to pray for her, explaining that all her children died before reaching a year, he placed his hand on the child’s head and said: ‘Take comfort in her.’ And indeed, by the prayers of the righteous man, this little girl survived; while the children born to this woman afterward continued to die.”

B) Conversations of Elder Seraphim with monastic persons

Many monastics from both men’s and women’s communities came to him at this time; among them were abbots of monasteries. He set before them his thoughts on the duties of an abbot.

“An abbot,” he would say, “must be perfect in every virtue and must have his interior faculties trained by long practice in discerning good from evil (Heb. 5:14).” “An abbot must be learned in Holy Scripture: he must meditate on the law of the Lord day and night; through such exercises he can acquire for himself the gift of discernment of good and evil.”

“True knowledge of good and evil can be attained only when the ascetic of piety comes to a foretaste of the future judgment and of eternal blessedness—which is accomplished in the devout soul, even here in earthly life, in a mystical and spiritual manner.”

“Before attaining discernment of good and evil, a person is unfit to shepherd rational sheep, but only irrational ones; for without knowledge of good and evil, we cannot comprehend the works of the evil one.”

“And therefore an abbot, as the shepherd of rational sheep, must possess the gift of discernment, so that in every instance he may be able to offer useful counsel to each one who requires his guidance; for, as Peter of Damascus says (in the Philokalia, ‘On the building up of the soul through the virtues,’ Part III, folio 52): not every person is worthy to give counsel to those who seek it, but only one who has received from God the gift of discernment and, through long perseverance in ascetic endeavor, has acquired a far-seeing mind.”

“An abbot must also possess the gift of insight, so that from the consideration of present and past events he may be able to foresee what is to come and to discern the snares of the enemy.” “The distinguishing mark of an abbot must be his love for those in his charge: for the true shepherd, in the words of John Climacus, is shown by his love for his flock. For love compelled the Supreme Shepherd to be crucified on the cross (in the Ladder to the Pastor, ch. 5, folio 178 reverse).” Other abbots, concerned for the salvation of the brothers entrusted to their guidance, asked Father Seraphim how to govern a brotherhood. To one such question Father Seraphim gave the following instruction:

“Every abbot must become and must remain always, in relation to those in his charge, a wise and tender mother.”

“A mother who loves her children does not live for her own pleasure but for the pleasure of her children. She bears the infirmities of her weak children with love; those who fall into uncleanness she cleanses and washes gently and peacefully, clothes them in bright new garments, shoes them, warms them, feeds them, provides for them, comforts them, and on every side endeavors to put their spirit at rest, so that she may never hear from them the slightest cry; and such children are well disposed toward their mother. So every abbot must live not for his own pleasure but for the pleasure of those in his charge: he must be forbearing toward their weaknesses, bear the infirmities of the weak with love, heal sins’ wounds with the plaster of mercy, raise the fallen in transgression with meekness, cleanse those defiled by the filth of some vice quietly and wash them by laying upon them fasting and prayers above those commonly prescribed for all; clothe them through his teaching and exemplary life in the garments of virtue; keep unceasing watch over them, comfort them by every means, and on every side safeguard their peace and tranquility so that not the slightest cry is ever heard from them, nor even a murmur—and then they will strive zealously to ensure peace and rest for the abbot.”

In 1830, a hieromonk who was being called away from the Sarov Hermitage by his superior to the Diocese of Kazan came to Father Seraphim to receive his blessing. He found the elder at work in the forest over the garden beds and approached him in silence, without saying a word. Father Seraphim, seeing the brother coming toward him from a distance, began to sing and brought to completion the exapostilarion to the Holy Cross: “The Cross is the guardian…” Then Father Seraphim asked the one who had come: “Where are you going, brother?”

“I am being summoned to Kazan,” the visitor answered.

“Deceit is going with you, father,” said Father Seraphim, and added: “Do not go to the Makaryev Hermitage.” The Makaryev Hermitage lies halfway up the hill near the town of Sviyazhsk and is called the Podgornaya.

“Father Seraphim, I am being summoned not to the Makaryev but to the Raifsky Hermitage as its abbot,” said the visiting brother, intending to correct the elder’s apparent mistake.

But Father Seraphim continued in the same vein: “I tell you: do not go to the Makaryev.” Then, reflecting for a moment more, he said: “Well, live away from Sarov for a while… You will come back to us again, and we will die here in the God-preserved Sarov Hermitage.” Then, blessing the brother, the elder sent him away in peace.

The brother set out on his way. On arriving in Kazan, he learned that he had indeed been assigned by decree not to the Raifsky but to the Makaryev Hermitage. Remembering the words of Father Seraphim, who had said so insistently, “Do not go to the Makaryev,” he declined the appointment and was sent as superior to the Tsivil Tikhvin Monastery.

Mrs. P. I. Shkarina, who had enjoyed the special confidence of Father Seraphim since 1827, testified that he, a full year before the first cholera epidemic—which came in 1830 and 1831—said to her: “The wrath of God is coming upon Russia; the deadly cholera draws near. Watch,” he told her, “watch and pray, lest the hour of death come upon you suddenly.”

“When the cholera broke out in Russia, it visited the Tikhvin Monastery, of which the Sarov brother had become superior. The illness compelled him to petition his superiors for release from the monastery. He returned once more to the Sarov Hermitage.”

A great many people also came to Father Seraphim at this time who, wishing to enter a monastery, sought his counsel and guidance. The elder, by his clairvoyance which had been given him by God, would offer beneficial advice and not infrequently would point to the future beforehand.

Thus in 1830 a novice from the Glinsk Hermitage traveled expressly to the Sarov Hermitage to ask Father Seraphim whether he had God’s blessing to enter monastic life. The young man, not yet knowing himself well, not having settled in his own mind the question of his calling, wavered between the world and the monastery: there was no one to whom he could confide his inmost thoughts; there was no one near him who could resolve the question that would determine his whole life. So the Glinsk novice came to Father Seraphim, fell at his feet, and begged him to free his soul from the whirlwind of doubts—asking: “Is it the will of God that both he and his brother Nikolai should enter the monastery?” Had not Father Seraphim himself, some years before, gone to Kiev to seek out the recluse Dosifeya in just the same way? He answered the novice thus:

“Save yourself and save your brother—your own blood kin.” Then, pausing to think for a moment, he said: “Do you remember the Life of Joannicius the Great? As he wandered over mountains and steep slopes, he accidentally let his staff fall from his hands; it dropped into an abyss. The staff was impossible to retrieve, yet without it the saint could go no further. In deep grief he cried out to the Lord God—and an Angel of the Lord invisibly placed a new staff in his hands.”

Having said this, Father Seraphim placed his own walking stick into the right hand of the novice and said:

“It is hard to govern human souls! But amid all your trials and sorrows in the guidance of the souls of your brothers, the Angel of the Lord will be ceaselessly with you until the end of your life.”

After this the novice resolved to enter monastic life. At his tonsure he was given the name Paisios, and in 1856 he was elevated to the rank of abbot at the Astrakhan Churkin St. Nicholas Communal Monastery; six years later he was raised to the rank of archimandrite of the same community, thus becoming, as Elder Seraphim had foreseen, a shepherd of human souls. His blood brother, of whom Father Seraphim had said “save your brother,” entered monastic life under the name Nazarius and ended his days in the Kozelets St. George Monastery with the rank of hieromonk.

“In giving instructions to those holding authority among the monastic brotherhood, Father Seraphim also set forth the duties of those under authority toward their superiors.”

“Acquire humility, obedience, submission—and you will be saved,” he would say, in the words of the venerable Barsanuphius. “And never speak in contradiction: ‘Why is this?’ or ‘What is the purpose of this?’ But be humbly compliant, above all toward your abbot, who cares for you before God and to whom your soul has been entrusted (Barsanuphius, Response 239).”

“Whoever truly wishes to be a disciple of Christ has no authority over himself to do anything on his own initiative, says the same teacher. For what is done according to one’s own thought is not pleasing to God, even if it may appear good. If someone knows what is beneficial for himself better than his abbot does, then why call himself his disciple at all?”

“One who obeys submits in everything and does not concern himself with his own salvation, because another—to whom he has subjected and entrusted himself—concerns himself with it. Whoever has cut off his will in one thing but not in another still had his own will even in that in which he appeared to have cut it off.”

“Whoever wishes to know the way perfectly and does not walk with one who knows this way perfectly will never reach the city (of perfect stillness).”

“Cast your will behind you and keep humility in every aspect of your life—and then you will be saved. Humility and obedience are the uprooted of all passions and the planters of all virtues (Barsanuphius, Responses 61–223).”

“One who is under authority must mortify his passions toward temporal life in order to have eternal life. He must be like cloth in a fulling mill, in the words of the venerable Antiochus. For just as a fuller beats cloth, treads it, combs it, and washes it until it becomes white as snow, so also the obedient one, enduring humiliations, offenses, and reproaches, is cleansed and becomes like pure silver, gleaming, refined by fire (Antiochus, Discourse 113).”

“One must not meddle in the affairs of those in authority, nor sit in judgment upon them: to do so is to offend the majesty of God, from whom all authority is established; for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God (Rom. 13:1).”

“One must not resist legitimate authority, lest one sin before God and incur His righteous punishment: whoever resists authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment upon themselves (Rom. 13:2).”

“One who is obedient makes great progress in building up the soul—beyond that, he gains through it an understanding of things and comes to a state of tender contrition.”

Many of the newly arrived monks asked Father Seraphim for counsel and instruction on how they might save themselves and their loved ones. Father Seraphim answered them as follows:

“Whether you came to the monastery by the advice or the authority of others, or by whatever means—do not be downcast: it is a visitation of God. If you keep what I tell you, you will be saved—you yourself and your loved ones for whom you are concerned. ‘I have not seen the righteous forsaken,’ says the Prophet, ‘nor his children begging bread’ (Ps. 36:25). Living in this monastery, observe the following: when you stand in church, attend to everything without omission; learn the entire order of church services—that is, Vespers, Compline, Midnight Office, Matins, and the Hours—and strive to hold all of it in your mind.”

“If you are in your cell and have no handiwork, apply yourself diligently to reading, and above all to the Psalter; try to read each section many times over, so as to keep all of it in mind. If you have handiwork, occupy yourself with it; if you are called to an obedience, go to it. While at your handiwork, or wherever you may be on obedience, pray without ceasing: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ In prayer, attend to yourself—that is, gather your mind and unite it with your soul. At first, for a day or two and more, pray this prayer with the mind alone, distinctly, attending to each word separately. Then, when the Lord warms your heart with the warmth of His grace and unites it within you into one spirit, the prayer will flow in you without ceasing and will always be with you, bringing you delight and nourishment. This is what the Prophet Isaiah spoke of when he said: ‘The dew that is from You brings them healing’ (Isa. 26:19). When you thus keep within you this nourishment of the soul—that is, conversation with the Lord Himself—why would you go wandering to the cells of the brothers, even if someone calls you? I tell you truly, that such idle talk is vanity and idleness. If you do not understand yourself, how can you reason about things and teach others? Be silent, be silent without ceasing; always remember the presence of God and hold it before you. Do not enter into conversation with anyone; but above all, beware of judging those who talk much or laugh. In this matter be deaf and mute; whatever may be said about you, let it all pass by your ears. As an example to follow, take Stephen the Younger (Menologion, November 28, in his Life), whose prayer was unceasing, whose manner was gentle, whose lips were silent, whose heart was humble, whose spirit was tender, whose body together with his soul was pure, whose virginity was blameless, whose poverty was true, and whose renunciation was that of a desert-dweller; his obedience was without murmuring, his submission was diligent, his labor was patient, and his toil was fervent.”

“When sitting at table, do not observe or judge who eats how much; but attend to yourself, nourishing your soul with prayer. At dinner eat to satisfaction; at supper, hold yourself back. On Wednesdays and Fridays, if you are able, eat only once. Each day, sleep four hours during the night without fail: the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth hours, and one hour past midnight; if you grow weak, you may in addition sleep during the day. Hold to this without doubt until the end of your life: for it is needful for the repose of your head. I myself have followed this way since my youth. We also always ask the Lord God for rest during the night hours. If you keep yourself in this way, you will not be downcast, but healthy and cheerful.”

“I tell you truly: if you conduct yourself in this way, you will remain in the monastery without leaving until the end of your life. Humble yourself, and the Lord will help you and will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday (Ps. 36:6), and your light shall shine before men (Matt. 5:16).”

A monk of the Sarov monastery named Kiprian was troubled by the burden of the obedience laid upon him, and went to Father Seraphim’s cell for guidance. “I had not even managed to enter his cell, nor had I said a single word,” said the monk, “when he met me at the door and said: ‘My joy! There is no way to refuse an obedience.’”

One time a monk came to Father Seraphim from a very distant monastery. The elder was at that moment working at his well. The pilgrim approached him, bowed, and asked for a blessing—but Father Seraphim, occupied with his labors, paid him no attention whatsoever. The monk stood in silence for a while, then withdrew to his lodgings without receiving any comfort. Then Father Seraphim went up to a Diveyevo sister who was working nearby and said: “There, dear mother, he asks for a blessing, yet does not himself know where he is going.” In this way the monk who had gone away without a blessing also came to understand the elder’s behavior—having undertaken his plan without reflection or discernment.

C) His conversations with laypeople

Without leaving monks without spiritual edification, Father Seraphim also taught laypeople at length, exposing their mistaken habits of mind and life and setting forth positive rules of piety. Thus, a devout priest brought to Father Seraphim a professor who taught one of the theological disciplines at a seminary, who wished not so much to hear the elder’s conversation as to receive his blessing to enter the monastic life. The elder blessed him according to the customary priestly form, but gave no answer whatsoever concerning his wish to enter monasticism, engaging instead in conversation with the priest. The professor stood to one side, listening to their conversation. The priest, meanwhile, frequently steered the conversation toward the purpose for which he had brought the scholar. But the elder, deliberately avoiding this subject, continued his talk—and only once, as if in passing, remarked of the professor: “Does he not need to study something further?” The priest explained to him plainly that the man knew the Orthodox Faith, that he was himself a seminary professor, and pressed him earnestly to resolve only his uncertainty about monasticism. The elder replied: “I know too that he is skilled at composing sermons. But teaching others is as easy as throwing pebbles down from our cathedral to the ground, while putting into practice what you teach is like carrying those pebbles up to the top of the cathedral yourself. Such is the difference between teaching others and personally carrying out the work.” In conclusion, he advised the professor to read the life of Saint John of Damascus, saying that from it he would see what more he still needed to learn.

On June 18, 1831, Ivan Maximovich Kreditsky and his wife Yu. P. were at Sarov and came out into the wilderness to Father Seraphim. “We found the elder at work,” they said: “he was breaking up a garden bed with a hoe, and when we approached him and bowed to the ground before him, he blessed us and, placing his hands on my head, read the troparion of the Dormition of the Mother of God: ‘In giving birth you preserved your virginity,’ and so on. Then he sat down on the garden bed and told us to sit down as well, but we involuntarily fell to our knees before him and listened to his conversation about the life to come, about the life of the saints, about the intercession, the advocacy, and the care for us sinners of the Lady, the Mother of God, and about what is necessary for us in this earthly life for the sake of eternity. This conversation lasted no more than an hour; but I could not compare that hour to the whole of my past life. Throughout the entire conversation I felt in my heart an inexplicable, heavenly sweetness—God alone knows how it poured in there—a sweetness unlike anything on earth, which to this day I cannot recall without tears of tender emotion and without feeling the most vivid joy throughout my whole being. Until that time, although I had not rejected anything sacred, I had not affirmed anything either: for me everything in the spiritual world was completely indifferent, and I was equally cold toward everything. Father Seraphim was the first to make me feel the almighty Lord God and His inexhaustible mercy and utter perfection. Previously, because of this coldness of my soul toward all that is holy and because I loved to play with godless words, the righteous Lord permitted a foul spirit of blasphemy to take hold of my thoughts—and these offensive thoughts, which to this day I cannot recall without particular horror, tormented me constantly for three full years, especially during prayer, in church, and most of all when I prayed to the Queen of Heaven. I had already come to think in despair that no earthly punishment could suffice for what I deserved, and that only the eternal torments of hell could be just recompense for my blasphemies. But Father Seraphim in his conversation completely set my mind at rest, telling me—with his characteristic, indescribably joyful smile—that I should not be afraid of this mental noise; that it was the work of the enemy, born of his envy, and that I should fearlessly continue my prayer always, whatever foul and blasphemous thoughts the enemy might produce.”

“From that time on, this mental noise truly began little by little to diminish within me, and in less than a month it ceased entirely.”

On one occasion four men came to him—devotees of the Old Belief, residents of the village of Pavlovo in Gorbatov district—to ask about the two-fingered sign of the cross, and to request that the truthfulness of the elder’s answer be confirmed by some miracle or sign. They had barely stepped across the threshold of the cell and had not yet had a chance to voice their thoughts, when the elder came up to them, took the first of them by the right hand, arranged his fingers in the three-fingered sign according to the rite of the Orthodox Church, and, signing the cross over him in this way, delivered the following address: “This is the Christian way of making the sign of the cross! Pray in this way, and tell others to do the same. This sign was handed down from the holy Apostles; whereas the two-fingered sign is contrary to the holy canons. I beg and entreat you: attend the Greco-Russian Church—she is in the full glory and power of God! Like a ship fitted with many riggings, sails, and a great helm, she is guided by the Holy Spirit. Her good pilots—the teachers of the Church, the hierarchs—are successors of the Apostles. But your chapel is like a small boat without a helm and without oars; it is tethered by a rope to the ship of our Church, and drifts along behind it, swamped by waves, and would surely have sunk long ago if it were not tied to the ship.”

At another time an Old Believer came to him and asked: “Tell me, man of God: which faith is better—the present church faith, or the old one?”

“Leave off your delusions,” answered Father Seraphim. “Our life is the sea, our holy Orthodox Church is the ship, and the Pilot is the Savior Himself. If, even with such a Pilot, people manage to cross the sea of life only with great difficulty because of their sinful weakness, and not all are saved from drowning—where do you think you are heading with your little rowboat, and on what do you base your hope of being saved without a Pilot?”

One winter a sick woman was brought to Father Seraphim’s monastery cell in a sleigh, and he was informed of this. Despite the large crowd of people crowding the entryway, Father Seraphim asked that she be brought in to him. The sick woman was entirely bent over, her knees drawn up to her chest. She was carried into the elder’s dwelling and laid on the floor. Father Seraphim locked the door and asked her:

“Where are you from, dear mother?”

“From Vladimir province.”

“How long have you been ill?”

“Three and a half years.”

“And what is the cause of your illness?”

“I was originally of the Orthodox faith, father, but I was given in marriage to an Old Believer. For a long time I did not yield to their faith—and all that time I was well. At last they persuaded me: I changed my cross to the two-fingered sign and stopped going to church. After that, one evening I went out into the yard on some household errand; there one of the animals appeared to me all aflame, and even scorched me. In my fright I fell, and I began to be tormented and twisted. A good deal of time passed. The household noticed my absence, searched for me, came out into the yard, and found me lying there. They carried me into the house. From that time on I have been ailing.”

“I see…” answered the elder. “And do you now believe again in the holy Orthodox Church?”

“I believe again now, father,” answered the sick woman.

Then Father Seraphim arranged his fingers in the Orthodox manner, made the sign of the cross over himself, and said:

“Cross yourself just so, in the name of the Holy Trinity.”

“Father, we would gladly do so,” answered the sick woman, “but I have no control over my arms.”

Father Seraphim took oil from the lamp before the icon of the Mother of God of Tenderness and anointed the chest and arms of the sick woman. Suddenly she began to straighten out—her very joints cracked—and right there she was restored to complete health.

The people standing in the entryway saw the miracle and spread word throughout the entire monastery—and especially at the guesthouse—that Father Seraphim had healed the sick woman.

When this event had concluded, one of the Diveyevo sisters came to Father Seraphim. Father Seraphim said to her: “It was not poor Seraphim, dear mother, who healed her—it was the Queen of Heaven.” He then asked her:

“Are there any among your family, dear mother, who do not go to church?”

“There are none such, father,” answered the sister, “but my parents and all my relatives pray with the two-fingered sign of the cross.”

“Ask them on my behalf,” said Father Seraphim, “to arrange their fingers in the name of the Holy Trinity.”

“I have spoken to them about this many times, father, but they do not listen.”

“They will listen—ask them on my behalf. Begin with your brother, who loves me: he will be the first to agree. And were there among your departed relatives any who prayed with the two-fingered sign of the cross?”

“To our sorrow, everyone in our family has prayed that way.”

“Even though they were virtuous people,” observed Father Seraphim after a moment’s reflection, “they will be bound: the holy Orthodox Church does not accept this sign of the cross… Do you know the location of their graves?”

The sister named the graves of those she knew the burial places of.

“Go to their graves, mother, bow three times to the ground, and pray to the Lord that He may release them in eternity.”

The sister did exactly that. She also told the living members to adopt the Orthodox manner of making the sign of the cross with three fingers in the name of the Holy Trinity, and they in fact obeyed the voice of Father Seraphim—for they knew that he was a man pleasing to God who understood the mysteries of the holy Christian faith.

Father Seraphim took great care in the matter of the proper Orthodox manner of making the sign of the cross with three fingers and of correctly tracing it upon the forehead, and he attributed tremendous power to the sign of the cross. A peasant from Ardatov district, the village of Avtodeyevo, by the initials M. B., was preparing to make a pilgrimage to Sarov when, just before his departure, he suffered such a severe blow that he lost his memory entirely, and was brought to the Sarov Hermitage in an unconscious state. There a novice who was his fellow villager led him to Father Seraphim. “As soon as we began to approach the elder’s cell,” M. B. and the novice who accompanied him recounted afterward, “I already felt relief within myself: the sense of memory and understanding gradually began to return to me, and I remember everything that Father Seraphim said and did with me at that time. First he blessed me and traced a cross on my forehead with oil from a lampada; then he gave me two handfuls of dried bread crusts; and finally he himself showed me the three-fingered manner of making the cross and said: ‘God is merciful! Pray to Him in this way: in time, all of this will pass.’ And indeed, a short while later, after I returned home, I became completely well, through the prayers of God’s pleasing servant, Father Seraphim.”

Often the holy elder would bring sinners to their senses by his very appearance and a simple word, and they would resolve to reform their vices. On one occasion a peasant was trying to push his way through a crowd to reach him, but each time he was seemingly held back by someone. At last the elder himself turned to him and asked sternly: “And where do you think you’re going?” Coarse sweat broke out on the peasant’s face, and with a feeling of the deepest humility in the presence of all those gathered there, he began to repent of his sins, especially theft, confessing that he was unworthy to appear before the face of such a lamp of light. This act of contrition could not, of course, fail to bear good fruit in the life of that simple-hearted peasant.

Ivan Yakovlevich Karataev related the following concerning the personal instructions he received from Father Seraphim:

“In October of 1830, I was sent from Kursk Province, where our regiment was quartered, to procure remounts. In Kursk and along the road I heard much about the ascetic labors of the elders of the Sarov Hermitage—Nazarius, Mark, and others—and I was told a great deal in particular about the great ascetic of that hermitage, the recluse hieromonk Seraphim: about his holy life, his wondrous prophecies, his gift of healing all manner of ailments both bodily and spiritual, and his extraordinary gift of clairvoyance. These accounts so inflamed my heart that I resolved, without fail, to stop at Sarov along the way. But when I was nearly at the gates of the Sarov Hermitage itself, the enemy troubled me with a fear of the elder Seraphim’s clairvoyance. It seemed to me that the elder would solemnly expose all my sins before everyone, and especially my error concerning the veneration of holy icons. I thought that an icon painted by human hands—by a man who might even be a sinner—could not be pleasing to God, and therefore could not contain within it the wonder-working grace of God, and should therefore not be an object of our veneration and reverence. Out of weakness and faintheartedness I yielded entirely to my fear of being exposed by the clairvoyant elder and drove past the Sarov Hermitage.”

The following year, in March, when our troops moved toward the Polish border, I was returning to my regiment on orders from my commanding officers.

“My road again passed by the Sarov Hermitage, and this time I had already resolved, on my father’s advice, to visit Father Seraphim. As I was walking from the inn toward the elder’s cell, the fear that had gripped me until then was suddenly transformed into a kind of quiet joy, and I came to love Father Seraphim even before I had met him. A great multitude of people were already standing near his cell, having come to receive his blessing. Father Seraphim, while blessing the others, glanced at me as well and made a sign with his hand for me to come forward to him. I fulfilled his bidding with reverence and love, bowed at his feet, asked for his blessing for the journey and for the coming war, and asked him to pray for the preservation of my life. Father Seraphim blessed me with his copper cross, which hung upon his chest, and after kissing me, began to hear my confession, himself naming my sins as though they had been committed in his presence. When this consoling confession was finished, he said to me: ‘One must not yield to the fear that the devil instills in young men; rather, at such times one must be especially alert in spirit, and setting aside faintheartedness, remember that, though we are sinners, we are all under the grace of our Redeemer, without whose will not a single hair shall fall from our head.’ He then began to speak of my error concerning the veneration of holy icons: ‘How harmful and destructive to us is the desire to investigate the mysteries of God, which are beyond the grasp of the weak human mind—for example, how the grace of God acts through holy icons, how it heals sinners like you and me,’ he added, ‘and not only their bodies but their souls as well; so that even sinners, through faith in the grace of Christ residing in them, were saved and attained the Kingdom of Heaven.’ Then, in confirmation of the veneration of holy icons, he cited the example that ‘even in the Old Testament, beside the ark of the covenant, there were golden Cherubim; and in the New Testament church the Evangelist Luke painted the face of the Mother of God, and the Savior Himself left His image not made by human hands.’ Finally, in conclusion, he said that ‘one must not heed such blasphemous thoughts, for which the eternal punishment of the spirit of falsehood and its companions awaits on the day of the Last Judgment.’”

“He spoke many other soul-saving words to me at that time for my edification, but I cannot recall them all. He said that ‘the temptations of the devil are like a cobweb: you only need to breathe on it and it is destroyed; just so with the enemy the devil—you only need to arm yourself with the sign of the cross and all his wiles vanish completely.’ He also said that ‘all the saints were subject to temptations; but, like gold, which the longer it lies in the fire the purer it becomes, so the saints through temptations became more refined, and through patience appeased the justice of the Creator and drew near to Christ, in whose name and for love of whom they endured.’ And finally he repeated several times that: ‘by the narrow way, according to the word of the Savior, we must enter the Kingdom of God.’”

“Listening to Father Seraphim, I truly forgot about my earthly existence.”

“The soldiers who were returning with me to the regiment were also honored to receive his blessing, and he, giving them instructions on that occasion, predicted that not one of them would perish in battle—and this indeed came to pass: not one of them was even wounded.”

“As I was leaving Father Seraphim, I placed three silver rubles beside him on the candles. But the enemy the devil, envying the tranquility of my conscience at that moment, put this thought into my mind: what does the holy father need money for? This hostile thought disturbed me, and I hurried back to Father Seraphim with repentance and a plea for forgiveness. But God evidently punished me for having admitted such an impious thought even for a moment. Walking around Father Seraphim’s cell, I could not find it and was compelled to ask a monk who was heading toward it: where is Father Seraphim’s cell? The monk, apparently surprised by my question, pointed it out to me. I entered the elder’s cell with a prayer, and he, anticipating my words, told me the following parable: ‘During the war with the Gauls, a certain military commander was destined to lose his right hand; but that hand had given three coins to a certain hermit for a holy church, and through the prayers of the holy Church, the Lord saved it. Take this to heart and henceforth do not repent of good deeds. Your money will go toward the establishment of the Diveyevo community, for your health.’ Then Father Seraphim heard my confession again, kissed me, gave me his blessing, and gave me a few altar bread crusts to eat and holy water to drink, and as he poured it into my mouth he said: ‘May the spirit of deceit that has come upon God’s servant John be cast out by the grace of God.’ The elder also gave me crusts and holy water for the road, and beyond that a prosphora, which he himself placed in my cap.”

“Finally, receiving his last blessing, I asked him not to abandon me with his holy prayers. To this he replied: ‘Place your hope in God and ask for His help, and know how to forgive your neighbors—and everything you ask for will be given to you.’”

“Throughout the Polish campaign I was in many battles—and the Lord preserved me everywhere through the prayers of His righteous servant.”

General Pavel Yakovlevich Kupriyanov came to the elder and thanked him for his prayers. “Through your prayers,” he said, “I was saved during the Turkish campaign. Surrounded on all sides by many enemy regiments, I was left with only a single regiment and saw that it was impossible for me to fortify my position, to advance, or to retreat. There was no hope of salvation whatsoever. I only kept repeating unceasingly: ‘Lord, have mercy, through the prayers of Elder Seraphim,’ I ate the crusts you gave me as a blessing, I drank the holy water—and God preserved me from my enemies, unharmed.” The elder replied to this: “Faith is a great means of salvation, and especially unceasing heartfelt prayer; let the holy Prophet Moses be our example. He, walking among the troops, prayed silently in his heart, and the Lord said to Moses: ‘Moses, Moses, why do you cry out to me?’ But when Moses lifted up his hands in prayer, he defeated Amalek … That is what prayer is! It is an unconquerable victory! The holy Prophet Daniel says: ‘It is better for me to die than to abandon prayer for a single instant’: through prayer the prophet Daniel shut the mouths of lions, and the three youths quenched the fiery furnace.”

As Father Seraphim was saying this, two men dressed in secular clothing came up to him. Father Seraphim, turning to one of them, said: “Our business is to teach children!” Astonished by this remark, the man replied frankly: “Yes, I am a pastor of the Western church.” After conversing with the elder, this pastor gave his promise and, it is said, was received into the Orthodox Church.

Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Golitsyn, traveling from Moscow to Penza and wishing to receive a blessing from Father Seraphim, stopped at Sarov and, not finding the elder in the monastery, hastened to the hermitage. On the road, half a verst from the monastery, the elder met him, to his greatest joy. The prince approached him and asked for his blessing. Having given it, the elder asked: “Who are you?” The prince, without giving his family name, simply said he was a passing traveler. Then Father Seraphim embraced him with brotherly love and, after kissing him, said: “Christ is risen!” He then asked: “Do you read the holy Gospel?” The traveler said that he did. “Read more frequently,” the elder replied, “the following words from this divine book: ‘Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light’ (Matt. 11:28–30).” Having said these words, the elder again embraced the prince with tears. Along the road he continued to converse with him about the life to come and about various trials that would befall him, all of which came to pass in due time. Upon arriving at the monastery, the elder invited the prince to his cell, gave him holy water to drink, and presented him with a handful of crusts. Bidding him farewell, he asked the traveling man how long he intended to stay at the monastery. He answered that he planned to leave in the morning, after the early liturgy. Then Father Seraphim said with inexpressible love that, having grown attached to him, he wished to see him again the next day after the early service, and that therefore, expressly for his sake, he would not go to the hermitage the following day but would remain in the monastery. The next day the elder came out to meet him on the porch of his cell, blessed him, embraced him, and led him inside. Here he again gave him holy water to drink, offered him crusts, and while blessing him for the journey once more advised him to read more frequently the words he had quoted from the holy Gospel and also the Creed, in which he asked him to pay particular attention to the twelfth article. Unfortunately, the elder’s other conversations with the prince remained unknown; but for the prince they served as the greatest consolation and brought much benefit to his soul.

Regarding parents, Father Seraphim instilled respect even in cases where they might have weaknesses that diminished their dignity. Thus, a certain man came to the elder with his mother. His mother was, to an extreme degree, given to drunkenness. The moment he was about to disclose his mother’s weakness to Father Seraphim, the elder instantly placed his right hand over the man’s mouth and did not allow him to utter a single word. According to the teaching of our Orthodox Church, we must not condemn our parents, nor lose respect and love for them on account of their failings. Turning from the son to the mother, Father Seraphim said: “Open your mouth.” And when she did, he breathed upon her three times. Then, as he was dismissing them, he said: “Here is my instruction for you: do not keep in your home not only wine but not even a vessel for wine, since you”—turning to the mother—“will no longer be able to tolerate wine.”

Among the notable instructions given by Father Seraphim in the final years of his life are the following, recorded in their time by Sarov monk Sergius, who later became archimandrite of the Vysotsky Monastery in Serpukhov: on duties and love toward one’s neighbors; on not judging one’s neighbor and forgiving offenses; on patience and humility; on illness; on almsgiving; on fasting; on repentance; on tears; and on the Holy Spirit. (See appendix.)

Among those who came to converse with Elder Seraphim were some who sought not edification but merely to satisfy their curiosity. Thus, a certain Sarov brother had come to think that the end of the world was near, that the great day of the Lord’s second coming was at hand. He went to Father Seraphim to ask his opinion on the matter. The elder humbly replied: “My joy! You think too much of poor Seraphim. How should I know when the end of this world will come and the great day will arrive on which the Lord will judge the living and the dead and will render to each according to his deeds? No, this it is not possible for me to know.” The brother fell in fear at the feet of the clairvoyant elder. Seraphim gently raised him and continued to speak thus: “The Lord said with His most pure lips: ‘Concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father alone. As it was in the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and took them all away—so will be the coming of the Son of Man’ (Matt. 24:37).” At this the elder sighed heavily and said: “We who live on earth have strayed far from the path of salvation; we anger the Lord and do not keep the holy fasts; today Christians break the fast from meat even during the holy forty days and during every fast; they do not observe Wednesdays and Fridays; yet the Church has the rule that those who do not keep the holy fasts and every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year sin greatly. But the Lord will not be angry forever—He will show mercy again. We have the Orthodox faith, the Church, which has no blemish. For these virtues Russia will always be glorious, terrible to its enemies, and unconquerable, wearing faith and piety as a shield and righteousness as armor; the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.”

Seeing that Father Seraphim exerted himself so greatly in teaching others, one brother ventured to ask him: “Why do you teach everyone?” To this the most blessed elder replied: “I follow the teaching of the Church, which sings: ‘Do not hide the words of God, but proclaim His wonders.’ (Tuesday of Holy Week, at Vespers, sticheron.)”

On another occasion a message was sent to him asking why he anointed those who came to him with oil from the lampada burning in his cell before the icon. Father Seraphim replied to the messenger: “We read in Scripture that the Apostles anointed with oil and many sick were healed thereby. Whose example should we follow, if not the Apostles’?” And the practice of anointing those who came to him continued without interference, because those who were anointed received healing.

D) Cases of Father Seraphim’s Clairvoyance

The clairvoyance of Elder Seraphim extended very far. He gave guidance concerning the future that would be impossible for any ordinary person to foresee. Thus, a young woman came to him in his cell—one who had never thought of leaving the world—to ask for instruction on how to be saved. The very moment this thought flashed through her mind, the elder had already begun to speak: “Do not trouble yourself overmuch: live as you are living now; in greater things God Himself will teach you.” Then, bowing to the ground before her, he said: “I ask only one thing of you: please, enter into every matter of administration yourself and judge fairly—that is how you will be saved.” Being still in the world at that time and having no thought whatsoever of entering a monastery, this woman could not at all understand what Father Seraphim’s words were leading to. He, continuing his remarks, said to her: “When that time comes, you will remember me.” As she was taking leave of Father Seraphim, his visitor said that perhaps the Lord would bring them together again. “No,” replied Father Seraphim, “we are parting for good, and so I ask you not to forget me in your holy prayers.” And when she asked him to pray also for her, he replied: “I will pray; but now go in peace—they are already complaining loudly about you.” Her companions had indeed met her at the inn with strong reproaches for her tardiness. Meanwhile Father Seraphim’s words had not been spoken in vain. By the inscrutable providence of God, his visitor took monastic vows under the name Kallista and, having served as abbess of the Sviyazhsky Monastery in Kazan Province, she remembered the elder’s instructions and ordered her life according to them.

On another occasion Father Seraphim was visited by two young women, the spiritual daughters of Stephen, a schema-monk of the Sarov Hermitage. One was of the merchant class and young in years; the other was of the nobility and already of advanced age. The latter had burned with love for God since her youth and had long desired to become a nun, but her parents had not given her their blessing to do so. Both women came to Father Seraphim for a blessing and to ask his counsel. The noblewoman, moreover, asked for his blessing to enter a monastery. The elder, on the contrary, began to advise her to marry, saying: “The married life is blessed by God Himself. In it one need only maintain faithfulness, love, and peace on both sides. In marriage you will be happy, but there is no path to monasticism for you. The monastic life is hard and not for everyone to bear.” The young woman of the merchant class, meanwhile, had no thought of monasticism and said nothing to Father Seraphim on that subject. And yet he, of his own accord, blessed her through his clairvoyance to enter the monastic order, even naming the monastery where she would find salvation. Both women were equally displeased with the elder’s conversation; and the older woman was even offended by his counsel and grew cool in her devotion to him. Their own spiritual father, Hieromonk Stephen, was himself surprised and could not understand why the elder was in fact dissuading the older woman—who was zealous for the monastic path—from becoming a nun, while blessing the young woman—who had no desire for it—to embark on that same path. The outcome, however, vindicated the elder. The noblewoman entered into marriage at an advanced age and was happy. And the young one did indeed go to that very monastery the clairvoyant elder had named.

Cavalry captain Afrikan Vasilyevich Teplov, who made it his custom to visit Father Seraphim every year, communicated the following cases of his clairvoyance, which related personally to him.

“In the summer of 1829, I traveled to Sarov with my wife and children. Along the road my wife, noticing that our eldest son—who was about ten years old—was occupied exclusively with reading sacred books and paid no attention to the world around him, began to complain that our children were far too attached to sacred books alone, and that they were entirely neglecting their lessons, their studies, and the other things necessary in society. Upon arriving at Sarov, we immediately went to Father Seraphim and were received by him very warmly. Blessing me, he said that we should stay for three days; blessing my wife, he said: ‘Mother, mother! Do not hurry to teach the children French and German—first prepare their souls, and the rest will be added to them afterward.’”

Blessing both our children, he honored our eldest by calling him “his treasure.” In this way the righteous elder reproved my wife’s unjust complaints; and afterwards, throughout the whole of his life, until his very end, he never ceased to warn me beforehand regarding all the joyful and sorrowful circumstances that arose in our family, sustaining my weak spirit with his fatherly counsels.

“In that same year of 1829, I was a witness to the following event from Father Seraphim’s life. A certain gentleman intended to marry a woman whose social standing was in no way suited to his, and his parents did not consent to this marriage. But the gentleman, knowing that his parents held Father Seraphim in the highest regard and would not be able to oppose the marriage after his approval, wanted first to win the elder over to his side. With this in mind, having prepared in advance his proofs of the legitimacy of his intention, and even texts from Holy Scripture in case Father Seraphim should disagree, to persuade him, he came to this righteous elder. And suddenly, to his utmost astonishment, he heard the elder pronounce the first name and patronymic of the very woman about whom he was thinking of making his inquiries—and he heard him go on to state the very same arguments he had intended to present, and finally even the very Scripture texts upon which he had intended to rely in case of the elder’s disagreement. Struck by this unexpected anticipation of his thoughts, the gentleman fell silently to his knees before the elder. Father Seraphim, raising him up, said: ‘God and the Mother of God and your own mother do not desire your intention—and this will not come to pass.’ The marriage indeed did not take place. Upon returning from the elder, the gentleman himself admitted that he had never before believed that righteous people could exist on earth; but that the present case had fully persuaded him of the righteous life of Father Seraphim.”

“In 1830, owing to an illness of my wife, we made a vow to make a pilgrimage to Tikhvin to the wonderworking icon of the Queen of Heaven. But on the very day when we were to depart, my wife, coming down the stairs from the second floor, stumbled and dislocated her kneecap. Although the bone-setter did restore the leg, the kneecap would slip out of place again at the slightest movement, so that it seemed quite impossible for us to travel at all. Nevertheless, placing full faith in the prayers of Father Seraphim, we did not wish to postpone the journey to another time and set out then, as it was winter. Along the road her pain intensified, and this caused me, despite all my trust in Father Seraphim’s prayers, to suggest several times that my wife consider turning back. But she would not agree. And since we had made it a sacred rule never to pass by the Sarov Hermitage without receiving Father Seraphim’s blessing, we once again turned off the main road to go to him. We were still far from the monastery when the pain in my wife’s leg began to diminish, and the nearer we drew to Sarov the weaker it became, until finally, when we entered the hermitage itself, it ceased completely: the kneecap settled into place and the swelling disappeared. We presented ourselves to the elder in his cell to receive his blessing, and he, having blessed us, told us to come to him at his forest hermitage by the spring, which we did, arriving around midday. The elder received us very graciously, gave us water from the spring to drink, gave us two rye crusts for the road to Tikhvin, and blessing us for the journey said: ‘Go, go, go! The road is smooth.’”

“We recalled Father Seraphim’s last words on the return journey from Tikhvin, for although it was the month of January, in anticipation of the sovereign Emperor’s procession, the road had been so well leveled that we encountered scarcely a single rut along the way.”

Through his gift of clairvoyance Father Seraphim was of great benefit to those around him. Thus, a pious widow of a deacon from Penza, named Eudoxia, had come to Sarov. Wishing to receive the elder’s blessing, she came from the hospital church in the midst of a great crowd to seek it, and stopped on the porch of his cell, waiting at the back of the line for her turn to approach Father Seraphim. But Father Seraphim, leaving everyone else, suddenly called out to her: “Eudoxia! Come here quickly.” Eudoxia was remarkably surprised that he called her by name, having never seen her, and she approached him with a feeling of reverence and awe. Father Seraphim blessed her, gave her blessed bread, and said: “You must hasten home so as to find your son there.” Eudoxia hurried home and in fact barely caught her son: in her absence the authorities of the Penza Seminary had appointed him a student at the Kiev Academy, and on account of the great distance from Penza to Kiev, they were in haste to send him off to his post. This son, upon completing his studies at the Kiev Academy, became a monk under the name Iriarkh, served as a teacher in seminaries and as rector, and was subsequently a bishop.

One day a man came to novice John Tikhonov, who called himself a landowner returning from a journey to Crimea, and said that he had twice been to Sarov but had not been privileged to see Father Seraphim, and now hoped to see him through the intercession of Father John.

Father John relates that a strange, even oppressive feeling came over him when he was about to lead this visitor through the forest to the elder, even though he had seen the man praying on his knees and with tears before an icon of the Mother of God at the liturgy that very same day. Leaving the visitor several yards from Father Seraphim’s forest cell, John went to the elder and told him that such-and-such a person wished to receive his blessing. But Father Seraphim replied sternly to his proposal: “I implore you in God’s name to flee from such people in the future,” and he explained that this man was a pretender. Hoping to change the elder’s mind, John told him how the man had prayed in church and again interceded for him. But the elder, having never seen this visitor, began to speak of him still more sternly, saying that “this is the most unfortunate, the most lost of men.” When the novice returned to the visitor who was awaiting him and relayed to him the elder’s words, urging him more fervently to pray to the Lord if he did not wish his soul to perish beyond recall, the man burst out weeping at the top of his voice and confessed that his soul was indeed filled with the most impure thoughts and feelings.

But then, shortly after him, another pilgrim came to the Sarov Hermitage. He appeared to be of simple station and also earnestly asked Father John to take him to Father Seraphim. Father John fulfilled his request, but out of caution from the recent incident, left him likewise a few yards from Father Seraphim’s forest cell. At that moment the elder was cutting sedge grass with his bare hands, and as soon as he heard that a certain pilgrim from Kiev wished to receive his blessing, he immediately said to the novice: “Bring him here.”

When the novice brought him, the elder sat the pilgrim down beside himself and began to tell him to abandon the path he had chosen—to take off his chains, put on shoes, and return to his home—for there his mother, wife, and children were grieving greatly for him; and at home he should occupy himself with the grain trade. “I tell you,” said the elder, “that it is very good to trade in grain. I have a merchant acquaintance in Yelets; you need only go to him, bow, and say that poor Seraphim sent you to him—and he will take you on as a manager.”

The pilgrim was silent throughout all of this, though it was plain that he was listening to the elder with particular feeling and was deeply moved by his words. When the elder, having given his blessing, dismissed those who had come with a word of peace, Father John asked the pilgrim along the road about the reason for his silence. The pilgrim replied that through his silence he had not only lost nothing but had in fact received everything he desired—that is, he had learned his true path. And he went on to tell them that Father Seraphim, through his wondrous gift of clairvoyance, knew his entire life: that he was of the petty bourgeois class and had always been engaged in the grain trade, by which he supported his family, but out of love for God, without discernment, without a guide, and without a father’s blessing, he had wished to go on pilgrimage; and therefore, having abandoned his family without any provision, he had set off on foot and in chains to Kiev with a year’s passport. “There,” he said, “I met an elder who told me to go to the Sarov Hermitage, to come to Father Seraphim, and to obey him in everything he commanded, because that would be my true path. And now the elder himself has told me beforehand, and it remains only for me to thank the merciful God and return home, according to the direction of the man of God.”

Not long before Father Seraphim’s repose, Alexei Petrovich Andronov, a townsman of the city of Kadom, motivated by deep respect and love for him, set out for the Sarov Hermitage and took along two young seminary graduates who were awaiting their appointments. When they came to the elder, he blessed them all; to one of the young men he said: “Hasten home—there is a fire at your house; your crops are burning, and you must go to help your family.” To the other he also said to hurry home “because they are already waiting for you there to take up your position.” The young men were astonished by these words, but upon returning home each of them was convinced that nothing was hidden from the wondrous elder.

A peasant named Yefim Vasilyev Likhachevsky once contracted to install the spire on a monastery tower at the Sarov Hermitage. When everything was ready and the people had begun to pray, while he and several workers were standing on the roof of the tower to oversee the work and set the spire in its proper place, it suddenly occurred to him that he had not asked for the prayers and blessing of Father Seraphim for this undertaking—for then he would have known for certain that everything would end well. The very moment he thought this, he immediately saw Father Seraphim himself, who had come out of his cell onto the porch and blessed him three times.

Down to our own time there have come accounts of such a kind that we perceive not only the benefit of Father Seraphim’s clairvoyance but also an explanation of how this gift of God acted within him. On one occasion Father Seraphim was visited in his monastery cell by the builder of the Vysokogorsky Hermitage, Hieromonk Anthony, and a merchant visiting from Vladimir Province. They entered together. Father Seraphim asked the builder to sit and wait, and immediately began to speak with the merchant. With graciousness and kindness he exposed his vices and offered him instruction: “All your failings and sorrows,” he said, “are the consequence of your passionate way of life. Abandon it, correct your ways.” His lengthy address on this theme was penetrated with such touching warmth of heart that both the merchant, to whom it directly applied, and the builder, for whom it was an outside matter, were moved, in the literal sense, to tears. In conclusion, Father Seraphim counseled the merchant to make his confession and receive Holy Communion at Sarov, assuring him that the Lord, in the case of sincere repentance, would not withdraw His grace and mercy from him. When the conversation was over, the merchant, his heart turned toward piety, bowed at the elder’s feet, thanked him from the bottom of his soul for the soul-saving conversation, promised to carry out what he had heard, and asking Father Seraphim’s prayers, left his cell in tears.

Then the superior of the Vyskogorsky Hermitage, who for many years had enjoyed Father Seraphim’s regard and respect, ventured to ask him:

“Father! The human soul lies open before you like a face in a mirror: in my eyes, without having heard the spiritual needs and sorrows of the pilgrim who was just here, you told him everything he needed.”

Father Seraphim said not a word.

The superior continued:

“Now I see: your mind is so pure that nothing in the heart of one’s neighbor is hidden from it.”

Father Seraphim placed his right hand over his companion’s mouth and said:

“You are not speaking rightly, my joy. The human heart is open to the Lord alone, and God alone is the knower of hearts; ‘a man shall come, and the heart is deep’ (Ps. 63:7).” He then told of how some had reproached St. Gregory the Theologian for drawing close to Maximus the Cynic. But the holy hierarch said: “God alone knows the secrets of the human heart; I saw in him one who had turned from paganism to Christianity, which is great in my eyes.”

The superior asked again: “But how is it, Father, that you did not ask the merchant a single word, yet told him everything he needed?”

Father Seraphim, opening his mouth and speaking at length, began to explain:

“He came to me as others do—as you yourself came—as to a servant of God. I, sinful Seraphim, think of myself as just that: a sinful servant of God. Whatever the Lord commands me, as His servant, I pass on to the one who needs something helpful. The first thought that arises in my soul I take as God’s direction, and I speak without knowing what is on my companion’s heart, trusting only that this is how God’s will points me for his benefit. But there are times when someone shares some circumstance with me, and I, not trusting it to God’s will, subject it to my own reasoning—thinking it can be resolved by my own mind without recourse to God—and in such cases mistakes always follow.”

The elder concluded this deeply edifying and richly illuminating conversation with these words:

“As iron to the smith, so have I surrendered myself and my will to the Lord God. As it pleases Him, so I act. I have no will of my own; whatever pleases God, that I pass on.”

This conversation was personally recounted to us by the venerable Father Archimandrite Anthony, who was at that time superior of the Vyskogorsky Monastery and later became vicar of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

D) Healings through the Prayers of Elder Seraphim

Some people, by virtue of their faith and through the intercession of Father Seraphim’s prayers, received healings during his lifetime. Thus, in 1830 there arrived in Sarov a sick woman who later became abbess in the town of Slobodsk in Vyatka Province. She was suffering from dropsy; her entire body was swollen and had turned yellow; she was so debilitated that she reached Sarov only with great difficulty. She had to stop twice along the road, and on one occasion was so weak that at the Nizhny Novgorod women’s monastery she had already been given the last rites in preparation for death.

Upon arriving in Sarov, she came with other visitors into the entrance room of Father Seraphim’s cell and sat down at the back of the group. The elder, parting the crowd of visitors, came straight to her, extended his hand to receive from her a towel she had worked herself, wiped himself with it three times, and said: “Come, my joy, follow me”—and led her into his cell. There he blessed her, gave her prosphora with holy water, and as he dismissed her said: “Tomorrow we shall see each other again.”

The next day the elder was receiving visitors at his nearby woodland cell, near his spring. He came out to them in a half-mantle with a lighted candle in his hands and began blessing everyone, saying to each what was needful for the soul’s benefit. The sick woman came to him last. Looking at her, he asked: “You are very unwell, aren’t you, dear mother?” and then, as he blessed her, continued: “Go and wash your face at the spring and drink from it—and you will be well.” The sick woman replied: “I have already drunk, Father, and washed myself when I arrived here.” He then said again: “Take some water from the spring with you, dear mother, drink it and wash with it, and bathe your body: the Apostles of Christ will heal you, you will be well.” When she said that she had no vessel in which to carry water with her, the elder brought out a small jug from his cell and repeated his earlier words, both at that moment and again after she returned with the water.

Returning to the guesthouse, the sick woman immediately carried out the elder’s advice in every detail, having no fear of using water in a case of dropsy and not heeding those who were with her and tried to forbid it. The next day she rose from her bed in perfect health. The fluid had drained from her body, the swelling had subsided, the pain had ceased, and her strength had returned; her face was suffused with its natural color. The sick woman was as if reborn, and those who had seen her the day before could scarcely recognize her in the morning.

Before she departed on her homeward journey, Father Seraphim sent her and her two traveling companions a blessing along with certain gifts: to the woman who had been healed—a walking stick with a crook; to one companion—a stick with four branches; and to the other—a plain stick. Subsequent events showed that each of these tokens carried a special significance which none of them understood at the time. The healed woman, having become a nun under the name Pulkheria, served as abbess of the women’s monastery in the town of Slobodsk, Vyatka Province. The first companion, together with her three branches (two sons and a daughter), all four of them took monastic vows; the second companion likewise entered a monastery.

The foregoing account mentions Seraphim’s spring and its healing power.

Here is what the Sarov hieromonk Father Anastasy recounts about this matter. Once he happened to be with Father Seraphim near his well. In the course of their conversation the elder said to him: “You see, Father, I prayed that this water in the well might be healing for illnesses.” This explains the present properties of the water flowing in Seraphim’s spring, properties it did not possess before. First, this water, as people observe, never spoils, even if it has stood for many years in unsealed vessels. Some would like to attribute this quality to mineral substances supposedly present in its composition. But it is well known that even mineral waters change and spoil—sometimes very quickly—when poorly sealed. Second, at any time of year many people bathe in the water from Seraphim’s spring, both the healthy and the sick, and not only has no one suffered harm from it, but on the contrary, many, as we see, have received healing. Thus, after Father Seraphim’s death, Princess E. I. E. recounted the following concerning the healing properties of Seraphim’s spring: “My cousin V. N. suffered greatly from seizures and was frightened of any holy object brought near her. Medicines, as so often happens, gave her no relief. There was nothing for it—she was taken to Sarov to Father Seraphim. The elder gave her some dried bread and told her to wash in his spring. From that moment her illness passed completely, and she lives in peace among her children.”

Here is what is also said in the letters of Maria Kol., a contemporary of Father Seraphim who knew him personally—letters written to the recluse George in the first half-year after the death of the Sarov ascetic.

“I return again to Father Seraphim, as to the source of my joy. In my presence, and to others as well, Mavra Lvovna, the general’s wife Sipyagina, used to say: She was ill, she felt a terrible anguish, and owing to her illness she could not eat the food prescribed by Church rule on fast days. When she came to Father Seraphim to ask for help, the elder told her to drink water from his spring. Mavra Lvovna drank—and suddenly, without any forcing, a great deal of bile came up from her throat. After that she was well.”

“Also, Tatyana Vasilyevna Barinova, during her visit to Father Seraphim, complained to him of her illness; she had an incurable ringworm on her hand, and the whole arm was wrapped in bandages. Father Seraphim told her to wash her hand with water from the spring. Tatyana Vasilyevna first thought: ‘Oh, how can I do this, when even the slightest contact with moisture makes the condition of my hand worse?’ Yet on this occasion she did not hesitate to render obedience and washed her hand. Immediately, as it were, scales peeled away from her hand together with the skin, and from that time her hands have been clean.”

“Many who even had open wounds were told by Father Seraphim to pour water from his spring over themselves. All received healing—and from various illnesses.”

Maria concluded her accounts of the spring’s healing power with these words: “The life of Father Seraphim and the wondrous works of God in him fill me with joy. But when I remember his departure from those here below, and that I shall see him no more, my heart is filled with grief and my eyes with tears. I would have asked him to let me join the Diveyevo community… During my time with him I was so amazed by him that I found little to say to him about myself; my tears simply flowed without restraint. With the foretold upheaval of my life, it seemed to me as though my whole heart was turned to weeping. But the elder managed here too to comfort me and to bring me into submission to God’s will.”

There were very many instances in which Father Seraphim gave help to the sick during his lifetime. Thus, the monk of the Sarov Hermitage, Alexander, recounted the following circumstances to many God-fearing persons:

“While still in the world, he had suffered from general weakness in all his limbs, and was especially tormented by an unbearable pain in one ear. Medicines gave him no help whatsoever. In the end a blockage formed in the ear. On the advice of good people he set out for Sarov to ask for the prayers and help of Father Seraphim. When the sick man entered and fell at his feet, the elder, without saying a word, went to the vigil lamp burning before the icon of the Mother of God, dipped his finger in the oil, and anointed the afflicted part of the ear. The sick man felt relief at that very moment, and soon all the pain was gone. Then the elder, among other things, said to the one who had been healed: ‘You will be ours,’ and he, despite considerable obstacles, did indeed enter the Sarov Hermitage.”

After entering the monastery, the weakness in his right hand, which he had previously experienced, became extraordinarily more severe. The monk could neither make the sign of the cross nor eat with his right hand without supporting it with his left. Coming again to Elder Seraphim, he threw himself at his feet, asking for his blessing and help through holy prayers. Father Seraphim blessed him with great kindness and said with a joyful face: “Pray to the Queen of Heaven and make three prostrations to her.” The monk immediately made three prostrations before the icon of the Mother of God. After this the elder, taking a vessel of holy water, began to offer it to him in his sick hand. But the monk replied: “Father! I cannot take it with that hand: it hurts and is completely weak.” The elder then took him by the sick hand and, offering the vessel, said: “Take it and drink.” The sick man, though with difficulty and with Father Seraphim’s support, drank. The elder concluded by blessing him and dismissing him in peace to his cell. “From that time,” said the monk Alexander, “I feel no pain whatsoever in my hand, thanks be to God for the prayers of Father Seraphim.”

Both in Diveyevo and in Sarov many peasants worked at various tasks. Some of them were especially close to Father Seraphim; they held the elder in faith and love as a person pleasing to God, and Father Seraphim in turn loved them. Some of them in this way became reliable narrators of events from the elder’s life.

Thus, the peasant E. V. of Likhachevo recounted that in 1831, upon feeling in himself the first signs of cholera, he immediately ran to Father Seraphim to ask for help, and barely managed to crawl to his cell. The elder pressed him to the icon of the Mother of God “Umilenie” (Tender Mercy), gave him holy water to drink, and let him partake of several fragments of prosphora. The sick man calmed down somewhat. The elder then told him to walk around the monastery and, stopping in the cathedral, to pray there. “There,” he said, “God’s mercy will heal you.” The peasant did all this and, by God’s grace, returned to the guesthouse in perfect health.

Cavalry Captain Afrikan Vasilyevich Teplov communicated the following regarding Father Seraphim’s help during the cholera epidemic: “In the early 1830s cholera appeared in Yekaterinoslav Province and began causing great mortality on my estate in that region. About twenty of my people suddenly fell ill, and two of them had already died. The convulsive thrashing of the others, the general moaning and weeping, tore at my soul. In such extreme circumstances I recalled that Father Seraphim had said to me several times: ‘When you are in sorrow, come to the poor Seraphim’s cell: he will pray for you.’ This recollection prompted me and my wife to turn, from afar, to Elder Seraphim, that he might deliver us from the deadly illness. And that very same night, in a vision during sleep, the elder appeared to my wife and told her to go to a spring where a wonder-working icon of the Mother of God had once appeared, to take water from it, to drink from it and to wash with it—both we ourselves and all our people. This spring, or source, is twelve versts from my estate, and early in the morning I set out there immediately with my whole household, preserving in my soul full confidence in the intercession of God’s saint Seraphim on our behalf.”

“Upon arriving at the spring, we first lowered a cross into it, and then we drank and washed ourselves from it—both we ourselves and those who served us. At the same time, on my instructions, a barrel was brought to us from our village, which we filled with water from the spring, and then we all set off for home. In the village I ordered all the peasants to be assembled, invited the priest, and after a solemn service of water-blessing we began distributing the blessed water to everyone, and sent a portion of it to the hospital, where many were already at death’s door. All of them, by God’s mercy, recovered soon, receiving no treatment other than the water sent to them, and no one died on my estate after that. What particularly astonished us all and moved us to give thanks for God’s mercy was the recovery of one seventy-year-old woman. She too had fallen ill with cholera and was already in a hopeless state. But when her neighbor, a peasant, forcibly poured water into her mouth—for she was insensible—and then poured the rest of the water from the bottle over her, she lost consciousness; then after several minutes a most abundant sweat broke out on her, and within an hour, no more, the old woman was out of all danger.”

On account of this deadly plague, many wrote to Father Seraphim with letters, and some came in person to ask for his prayers and guidance on how to protect themselves from danger. The elder gave the following instruction:

“Let us call on the name of the Lord—and we shall be saved. When the name of God is on our lips, we are saved. ‘Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him, and He shall act; He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday’ (Ps. 36:5–6)—only submit yourself to the Lord and entreat Him.” As a continuation of this path he advised keeping that rule of prayer which he had earlier composed for common people and for those who often do not have sufficient leisure for prayer (see above). “Whoever continues in this way,” he said, “will not be deprived of God’s mercy. Prayer is the path to the Lord. One who receives holy Communion devoutly, and not merely once a year, will be saved, prosperous, and long-lived even on this earth. Remember the apostolic words: ‘Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in everything’ (1 Thess. 5:17). In such a blessed and peaceful state of soul, I believe that by God’s great goodness, grace will be marked upon the family line of the one who communes. Before the Lord, one who does His will is worth more than a multitude of the lawless.”

As for letters in particular, Father Seraphim often knew their contents without opening them, and gave answers, usually saying something like: “Here is what tell them from the poor Seraphim,” and so forth. This is attested by many God-fearing persons who dealt with Father Seraphim either personally or through correspondence. After the elder’s death, many unopened letters were found in his cell, for all of which, however, oral answers had been given in their time.

Elder Seraphim’s prayers were so powerful before God that there are instances of the sick being raised from the very bed of death. Thus, in May 1829 the wife of Alexei Guryevich Vorotilov, a resident of Gorbatovsky district in the village of Pavlovo, fell gravely ill. Vorotilov had great faith in the power of Father Seraphim’s prayers, and the elder, according to the testimony of those who knew them, loved him as if he were his own disciple and confidant. Vorotilov immediately set out for Sarov and, despite arriving there at midnight, hastened to Father Seraphim’s cell. The elder, as if expecting him, was sitting on the porch of the cell and, seeing him, greeted him with these words: “What is it, my joy—have you come to poor Seraphim at such an hour?” Vorotilov, in tears, told him the reason for his hasty arrival in Sarov and begged him to help his ailing wife. But Father Seraphim, to Vorotilov’s deepest grief, declared that his wife was fated to die from her illness. Alexei Guryevich then, streaming with tears, fell at the feet of the ascetic and, with faith and humility, besought him to pray for the return of her life and health. Father Seraphim at once entered into a prayer of the mind for about ten minutes, then opened his eyes and, lifting Vorotilov to his feet, said joyfully: “Well now, my joy, the Lord is granting your wife life. Go in peace to your home.” With joy Vorotilov hastened home. There he learned that his wife had felt relief precisely at the minutes when Father Seraphim had been laboring in prayer. And soon she recovered entirely.

In September 1831 there arrived in Sarov a landowner of Simbirsk and Nizhny Novgorod Provinces, Collegiate Counselor Nikolai Alexandrovich Motovilov, who was completely ill and received a miraculous healing through the prayers of Father Seraphim. In a memorandum preserved at the Diveyevo community he writes thus of his healing: “The great elder Seraphim healed me of severe and incredible, great rheumatic and other illnesses, with general weakness throughout the body, paralysis of the legs which were contracted and swollen at the knees, and bedsores on the back and sides, from which I had suffered incurably for more than three years. The healing came about in the following manner. I ordered myself to be conveyed, gravely ill, from the village of Britvino in my Nizhny Novgorod Lukoyanov estate, to Father Seraphim. On the 5th of September 1831 I was brought to the Sarov Hermitage; on the 7th of September and on the 8th, the feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God, I was granted two conversations—the first ones—with Father Seraphim, before and after the midday meal, in his monastery cell; but I had not yet received healing. But when on the following day, the 9th of September, I was brought to him at his nearby woodland hermitage, near his well—four men carrying me in their arms and a fifth supporting my head—and they brought me to him as he was conversing with the people, who came to him in great numbers at that time, near a large and very thick pine tree still standing on the bank of the Sarovka river on his little hayfield meadow, and there they set me down. At my request to help and heal me, he said: ‘But I am not a doctor; one must go to doctors when one wishes to be treated for some illness.’ I described to him in detail my afflictions and that I had tried all the principal methods of treatment, but had received healing from none of them, and that therefore I placed no hope for my salvation in anything else and had no other hope of receiving healing from my ailments except only through God’s grace. But being a sinner and not having the boldness to approach the Lord God myself, I was asking for his holy prayers, that the Lord might heal me. And he put a question to me: ‘Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the God-Man, and in His Most Pure Mother of God, that She is the Ever-Virgin?’ I answered: ‘I believe.’ ‘And do you believe,’ he continued to question me, ‘that the Lord, as He formerly healed instantly and by His one word or by His touch all the infirmities that were in men, so even now can just as easily and instantly as before heal those who need help by His one word alone; and that the intercession of the Mother of God to Him on our behalf is all-powerful, and that by this Her intercession the Lord Jesus Christ can even now instantly and by one word heal you completely?’ I answered that I truly believe all of this with all my soul and heart, and that if I did not believe I would not have ordered myself to be brought to you. ‘And if you believe,’ he concluded, ‘then you are already well!’ ‘How am I well?’ I asked, ‘when my people and you yourself are holding me in your arms!’ ‘No!’ he said to me, ‘You are completely and entirely well in your whole body now!’ And he told those of my people who were holding me in their arms to step away from me, and he himself, taking me by the shoulders, lifted me from the ground and, setting me on my feet, said to me: ‘Stand firm, plant yourself more steadily on the ground, like this; do not be afraid, you are completely well now.’ And then, looking at me joyfully, he added: ‘There, do you see how well you are standing now.’ I answered: ‘Of course I am standing well, because you are holding me well and firmly.’ And he, removing his hands from me, said: ‘There, now I am no longer holding you, yet you are still standing firmly without me; walk boldly, my dear one, the Lord has healed you—walk, and move from where you stand.’ Taking me by the hand with one hand, and with the other gently pushing me by the shoulders, he led me over the grass and uneven ground, around the great pine, saying: ‘There, your God-loving one, how well you are walking!’ I answered: ‘Yes, because you are pleased to lead me well!’ ‘No,’ he said to me, removing his hand from me: ‘it is the Lord Himself who has been pleased to heal you completely, and it was the Mother of God Herself who entreated Him for this—you will go on without me now and will always walk well; go then…’ and he began to push me so that I would walk. ‘But this way I shall fall and hurt myself…’ I said. ‘No,’ he contradicted me, ‘you will not hurt yourself, but will walk firmly…’ And when I felt some kind of strength that had descended upon me from above at that moment, I took heart a little and walked firmly; then he suddenly stopped me and asked: ‘Well, are you now convinced that the Lord has truly healed you in all things and entirely? The Lord has taken away your iniquities and cleansed your sins. Do you see what a miracle the Lord has worked with you today? Always believe in Him without the slightest doubt—in Christ our Savior—and firmly hope in His mercy toward you; love Him with all your heart and cleave to Him with all your soul, and always firmly hope in Him and give thanks to the Queen of Heaven for Her great mercies toward you. But since your three-year suffering has sorely exhausted you, do not walk a great deal all at once now, but gradually: little by little accustom yourself to walking, and guard your health as a precious gift from God’… And having conversed with me at some length after that, he sent me off to the guesthouse completely well. And so, my people went on their own from the forest and the nearby hermitage to the monastery, thanking God and marveling at His wondrous mercies toward me, manifested before their very eyes, while I myself sat with the guesthouse father, Father Gury, firmly and without any human support as I sat in the carriage, and returned to the guesthouse of the Sarov Hermitage. And since many pilgrims had been present with me at my healing, they returned to the monastery before me, proclaiming to everyone this great miracle.”

E) Elder Seraphim’s Help in Various Ailments of the Soul

Elder Father Seraphim gave help to those afflicted with sorrows, stricken with ailments of the soul, and tormented by evil spirits. Thus, one brother of Sarov, finding himself in a state of despondency close to despair, asked another to share a few minutes of sorrow with him. These two brothers left the monastery after vespers and walked around the outer wall, comforting one another through conversation. As they drew near the stables, past which a path led to Seraphim’s spring, the grieving brother wished to turn aside so as not to encounter Father Seraphim in such a painful state of spirit. But before they had managed to leave the path, they suddenly saw the elder near at hand, coming toward them. The elder appeared to them in rather unusual attire. Part of his white cassock was tucked up, in the manner of a workman, under his belt, and the skirts hung down. Over him was an enormous green levantine cloth shawl, one end of which dragged along the ground while the other was wrapped around his neck. The two brothers fell at his feet. The elder, like a tender father, blessed them with extraordinary warmth, and then sang the following verse—the ninth ode of the canon sung in every grief and affliction of the soul (the Paraklesis): “Fill my heart with joy, O Virgin, you who received the fullness of joy, destroying sinful grief.” Then, stamping his foot, he said: “We have no right to give way to despondency, for Christ has conquered all things, has raised Adam, has freed Eve, has put death to death.” The elder’s state of soul seemed to pour itself into the souls of the grieving brothers, and they, brought to life by his joy, returned to the monastery in a peaceful and serene disposition of heart.

A widow with three small children, weighed down by the burden of raising them, complained bitterly about her hard lot. Having heard much of Father Seraphim’s compassion, she resolved to go to him, ask his blessing, and share her grief. After blessing her, the elder said: “Do not grumble at your lot—your sorrow will end soon; one will be your provider.” A week later, two of the children died. Their mother was struck by this unexpected death and went again to Father Seraphim, hoping he would resolve the perplexities troubling her soul. Seeing her and anticipating her words, the elder said: “Pray to the Protectress, the Most Holy Mother of God, and to all the saints—you have greatly offended them by cursing your children. Confess everything to your spiritual father, and from now on restrain your anger, lest you become a great sinner. For the last time I bless you—only forgive them.” After these words the elder blessed the widow, gave her the Cross he wore on his chest to kiss, and withdrew to his cell for other labors.

Father Seraphim healed the demon-possessed by his presence, by the Cross, and by prayer. “I was a witness,” said a peasant from Likhachevka who worked at Sarov, “of how several men brought with the greatest difficulty to the entrance of Father Seraphim’s hermitage cell a woman possessed by a demon, who resisted the entire way, and at the porch steps fell down, threw her head back, and cried out: ‘It will burn, it will burn!’ Father Seraphim came out of his cell, and since the woman would not open her mouth, he forcibly poured a few drops of holy water into it. I, and all of us, saw that in that very instant something like a smoky cloud flew out of her mouth. Then the elder made the sign of the cross over her and with a blessing offered a holy prayer above her, and the possessed woman came to herself and began to pray on her own. Afterward, seeing her in the Sarov cathedral in perfect health, I asked: ‘How does she feel now?’—‘Thanks be to God,’ she answered, ‘I no longer feel the former illness.’”

G) Healings and prophecies together

Father Seraphim sometimes combined the working of healings with prophecies about the future fate of those who were cured, or of those who were with them. Such was the case with Father Melchizedek, a monk of the Arzamas Savior Monastery. While still in the world, married with children, he had traded in fish and built a stone cellar for storage, but had not had time to fit it with a proper door. His five-year-old son, playing on the cellar steps with another boy, fell backward down into it, and after this began to cry at night, and a great sadness settled over the household. The child’s legs became paralyzed; not a single toe moved; the whole body wasted away until nothing was left but bones and skin, and the legs hung limp as whips. When anyone tried to bend his legs, the knees crackled like springs; the same happened when they were straightened. However much the parents treated their son, medicines brought no benefit—on the contrary, a severe ache appeared in his chest as well. At last, after consulting with each other, the parents decided to travel with the sick child to Sarov to see Father Seraphim. Along the way, over the corduroy roads and bridges, they carried him in their arms, and the sick boy wept constantly from the unbearable pain in his chest and begged to go back home, where it was more comfortable to lie down; yet his parents, undeterred, arrived in Sarov. Coming to Father Seraphim’s cell and learning that he was at his hermitage, they waited patiently for his return. When Father Seraphim came back to the monastery he blessed everyone, and the sick child he also kissed on the head. The parents explained about their son’s illness. Father Seraphim said: “Do not treat him with anything—pray to God,” and gave the boy something to drink and some dried bread. On the journey home the boy was calmer, and his parents, having stopped treating him, prayed to God for him continually. Some time later the sick child’s mother had a dream in which she was told that for her son’s healing she should bring the wonderworking icon of the Kazan Mother of God (this icon is in the city of Arzamas, in the Church of the Kazan Mother of God) into the home. Accordingly, the icon of the Mother of God was brought into the home; they served an all-night vigil and a moleben with the blessing of water. At the end of the moleben, the priest blessed the sick boy with the Cross, gave him holy water to drink, and then he venerated the wonderworking icon of the Mother of God, which remained in the house until morning. In the morning, after a thanksgiving moleben to the Mother of God had been served, the icon was carried back to the church with joy and reverence. Upon returning from the church, the mother took the sick child on her lap; at that moment his legs, which until then had not moved properly, suddenly bent and straightened again, then bent once more and straightened again. The parents, seeing this, wept from astonishment and joy, and their son, rising to his feet, walked with unsteady steps—and from that time he began to walk better: his legs recovered completely, and he suffered from them no more.

At that same meeting, when the sick child had been brought to Father Seraphim, the elder, among other things, said to the boy’s father: “You—leave the world.” For a long time the father pondered what this might mean, and then began to persuade his wife to go with their daughter to a convent, intending to enter a monastery himself as well. His wife objected: “But where do you propose to put the parents” (who lived with them)? “For the parents,” the husband replied, “we need to build a cell and provide for their upkeep.” Seeing no progress from this quarter, his wife answered plainly that she had no wish to go to a convent. There the matter rested. Then, after some time had passed, his wife, his father, and his mother all died within a single year, and the father and son entered the Vysokogorsky Hermitage that same year, while the daughter was placed in the Nikolaevsky Arzamas women’s convent. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Father Seraphim, spoken in the form of a hint.

Madame M. V. Nikashina related the following account of Father Seraphim’s healings and prophecies:

“My husband and I wished to see the God-pleasing elder Seraphim and traveled to the Sarov Hermitage; but upon arriving there we did not find Father Seraphim in his monastery cell—he was in the forest, at his hermitage labors. We went there, and before long the elder himself met us on the way. He immediately turned to my husband with the words: ‘Here is what, dear friend—the prophet David writes: Lord, I have loved the beauty of Your house and the place where Your glory dwells. It is very good, dear friend, to adorn the temples of the Lord.’ Father Seraphim said this by the gift of clairvoyance, foreseeing how much my husband loved to adorn the churches of God.”

“After that, Father Seraphim invited us to his monastery cell, and we began to ask his blessing for a trip to Moscow to see our landowner—to petition either for emancipation or, at the very least, for the landlord to release my husband from his duties as manager. But Father Seraphim, after hearing our words, took my husband by the hand, led him to the icon of the Mother of God ‘Tenderness,’ and said: ‘I ask you, for the sake of the Mother of God, do not relinquish your post. Your management brings glory to God—you do not wrong the peasants. Do not listen to anyone who speaks ill of you or your wife. There is no road for you to Moscow—your road is this: I blessed one manager to ask for his freedom upon the death of his master, who during his lifetime had purchased an estate in the south and sent him there to receive it and put it in order. When that master died, his mistress gave the manager his freedom and granted him such power of attorney over the estate that she virtually handed herself over to him.’ Father Seraphim told this parable about my husband, with whom indeed everything afterward came to pass exactly as he had predicted several years before its fulfillment.”

“My husband suffered from the following strange ailment: the moment he caught even the slightest chill, blood would rush to his face, the veins would become tense, the nerves—especially the nasal ones—would become unusually irritated, and he would first feel a strange tickling in his nose, and then begin to sneeze without stopping. This exhausting sneezing would last sometimes an entire day, sometimes two, and utterly prostrated him. The Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod doctors advised him in the strongest terms to get treatment for this dangerous illness, and warned that a polyp might eventually develop. But since my husband had no time to attend seriously to his treatment, the illness soon grew much worse. We then decided to travel to Sarov to see Father Seraphim.”

“Upon our arrival, the elder, after blessing us, immediately took a bottle of water from the stove, told my husband to bow his head, and began to pour water from the bottle over it himself; then he told him to wash with that water and handed him a towel from his own neck so that he could dry himself. From that time on my husband’s illness completely disappeared, and he lived for another seven years.”

“Once, as Father Seraphim was blessing us on our return from Sarov to our home, he said to me: ‘Here now, dear woman—a man and two women came to me and began to say the prayer; I did not let them in; and when they began to knock loudly on the door and I could do nothing about it, I lay down to sleep.’ Then he added: ‘Do you understand this, dear woman?’ Afterward, when we came to the inn yard, we found there a certain official from Nizhny Novgorod who had arrived in Sarov with his wife and began to implore me to go with them to Father Seraphim, saying they did not dare go alone and feared that Father Seraphim would not receive them. My husband also asked me to go with them.”

“We went, and when we reached the porch of the cell we heard Father Seraphim moving about in his entrance hall. I said the prayer as usual, but Father Seraphim did not respond with the customary ‘Amen’ and did not open the door. My companions began to beg insistently, but he fell silent. Then the man began to knock loudly on the door, and presently we heard Father Seraphim lie down to sleep right by his door where we were standing, and after a few minutes he began to snore. Only then did I understand what man and what two women he had spoken of at our parting, and we were compelled to go back to the inn without having seen the elder.”

“In the last year of my husband’s life I was in Sarov, in Father Seraphim’s hermitage. I found him there gathering scraps of wood by the rampart, along the road. Noticing me, he called me over to himself and said: ‘Here, dear woman—the holy Fathers have blessed me to gather these scraps of wood for the Diveyevo orphans; when winter comes they will need to heat their stoves.’ Then, taking me by the hand, he walked me along the road to his garden beds, where onions and potatoes had been planted, and said: ‘And here, dear woman, is my wealth; this is how I live. But the wealth of your dear husband will pass into other hands—do not be downcast about that.’ Indeed, a few months later my husband passed away, and all the rest came to pass just as the wondrous elder had foretold.”

“Once I was very ill with a stomach ailment and had begun to treat myself; but since nothing helped, I came to Father Seraphim and told him of my illness. To this the elder replied: ‘If you, dear woman, continue to seek treatment, you will very, very soon bring your life to an end. Bear this illness in silence—and it will pass once you stop treating it.’ He then added: ‘And when you go to the Queen of Heaven, what things you will see there!’ In accordance with Father Seraphim’s blessing, I stopped seeking treatment, and my illness indeed passed. Afterward I traveled to the village of Palitsy, where there is a wonderworking icon of the Mother of God; and there, at the lodging where I happened to stay, I saw an old woman binding up her wounds, which covered her entire body. In the morning, on the way to the liturgy, I saw another terrible sight: a girl was being led along, paralyzed, swollen, and trembling in every limb. Then I involuntarily recalled the words of Father Seraphim, which at first had seemed incomprehensible to me: ‘When you go to the Queen of Heaven, what things you will see there!’”

“Once I visited Father Seraphim with my own sister, who had been married to a priest but was now widowed. As the elder blessed my sister, he said to her: ‘Your life too, dear woman, is blessed all the way to your falling asleep.’ To this my sister answered him: ‘Forgive me, Father, for Christ’s sake—I keep sinning by quarreling with my father, because he handed over his position to my brother yet continues to live at my expense.’ Father Seraphim replied: ‘With whom, dear woman, should a person live if not with their parent?’ My sister answered him: ‘I have a son, Father, who is finishing his course of study this year, and I have hopes for him.’ But Father Seraphim replied again: ‘There is no hope for that, dear woman—none at all.’ And indeed, my sister’s son died shortly afterward.”

“Once, while I was in Sarov on a Sunday, I went after the late liturgy to Father Seraphim, and after he had blessed me he asked: ‘Were you at the liturgy, dear woman?’ I answered: ‘I was, Father.’ Then he asked: ‘Did you see how we sang the funeral service for a woman as a full choir? I have just come from the church. Our abbot made her a fine coffin. Do you understand this, dear woman?’—and he repeated his question several times. I thought that he was surely foretelling my own imminent death, and went home with these thoughts. On the road I stopped at the village of Soboleva, which belongs to the Pokrov parish, to visit my own aunt; but there, to my great sorrow, I learned that my aunt had recently died and had been buried on that very same Sunday, after the liturgy, on the day I had been with Father Seraphim and he had spoken to me of the deceased. The archpriest, out of devotion, had made her a coffin at his own expense and buried her with a full choir. Then I understood the wondrous clairvoyance of Father Seraphim.”

“That same archpriest had previously had no faith in Father Seraphim; but when I told him of this last prophecy of the elder, he expressed a desire to meet him personally. And so, the moment he entered Father Seraphim’s cell upon arriving in Sarov, the elder greeted him with the priestly kiss and with the words: ‘May the Lord God and the Protection of the Mother of God bless you, dear friend’—at which point he called him by name—and then he named all those saints in whose honor the seven chapels of the Pokrov church had been dedicated. From that time on the archpriest always held Father Seraphim in the deepest veneration.”

“Once I brought Father Seraphim some wax candles; he immediately asked me: ‘Are you going to Diveyevo, dear woman?’ I answered: ‘Give your blessing, Father—I am bringing three icons there.’ Then Father Seraphim said: ‘In that case, take the candles along as well—either way, prayer will be offered for you.’ Then he said: ‘Do you know bees, dear woman? When the queen sits in the hive, the bees are all around her. So too do the young women of Diveyevo now abide with the Mother of God.’ To this I said to him: ‘Ah, Father! How blessed are those girls, that they always abide with the Mother of God!’ But the dear Father replied to me: ‘Why envy the girls? It is also good to be a widow; the Prophetess Anna was a widow—was it bad for her? And you, love my young women, honor them, and do not wait for them to come to you—seek them out yourself.’ Some time after that I was widowed; and from Diveyevo, Irina Prokopyevna sent a sister to me with a letter inviting me to the community. Then I remembered the words of Father Seraphim: ‘Do not wait for my young women to come to you—seek them out yourself’—and I resolved to enter the Diveyevo community.”

Madame Serafima Korsakova related the following circumstance concerning her husband. “When my husband, Andrei by name, a resident of the city of Ardatov, was eleven years old, he fell gravely ill with his eyes. For nine months he was in the most distressing and pitiful condition; at last his mother resolved to take him to Sarov. But when they arrived at the monastery on August 3, 1829, Father Seraphim had for reasons known to himself again withdrawn into temporary seclusion and was receiving no one. They waited some five days… Then the elder once again opened his doors to all who thirsted for his blessing, guidance, and healing. Seeing the sick youth with his mother, he invited them in, saying: ”Come!“ After blessing them, he began to blow on the boy’s ears and eyes, and at the same time placed the seal of the sign of the cross on his head. In conclusion, blessing the sick boy, he said: ”You will be well.“ And as the sick boy was leaving the cell, Father Seraphim said: ”You will be married to a Serafima.“ And to the mother he said: ”It is a sin not to honor the feast day.“ By these words he revealed the sin she had committed against God’s commandment on the way to Sarov. As soon as they had left the elder’s cell, the blind Andrei began to see the light of God, and within a month his sight returned to him entirely. The fulfillment of the prophecy concerning the name of his future wife was confirmed when I, Serafima, became his wife.”

Z) Prophecies of Elder Seraphim

There were very many cases in which Father Seraphim foresaw and foretold the future.

G. I. M. Kr. told the following account concerning his relative V. I. Br., a resident of Nizhny Novgorod. She had married a widower who had two children, and was extremely unhappy in the marriage. Her relatives finally wished her to leave her husband. But before initiating any proceedings she traveled to Sarov to consult Father Seraphim. The elder said to her: “Do not under any circumstances leave your husband—I, a sinful monk Seraphim, earnestly beg you of this; all the unpleasantness you endure will soon come to an end.” Indeed, in no more than six months her husband died, and God helped her to place his orphaned children in state institutions for their upbringing.

To one pious woman who had come to Sarov, he revealed that a famine was approaching and advised her to lay in a stock of grain so as not to suffer need. The woman mentioned this prophecy in casual conversation to the Sarov hieromonk Father Iakov, who was her spiritual father. When the brothers also learned of it from Elder Iakov at the second meal that same day, some of them received this news with faith, imploring the Lord God to avert His wrath, while the doubting and grumbling criticized the elder. But events bore out his words. Shortly after the prophecy, a famine indeed began. Grain prices rose with each passing week. Even the sources from which grain had been obtained for the starving region ran dry. The price of a chetvert of grain stood between twenty and twenty-four rubles, in the old reckoning, in assignation notes.

From 1831 onward Elder Seraphim again warned many of an impending famine. Meeting with Abbot Nifont, he kept repeating to him as well: “There will be a famine, there will be a famine!” And to avert the calamity, he advised the monastery authorities to lay in a six-year supply of grain, observing that during his lifetime a famine had come for the fourth time already, and yet the Sarov Hermitage had never suffered a shortage of grain.

A priest, A. N., later an archpriest at the Arzamas Nikolaevsky women’s monastery, also came to him. Elder Father Seraphim greeted him in the customary priestly manner. Then, in the course of their conversation, he predicted to him that he would become a dean, an exhorter of schismatics, and would suffer much in his lifetime on account of deacons who held that grace unworthily. Father Avraamy witnessed the fulfillment of these words upon himself. He confirmed that the guidance he had heard from the elder regarding the duties of a dean had greatly assisted him in properly fulfilling that office.

The devout widow Pelagia Ivanovna Shkarina, a resident of the city of Arzamas, testifies that from her youth she had desired to enter monasticism. But Father Seraphim, having known her some five years before his death, foretold to her that she would be an orphan, that she would marry, would have seven children—and he named the names of all of them—and then would be widowed. However distant these predictions seemed, they all came to pass exactly.

A woman from the merchant class of the city of Balakhna, by the surname Zayaeva, also came to Father Seraphim. The elder strongly advised her to enter a convent; she refused. He disclosed the reasons for his counsel: “You will,” he said to her, “be unhappy in marriage, you will have many children, then you will lose your husband, you will remain a widow, and you will suffer even greater poverty than you would while married.” Zayaeva did not heed the elder’s advice, married, and later bitterly regretted it, for all the words of Father Seraphim were fulfilled in her.

In another instance, a young woman of the merchant class from Arzamas, Nozhevnikova by name, came to him. She was living in great poverty. Father Seraphim, hearing her complaint about want, foretold that in marriage she would be wealthy, but that afterward she would again drag out a life filled with many sorrows.

In the Arzamas Nikolaevsky women’s monastery there lived two sisters, serf girls. Seeing them, Father Seraphim said: “Within a year your masters will take you into their household service for five years.” The young women were with the elder along with their brother. To this brother he said: “And for you the Lord will extend your life to eighty years—which is a rarity nowadays—if only you preserve yourself from mortal sins.” All of this came to pass just as Father Seraphim had foretold.

Nadezhda Fyodorovna Ostrovskaya related the following: “My own brother, Lieutenant Colonel V. F. Ostrovsky, often stayed in Nizhny Novgorod with our maternal aunt, Princess Gruzinskaya, who held Father Seraphim in great veneration. On one occasion, for some reason, she sent him to the Sarov Hermitage to see this clairvoyant elder. Father Seraphim received my brother very graciously, and among other good counsels suddenly said to him: ‘Ah, Brother Vladimir—what a drunkard you will become!’ These words caused my brother extreme distress and sorrow. He had been endowed by God with many fine gifts and always employed them to the glory of God; he held Father Seraphim in deep devotion, and to those under his command he was like a tender father. He therefore considered himself very far from such a designation, which was unbecoming to his rank and way of life. The clairvoyant elder, seeing his agitation, said to him further: ‘However, do not be troubled or sad: the Lord sometimes permits those who are devoted to Him to fall into such dreadful vices—and this in order that they may not fall into an even greater sin, which is pride. Your temptation will pass, by the mercy of God, and you will spend the rest of your days in humility; only do not forget your sin.’ The wondrous prophecy of the man of God was indeed afterward fulfilled in reality. Through various unfortunate circumstances, my brother fell into this unhappy passion—drunkenness—and, to the common grief of his family, spent several years in this wretched state. But at last, through the prayers of Father Seraphim and through his own simplicity of heart, he was granted mercy by the Lord: he not only abandoned his former vice but transformed his whole way of life entirely, striving to live according to the commandments of the Gospel, as befits a Christian.”

A. A. Tum-ya, while still a child of about twelve years old, once traveled with her mother to the Sarov Hermitage to have the privilege of seeing Father Seraphim and receiving his blessing. This was in 1830. Upon arriving in Sarov, she happened to learn from her nanny of some poor, exhausted prisoner in heavy chains who was passing by the monastery and was a pitiable sight. Seeing this unfortunate man, she was deeply moved by his condition but did not give him alms on the spot only because she happened to have no money with her at that moment; later, however, having found a silver fifty-kopeck coin, and having no smaller one, she decided to give it to the poor man. When they came to Father Seraphim, the clairvoyant elder, who had never seen them before, immediately called the girl over to himself and, having blessed her, said affably: “Now that was well done—giving that little fifty-kopeck piece to the poor man.” And at the same time, quite unexpectedly, he addressed her as “Your Excellency.” Her mother, extremely surprised by this greeting, tried to explain to the elder that this title did not belong to them at all; but he, continuing his conversation with them, addressed the girl by the same title as before. And so they returned home without having learned the reason for this remarkable greeting from the elder, and for a long time were at a loss to understand what it might mean. But afterward it became clear to them when A. A. Tum-ya, having reached adulthood, married a general. Then were fulfilled the prophetic words of the man of God, who had long foreseen the future by the grace given him by the Lord.

Vyacheslav Andreyevich Pletmintsev, a Moscow townsman, had never thought of marrying and had always been amazed at those people who took on the obligations of matrimony. At one point he happened to be traveling from Ryazan to Arzamas. Along the way he stopped at the Sarov Hermitage and there heard of Father Seraphim for the first time. “Let me stop in and see him,” thought Pletmintsev, “—maybe he will have something to tell me.” He came to the elder, and the elder first blessed him and then handed him three pieces of dried bread, saying: “This one is for you, this one is for your wife, and this one is for your little son.” Pletmintsev did not believe the elder’s words at first; but upon arriving in Arzamas, he did indeed marry after some time, and, in fulfillment of the holy elder’s prophecy, had a son.

Natalya Ivanovna Bogdanova, who was devoted with her whole soul to the Sarov elder Father Seraphim, visited him frequently, wishing to enjoy his comforting conversations and guidance. Spending her youth as an unmarried young woman, she had given no thought at all to marriage; but once, while visiting Father Seraphim, she was suddenly struck by an unexpected prophecy from him. Father Seraphim, handing her a little cap sewn from linen, said: “Here, take it—it will come in useful when you give birth to a child. You will marry a distinguished gentleman, but for about three years after entering into matrimony you will have to endure various sorrows; do not be afraid, but trust in the Lord, and He will comfort you, and you will be happy.” Taking this little cap from the elder, Bogdanova kept it like an inestimable gift and would not bring herself to tell anyone about it, waiting for the fulfillment of Father Seraphim’s wondrous prophecy. A considerable time after this meeting with the elder, she did indeed marry, in accordance with his prophecy, being already past thirty years of age. When the time came for her to give birth, the little cap given by Father Seraphim was placed on the infant. His words about family troubles in the early years of marriage were also fully borne out. But afterward she lived happily.

To others the elder foretold death, wishing that they would not pass into eternity without Christian preparation. Thus a certain D. I. came to him—the manager of a factory located in Yekaterinburg district, Perm Province—with his wife and children. Father Seraphim, knowing none of them and having heard nothing of any of them before, called each of them by name and assigned to each the year, month, and day of their death. To the father he said that he would live twenty years more, and to the mother—twelve years more. It afterward became known in Sarov that she had indeed died at the time foretold by Father Seraphim. No information is available regarding the manager himself.

To one resident of the non-district town of Kadom (Tambov Province), he foretold, for the man’s correction, a divine punishment whose consequence would be his death. The wife of this man came to Father Seraphim. The elder received her with fatherly love and, among other counsels and instructions, urged her to speak to her husband—who had at that time been elected a member of the town council—so that he might reform himself from intemperance, insolence, unjust oppression, and mercilessness toward others. “If your husband does not give up these passions that have taken root in him,” said the elder, “he will certainly be punished by God for it.” Saying this, he took a bundle of matches from the stove, handed them to the woman, and added: “Here—take these matches and keep them.”

The fatherly blessing of Father Seraphim visibly gladdened that woman, while the predicted punishment of her husband, should he fail to reform, greatly troubled her. More than once afterward she and her household and acquaintances pondered the meaning of the elder’s simple yet strange gift; but none of them could explain its significance. At last the dreadful hour came in which the meaning of the gift became clear and the prophecy of Father Seraphim was fulfilled. One day the sky began to fill from all sides with terrible thunderclouds, and by evening a fearsome storm had gathered. All the people of Kadom turned to God in prayer.

The woman who had visited Father Seraphim also began to pray together with her husband; meanwhile two of her small children were sleeping during that fearsome time, one near the window and the other a little farther away. Suddenly a powerful thunderclap burst directly over their house, and in one instant, in the wake of a lightning flash, the wooden cornice was torn from the window and splintered into the finest splinters; the greater part of them were driven into the face and beard of the woman’s husband. Struck by this blow, he lived only a very short while and soon died.

Meanwhile neither the children, who were sleeping almost right by the window, nor the brackets holding the cornice in the window frame, nor the mother, who was praying beside her husband, was touched in the least by that very same blow. After that, the poor woman recalled the words of Father Seraphim and understood the full meaning of his seemingly strange gift.

To Father Antony, the superior of the Vysokogorsky Hermitage, he predicted an unexpected transfer to another monastery. The reader has already encountered cases of such prophecies earlier in the life of Father Seraphim. The present circumstance came about as follows.

In January 1831, Father Antony set out to see Father Seraphim in Sarov for guidance, on account of persistent thoughts about death that were causing him great distress. Arriving in Sarov in the evening and stopping nowhere on the way, Father Antony went directly to Father Seraphim’s cell. Before reaching it he encountered some of the brothers of the Sarov Hermitage, who told him that Father Seraphim had not yet returned from his hermitage. It was already close to five o’clock in the evening and growing dark. The newcomer stopped, uncertain whether to go somewhere or to wait there. At that moment the brothers standing with him, catching sight of the elder approaching from a distance, announced: “There—Father Seraphim is coming.” The elder walked in his usual attire, with a sack on his shoulders, leaning on an axe. Father Antony immediately went up to him and bowed in the customary manner.

“What is it?” the elder asked him.

“I have come to you, father, with a troubled soul,” Father Anthony answered.

“Come, come, my joy, into the cell,” the elder said warmly.

They entered together. Alone in the cell, Father Anthony implored the elder Seraphim to tell him plainly: would what his sorrowful thoughts were suggesting actually come to pass? Was death truly drawing near?

“Whether I am sitting in my cell,” the superior Anthony said, “or whether I go out into the monastery grounds, I have a feeling that I am seeing the hermitage for the last time. From this I conclude that I will soon die, and I have already chosen a spot for my grave.”

The superior had come to Father Seraphim in order to receive, if death were indeed approaching, the elder’s blessing to spend the remaining time in stillness and attentive preparation for eternal life.

“I wish to know about my death,” Father Anthony concluded, “solely in order to change my way of life—so that, resigning my duties, I might devote my remaining days to silent watchfulness.” He added that news of his death would hold no terror for him.

Father Seraphim listened to the account without changing his posture, holding the superior Anthony by the hand. When the latter had finished, the blessed elder looked at him with love and said:

“You are mistaken, my joy—quite mistaken! The providence of God is entrusting you with a great lavra.”

Father Anthony thought that the elder Seraphim was trying to distract him from his sorrowful thoughts, and so, interrupting him, he said:

“Father! That will not comfort me or quiet my thoughts. I implore you—tell me directly: are my thoughts of death a sign from God of my imminent end? If so, I will ask for your prayers for my soul and will receive your word in peace and gratitude. I wish to meet the hour of death with fitting preparation.”

Father Seraphim answered with angelic gentleness:

“Your thoughts are mistaken; I tell you that the providence of God is entrusting you with a great lavra.”

The superior replied: “How could the Vyskogorsk Hermitage ever become a lavra? God grant that it does not fall lower than where it stands now.”

To Father Anthony’s great astonishment, the elder Seraphim, without changing his mind, began to ask him to receive hospitably any of the brothers from Sarov who might come to the lavra, or whom he himself might send.

Still under the same impression as before, the superior continued:

“Father! Who from Sarov would want to transfer to the poor Vyskogorsk Hermitage? And if anyone wished to, or if you sent anyone, you know my constant readiness to do whatever you desire—but in practice this cannot happen.”

Father Seraphim, as though walking the same road without wavering, said: “Do not forsake my orphans when the time comes to you!”

The superior could restrain himself no longer. In a surge of boundless love and reverence for the elder, he rushed to him, embraced him, and wept for a long time. Not grasping the meaning of the words spoken earlier, he fastened his attention on the word “orphans”; it seemed to him that the elder was speaking of his own impending death. Blessed Seraphim continued: “Remember my parents, Isidor and Agafya.” Then he began to counsel him: to submit in all things to the will of the Lord; to be diligent in prayer; to fulfill his duties strictly; to be merciful and forbearing toward the brothers: “Be a mother to the brothers,” he said, “not a father—and in general be merciful to all, and humble in yourself. Humility and carefulness in life,” he said, “is the beauty of the virtues.” Then Father Seraphim embraced the superior several times, blessed him with the cross that hung on his chest, and said:

“Now go in the name of the Lord. It is time for you—they are waiting for you!”

As he left the cell, the superior could not account to himself for what the words of the blessed elder meant, or with what he had departed from the cell. Nevertheless, like a treasure, he laid the elder’s words up in his heart. The thought of death remained as though suppressed by fresh impressions, yet had not yet been resolved.

On leaving the cell, Father Anthony was met by a messenger sent from the Sarov abbot, Father Nifont, with an invitation to call on him. That was what the elder’s words had meant: “It is time for you—they are waiting for you.”

After visiting with Abbot Nifont, who lay ill in bed at that time, Father Anthony took his leave and hurried back to his hermitage on matters of the community. At the guesthouse he found his carriage already prepared and set off on the road with an unsettled impression, wishing to give himself over to reflection in solitude.

The horses trotted quietly homeward. Nothing, it seemed, prevented the superior, Father Anthony, from sinking into the affairs, circumstances, and thoughts that occupied him. Then suddenly he heard the monk riding with him, sitting up front, begin to weep, unable to hold back his tears or compose himself.

When the superior asked with concern what he was weeping about, the monk replied that upon arriving at Sarov he had met Father Seraphim returning from the hermitage to his cell in the monastery, who had said to him: “Now you are also facing a parting from your superior.” He said nothing more, only adding: “Go and call him to me.” So precisely did Father Seraphim know of the impending change in the life of Superior Anthony.

Meanwhile time passed; January went by, then February; March came, and with it Great Lent. On the second day of the month, a Monday in the first week of the fast, after performing his turn at the unceasing reading of the Psalter—which each brother carried out for two hours—the superior went to his place. There a letter from the Metropolitan of Moscow was brought to him. Father Anthony went into his cell. In the letter His Eminence Filaret invited the superior to take the position of vicar at the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra, owing to the death of Archimandrite Afanasy. Enclosed was also a note to the Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod, Afanasy, requesting the prompt release of Father Anthony from his duties as superior of the Vyskogorsk Hermitage and his departure for Moscow.

From that moment all the words of the elder Seraphim became clear to Father Anthony—words spoken two months before, determining his transfer to a great lavra, at a time when the previous vicar was still alive and well and there had been no talk of replacing him.

The person who shared this account with us added that the events following Father Anthony’s transfer to the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra, also foretold by the elder Seraphim, had all been fulfilled and continued to be fulfilled with the greatest exactness, as though Father Seraphim had been reading the future destinies of men from the book of God’s decrees.

It is fitting here to cite two letters about Father Seraphim written to the abbot of the Pavlo-Obnorsk Monastery, Father Joasaph, by two members of the clergy.

I

In your letter you express the thought that Father Seraphim gave prophecies to my father during the latter’s visits to the Sarov Hermitage while still alive. From my father I heard only two prophetic predictions spoken by Father Seraphim, which I can affirm on my priestly oath. The second: in the village of Lesnoye Konobeyevo, where my father served as a priest, there were two wooden churches; Father Seraphim had told my father four years in advance that your churches would fall. My father, being firm in spirit and well versed in Holy Scripture, replied to those words as follows:

Your Reverence, our churches are of solid construction and rest on stone foundations, so it would be difficult for them to collapse—but he repeated just the same: “No, they will fall.” My father, after thinking, said to him: You, Father Seraphim, are speaking of my bodily temple—citing to this end the words of the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. ch. 6, v. 19). He repeated: I am speaking of material churches, and you will build a church of stone. To this my father replied that he was not in a position to do so. He said to him: The Kazan Queen of Heaven will assist you, and your landowner will not abandon you in this; and during the construction of the church, positions as archpriest will be offered to you in cities—do not agree to leave your village, do not exchange eternal glory for temporal glory. And indeed, four years later both wooden churches burned down in a great fire, as did the entire village of Konobeyevo; this was in 1828. After this, my father placed all his hope in the swift Protectress and, leaving his family—at that time two sons and two daughters were still unsettled, as was the household—he set out for Tambov to His Eminence Evgeny to ask his blessing, and obtaining from the Ecclesiastical Consistory a collection book for the construction of a new stone church, he traveled for this purpose for seven years through various provinces, visited Moscow twice, and with the help of the Queen of Heaven laid the foundation for a stone church the very year after the fire. The landowner, for every amount that my father collected in a given year by means of the collection book, ordered a third of the capital to be issued from his estate office for the building of the church. Thus, with the help of the Queen of Heaven, by 1835 the main church—a magnificent structure—was already built and consecrated in honor of the Renewal of the Temple of the Resurrection of Christ, and two side-chapels had previously been consecrated: the first in honor of the Holy Trinity, the second in honor of the Kazan Mother of God, who, despite limited means, helped my father to build the church. During the construction of the church, positions as archpriest in cities were indeed offered to my father, but he, remembering the words of Father Seraphim, could not bring himself to leave this village. That is the first prophecy of the universally beloved Father Seraphim. The second prediction was made by Father Seraphim to my father regarding a family matter—specifically this: my father wished that one of us two sons would succeed him in his priestly position (a third son was much older and had by that time entered monastic life). Father Seraphim therefore asked him about me and my middle brother (at the time we were both studying in the lower grades)—which of us he would bless to take his place. Father Seraphim asked my father: whom do you wish? My father answered: my middle son, Nikolai. “No, the younger son will take your place.” And indeed, I, a sinner, did succeed to my father’s position; I have served as a priest for twenty-seven years; I lived with my father for sixteen years in the same house; I served at the church on the Field side of Konobeyevo, while my father served at his own, the church he had built. These two sides are separated by only the river Tsna. When his strength declined, my father handed his position over to me and remained in the office of dean, after which, as noted above, in 1857 he peacefully gave up his spirit to the Lord God. Would you care to write about this to my elder brother, Father Archimandrite Nikon, in Sevastopol, Tauric Province—the superior of the Balaklava St. George’s Monastery—and to our cousin His Eminence Filaret, Archbishop of Chernigov and Nezhin? Our fathers were brothers by blood and served at the same church (my father as archpriest, theirs as priest); they know more about this than I do. They visited the Sarov Hermitage, it seems, as many as twice, and had the personal happiness of seeing Father Seraphim; when they were studying in the seminary he foretold to them that they would enter monastic life. He told my brother that he would be in the place bearing the letters A and N, where his grandfather was buried; the grandfather had been a priest in the village of Konobeyevo, then handed his position over to my father and went to the Cherneyev Monastery (the monastery is twenty versts from our village). Our grandfather passed away at that monastery, and by Father Seraphim’s prophecy my brother was indeed directly consecrated to the rank of archimandrite at the Cherneyev Monastery. I can share with you no further information, and I ask for your holy prayers over me.

Your Reverence’s humble servant—of Tambov Province, Shatsk District, the village of Lesnoye Konobeyevo—Dean, Archpriest Vasily Dmitriev Konobeyevsky.

May 16, 1865.

II

Your letter of the 19th of November I received on the 12th of December and herewith reply to it. Indeed, in my youth, before completing my seminary course, in 1827, I lived at the Sarov Hermitage for up to three weeks in the month of August by the command of the man of God, Father Seraphim, and during that time I was repeatedly honored with private conversation with Father Seraphim, in which he said to me: why do you wish to become a monk—surely you find marriage repugnant? I answered: I have never had any ill thoughts about the holy mystery of marriage, but I wish to become a monk in order to serve the Lord more freely. After this, putting on his epitrachelion, the elder said: blessed is your path! But see that you write down the following words of mine—not on paper, but on your heart.

This is the precious counsel given to me by the God-inspired elder. It is more precious to me than anything in the world. The instructions of the man of God I, unworthy as I am, receive on a level with the instructions of the holy fathers of Athos and Sinai. I would not have told this to anyone, but your letter compelled me to reveal what the elder imprinted on my heart—and what, since his death, remains indelible in my soul.

In the second conversation, Father Seraphim said: “I know your father. Your village and two churches with their bell towers will burn, but your father is destined to build a new, magnificent stone church with a bell tower and two outbuildings; on the western side there will be an outbuilding for the poor, and after a second fire he himself will have occasion to live in one of them.” All the prediction of the man of God was fully fulfilled. The village and churches burned in 1828, and in the 1840s there was a second fire in which the home of the father, Archpriest Konobeyevsky, burned, and he was obliged to live for a long time in the outbuilding that had been built by the church.

“Well now—do you have a cousin?” Father Seraphim asked. I answered: I do. “He is studying at the academy; he was born with a gift; he will season, season everything right up until his death.” This precious prediction referred to His Eminence Filaret of Chernigov. “You have a sick niece with you—bring her to me tomorrow.”

The next day I brought my niece with me, a girl of fifteen, and led her into Father Seraphim’s cell. He took a vessel of oil, anointed her brow, eyes, ears, and hands, saying: “The servant of God, the nun, is being anointed.” (This girl was later tonsured as a nun in the Tambov women’s monastery.)

“Farewell—come back to me in nine days.” That time was a sorrowful one for me, for blasphemous thoughts assailed me so violently that I could not enter the church; I was on the point of leaving the hermitage, but Hieromonk Hilarion restrained me, saying: “The elder knows what he is doing.” When the nine days had passed, worn down by the enemy’s assaults, I could barely make it to the entrance hall. As I approached his cell and had not yet had time to say the prayer, Father Seraphim opened the door and fell at my feet, saying: “Forgive me for the temptation you have suffered—it was so that you would know what sorrows you will face when you enter monastic life; but do not lose heart!” After this he put on his stole, heard my confession, and ordered me to receive Holy Communion at the late Liturgy; and as soon as I had received it, all the darkness departed from me into the dark.

In the third and final conversation, Father Seraphim said: “When you go to become a monk, you will have to start from the mother’s cradle—from your own diocese—and only then will you be sent to a distant land. Do not lose heart, and sing with a glad spirit: ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.’”

During my three-week stay I had occasion to observe in Father Seraphim an extraordinary gift of clairvoyance. A government official from Nizhny Novgorod, holding the rank of general, had arrived with his family to receive counsel and a blessing from the elder. Several times he came to the door and was not admitted—though his family was received—and he himself could only hear through the door the voice and words of Father Seraphim: “I am not at home; this is not a convenient time for me.” The official was puzzled by these words and could not understand them, and he earnestly wished to have them explained. Seeing that I went to see the elder often, he asked me to accompany him; and when we had said the prayer, Father Seraphim opened the door and received the official warmly. To his words—that he had come five times and had not been deemed worthy to receive a blessing—Father Seraphim replied: “Here is why I did not receive you: because your own servants say to those who come to you in their need, ‘The master is not at home; it is not a convenient time.’ By that refusal you anger your neighbor and so anger God himself.” The general, receiving this instruction with Christian humility, bowed at his feet and promised never to allow such a thing again.

Asking your holy prayers for my unworthiness, with my highest esteem I remain forever the abbot of the Balaklava St. George Monastery, Nikon.

December 17, 1865.

More than once he made prophecies to the Sarov Hermitage concerning events that touched it in one way or another, both near and distant. When, for example, the first cholera epidemic appeared in Russia, Father Seraphim openly foretold that it would come neither to Sarov nor to Diveyevo. The Sarov elders, who had seen Father Seraphim with their own eyes and heard his encouraging conversations, were witnesses that these prophecies of his were fulfilled with complete exactness—so much so that during the first cholera epidemic not a single person died in either Diveyevo or Sarov. There was also the time when Major General Anton Yefimovich Makhotin came to him, together with his wife who had faith in the elder, to receive a blessing and instruction. Father Seraphim greeted them warmly and spoke with him graciously. This happened on a Friday. The elder asked the visitors how long they intended to stay at the monastery and advised them not to depart before Sunday, after the late Liturgy: “On Sunday, in our monastery,” he said, “there will be a celebration and a thanksgiving service.” The general inquired about the reason for this celebration and thanksgiving service from a monk at the guesthouse and even from the prior, Father Nifont. All replied that there was no celebration planned or anticipated. But while the prior was discussing this with the general, a monastery servant entered and handed over a packet of letters received from the post. Among the papers, completely unexpectedly for everyone, turned out to be a decree announcing the birth of a grand duchess, on account of which the following day, Sunday, a solemn thanksgiving service to God was performed in the Sarov cathedral church before the Liturgy, and bells rang throughout the monastery all day long. This account was concluded by the general with the remark that Father Igumen Nifont shared his astonishment at that time over Father Seraphim’s gift of clairvoyance.

The Sarov forest under Igumen Nifont was already yielding great benefit to the monastery. Everyone had come to look upon it as a source of income for the community; yet Father Seraphim foresaw and foretold well in advance a storm that broke many trees in the forest, over which the Sarov authorities were greatly grieved.

Father Seraphim told Alexei Guryevich Vorotilov more than once that some day three powers would rise up against Russia and greatly exhaust her; but that for the sake of Orthodoxy, the Lord would have mercy on her and preserve her. At the time, these words, being a prophecy of the future, were not understood; but subsequent events showed that the elder had been speaking of the Crimean campaign.

From the time he emerged from seclusion, the elder ate only once a day, and always in the evening. His clothing during this period was not uniform. He always wore a cassock of black heavy cloth. In summer he put on a white linen smock over it, and in winter he wore a sheepskin coat and mittens. In autumn and early spring he wore a kaftan of thick black Russian cloth. Against rain and heat he put on a half-mantle made of a whole piece of leather with cut openings for putting it on. Over his clothing he girded himself with a white and always clean towel and wore his copper cross. For monastery work in summer he went out in bast shoes, in winter in felt boots; when going to church for the services he put on leather shoes as was fitting. On his head he wore a kamilavka in both winter and summer. Moreover, when required by the monastery’s rule, he put on his mantle; and when approaching to receive Holy Communion, he vested in his stole and cuffs and then, without removing them, received pilgrims in his cell. A wealthy man who had visited Father Seraphim and observed his poverty began to say: “Why do you wear such rags?” Father Seraphim replied: “The royal prince Joasaph counted the monastic mantle given him by the hermit Varlaam as higher and more precious than the royal purple” (Menaion, November 19th).

Father Seraphim struggled very strictly against sleep. In his later years it became known that he would give himself over to nightly repose sometimes in the entrance hall and sometimes in his cell. He slept sitting on the floor, with his back leaning against the wall and his legs stretched out before him. At other times he would rest his head on a stone or on a wooden block. Sometimes he would lie down on the sacks, bricks, and logs that were in his cell. As he drew near to the moment of his departure, he began to take his rest in the following manner: he would kneel down and sleep face to the floor, resting on his elbows with his hands supporting his head.

His monastic self-denial and his love and devotion to the Lord and the Mother of God were so great that when one gentleman, Ivan Yakovlevich Karatayev, came to him for a blessing in 1831 and asked whether he would like to send any word to his own brother and other relatives in Kursk—to which city Karatayev was traveling—the elder, pointing to the icons of the Savior and the Mother of God, said with a smile: “These are my kin; but for living relatives I am already a living dead man.” On another occasion some Kursk merchants stopped in to see Father Seraphim after the Makaryev fair. Having blessed them, the elder asked: “Did you trade well?” They told him about their trading. When all conversations with the elder were finished and they were receiving a blessing for their journey, the merchants asked: “What shall we tell your little brother, Father?” “Tell him,” replied Father Seraphim, “that I pray for him to the Lord and His Most Pure Mother day and night.” With that they departed, and the elder, raising his hands on high, repeated several times in rapture: “There is nothing better than the monastic life, there is nothing better than the monastic life!”

The time left to Father Seraphim beyond sleep and attending to those who came to him he spent in prayer. Fulfilling his prayer rule with all diligence and zeal for the salvation of his own soul, he was at the same time a great intercessor and advocate before God for all living and departed Orthodox Christians. For this purpose, while reading the Psalter, he unfailingly recited from his whole heart the following prayers at each psalm:

In his prayer for the departed and the living, a special significance was held by the wax candles that burned in his cell before the holy icons. This was explained in November 1831 by the elder Father Seraphim himself in a conversation with N. A. Motovilov. I—related Nikolai Alexandrovich—seeing at Father Seraphim’s cell a great many oil lamps, and in particular many piles of wax candles both large and small on various round trays, on which the wax that had dripped from the candles over many years had formed mounds as it were of wax, thought to myself: “Why does Father Seraphim light such a multitude of candles and lamps, creating an unbearable heat in his cell from all the fire?” And he, as though compelling my thoughts to fall silent, said to me:

“You wish to know, your God-lover, why I light so many lamps and candles before the holy icons of God? Here is why. I have, as you know, many persons who are devoted to me and who are benefactors to my little mill orphans. They bring me oil and candles and ask me to pray for them. When I read my prayer rule I commemorate them, first once in the beginning. But since, on account of the multitude of names, I cannot repeat them at every place in the rule where it is required—for that would leave me without enough time to complete my rule—I place all these candles for them as an offering to God: for each person one candle, for some I light one large candle for several persons at once, and for others I keep a lamp burning continually; and where I ought to commemorate them according to the rule, I say: ‘Lord, remember all those people, your servants, for whose souls I, poor Seraphim, have lit before you these candles and lamps.’ And that this is not some human invention of mine, poor Seraphim, nor merely a simple act of devotion grounded on nothing divine, I will cite in support the words of divine Scripture. In the Bible it is said that Moses heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him: ‘Moses, Moses! Say to your brother Aaron that he shall light lamps before Me day and night; for this is pleasing before Me, and is a sacrifice acceptable to Me.’ And so, your God-lover, that is why the holy Church of God has received the custom of lighting lamps, or oil lamps, in the holy churches and in the homes of faithful Christians before the holy icons of the Lord, the Mother of God, the holy Angels, and the holy men who have been pleasing to God.”

While praying for the living—and especially for those who had asked his intercessory help—Father Seraphim always commemorated the departed as well, and he offered prayers for them in his private cell prayers according to the rule of the Orthodox Church. On May 25, 1832, a certain person came to him and afterward wrote down her conversations with him.

Speaking of many things, the elder recalled the Diveyevo community, praised the sisters for their way of life and their labors, and then, with a sigh, said a prayer of repose for the newly departed maiden Elena. This was Elena Vasilyevna Mantorova, already known to us—the head of the Seraphimo-Diveyevo community. That day was the fortieth day after her death.

On another occasion Father Seraphim himself recounted the following circumstances: “Two nuns died, both of whom had been abbesses. The Lord revealed to me how their souls were led through the aerial toll-houses, how they were examined at the toll-houses and then condemned. For three days I, poor one, prayed, asking the Mother of God on their behalf. The Lord, in His goodness, by the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, had mercy on them: they passed through all the aerial toll-houses and received forgiveness from the mercy of God.”

Father Igumen Joasaph, in the world the novice Ivan Tikhonov, relates the following concerning a wound that Father Seraphim received from an evil spirit: “A neighboring peasant caused Father Seraphim a great deal of distress, doing everything he could to harm the Diveyevo community—so much so that I once complained to him bitterly and asked him to take some extreme measures against this wicked man to drive him away from the community. Father Seraphim told me to come to him in his cell that evening; and when I came, he began to speak to me as follows: ‘Concerning this man of whom you spoke to me—I too will say that he is bestial in nature; but let us leave him to the will of God and the Heavenly Queen; She will deal with him.’ And this was indeed fulfilled in due course. ‘But if you try to remove him now, know that he can still do you and the community much harm.’ And after these words the elder suddenly assumed a menacing aspect and, by all his movements seeming to show himself armed against some adversary, said: ‘But when you have to stand against an enemy—then you must stand.’ Then, resuming his former meek appearance, he revealed a wonderful secret about himself—namely: how he had once learned, though he did not explain whether by revelation or whether someone had told him, that one utterly wretched, lost soul was as if in the very claws of Satan; what she had sinned, the elder also did not explain; and how, when he stretched out his prayer on her behalf to the Savior and the Mother of God and saw her afterward, by God’s mercy, flying free from Satan’s claws as a perfectly pure dove; and how at last the satanic host, unable to bear its loss, poured out all its fury upon him. At this point the elder, as though by way of confirmation, unbuttoned his outer garment and, taking my hand, let me feel the wound that had been inflicted on him—already healed, by his account. I felt it and saw it: it was on the elder’s back between his shoulder blades, perfectly soft, and resembled a hanging piece of flesh the size of a goose egg. He was buried with this wound. Having let me see and feel it, the elder added that the pain from this affliction was as sharp as the pain in a finger when one holds it to a burning candle—that is, if it were burning but not burning up.” “And had not the Lord and the Heavenly Queen,” said the elder, “healed me, no one else could have healed me.”

On one occasion it was observed that during prayer the elder Seraphim was standing in the air. This account was given by Princess E. S. Sh.

A sick nephew of hers, G. Ya., had arrived from St. Petersburg. Without delay she took him to Sarov to see Father Seraphim. The young man was gripped by such illness and weakness that he could not walk on his own and was carried into the monastery enclosure on his bed. Father Seraphim at that time was standing at the door of his monastic cell, as though waiting to receive the bedridden man. He immediately asked that the sick man be brought into his cell, and, turning to him, said: “You, my joy, pray, and I will pray for you—only be sure to lie as you are lying now and do not turn to the other side.” The sick man lay there for a long time, obeying the elder’s words. But his patience weakened, and curiosity urged him to look and see what the elder was doing. Turning around, he saw Father Seraphim standing in the air in a posture of prayer, and from the shock and extraordinary nature of the vision he cried out. Father Seraphim, having completed his prayer and coming over to him, said: “Now you will be telling everyone that Seraphim is a saint, praying in the air… The Lord will have mercy on you… But look—guard yourself with silence and tell no one until the day of my passing, or else your illness will return.” G. Ya. did in fact rise from his bed and, though leaning on others, walked out of the cell on his own feet. At the monastery guesthouse he was besieged with questions about what Father Seraphim had done and said—but, to everyone’s astonishment, he did not say a single word. The young man, having recovered completely, returned again to St. Petersburg and some time later came back once more to the estate of Princess Sh. There he learned that the elder Seraphim had passed from his labors, and he then told the story of his prayer in the air. This one instance of such prayer was discovered by chance; but certainly the elder was raised into the air by the grace of God more than once during his prolonged prayer vigils.

One can say, without exaggeration, that all of Russia already knew and venerated Father Seraphim at that time; at the very least, the fame of the great ascetic spread everywhere. Well-known ascetics who lived at the same time as he, who knew the elder Seraphim in spirit, deeply respected his moral stature and gave others the most exalted testimonials about him, for everyone looked upon him as a city set on a hill. Priests and bishops of the Orthodox Church who led a spiritual and holy life had a deep reverence for the Sarov ascetic. Some bishops wrote letters to Father Seraphim and sought his counsel, though not a single one was found after the elder’s death. Anthony, Archbishop of Voronezh, frequently sent him gifts as well, especially holy icons—upon receiving which Father Seraphim, pointing to the likenesses of the saints, would often say: “See what personages show us the way to eternity!” By word and perhaps even in writing, Father Seraphim responded to the inquiries of the archpastors. Some of their letters he left without any reply. For Anthony, Archbishop of Voronezh, he bore a special love and respect, though he had never seen him; and whenever conversation turned to this archpastor, he called him “the great bishop of God.” Nothing had yet been heard of the holy one of God, Mitrofan; there had been as yet no revelations or visions—yet Father Seraphim, in a few words written in his own hand, was already congratulating His Grace Anthony on the opening of the holy relics of God’s servant Mitrofan. Anthony showed this note to certain persons; it is believed to be preserved to this day among his papers. In spirit Father Seraphim knew many of the contemporary priests who shone with piety and holiness of life; he deeply revered such men and would direct his visitors to them for edification and guidance. Among these is known Father Alexei Gnevashev, priest of the village of Basurman in Simbirsk Province, Kurmysh District, who died at the age of 85 on April 21, 1848. Father Seraphim considered him a great ascetic and would often speak of him thus: “This man, by his prayers for Christian souls, is like a candle lit before the throne of God. Here is a laborer who, though he has taken no monastic vows, stands above many ascetics. He shines like a star on the Christian horizon.”

In the life of the recluse Georgy of the Zadonsk Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery, published by Grigorov, there is included one incident that happened to Father Georgy and was recounted by him to the novice P. A., from whose notes it was extracted.

“One day,” says P. A., “coming to Father Georgy’s cell, I noticed an unfamiliar portrait on the wall and asked: ‘Whose is that?’ ‘Don’t you know?’ answered Georgy. ‘That is the late Father Seraphim of the Sarov Hermitage! His God-pleasing life was known to everyone’—and so the conversation continued about him. Among other things, Georgy, after a moment’s thought, said: ‘Do you know what he did to me? I suppose I should tell you. For a long time I was tormented by the thought of leaving this place and moving to some other monastery, more secluded—for here letters and visitors distract me greatly; sometimes it would be wrong to refuse, and sometimes it is necessary to reply because they write about serious matters. For nearly two years I struggled in indecision with this thought, telling no one about it; and meanwhile I was greatly troubled by it, turning over in my memory all the places where I might conveniently withdraw. One day my cell attendant came in to inform me that a pilgrim from the Sarov Hermitage had brought me greetings and a blessing from Father Seraphim, and beyond that had something to say to me personally by his commission. I gave my blessing for him to enter, and he began thus: Father Seraphim bids you be told—it is shameful, he says, to have sat so many years in seclusion and be overcome by such enemy-bred thoughts as to abandon your place. Go nowhere. The Most Holy Theotokos commands you to remain here. Having said this, the pilgrim bowed and went out, while I stood as though rooted to the spot, marveling at the miraculous revelation of my secret thoughts to someone who not only did not know me but had never seen me—and we had never even written to one another. However, coming to my senses shortly, I asked my cell attendant to call the pilgrim back to me, hoping to learn something more from him; but he could be found neither in the monastery nor outside it. From that time on my spirit was at peace, and I ceased to think about moving to another place.’”

Among the spiritual relationships of the elder Seraphim with other contemporary ascetics, and among their common endeavors directed toward one goal, the following case is extraordinarily remarkable. A certain townswoman of Tomsk, Maria Ikonnikova, who had traveled widely among the holy places, came to the city of Achinsk to the elder Daniel to receive his blessing for future pilgrimages. He met her before she could even reach his cell, and, casting upon her the most wrathful look, began to speak in a loud voice:

“What are you doing coming to me, you empty pilgrim? I have long been expecting you. Now you will remember me. Why do you wander about the world deceiving God and people? People give you money for candles and prayer services, and you spend it on your own whims: you traveled many stages by hired horse carts, spending money given to God; and in such-and-such a place you drank wine and bought so much of it; and in such-and-such a place you engaged in vain chatter. Now you have had enough wandering about the world. Go and live in Tomsk. Support yourself by your own handiwork—knit stockings. And when you grow old, collect alms for your sustenance. But listen well—travel no more across Russia.”

As he delivered this instructive speech, the elder threatened the pilgrim woman with his walking stick, and when he had finished his words, went into his cell. The pilgrim woman, bowing to him, set off for Tomsk without a word, settled at home, took up her handiwork, and resolved to wander no more.

Only after half a year had passed did relatives and acquaintances, on their way to Kiev, persuade Maria Ikonnikova to be their guide, as a seasoned traveler. At first she refused, but then went with them; and along the way, being in Sarov, she stopped in to see Father Seraphim for a blessing before the road. The elder received all her companions warmly, blessed them, gave them dried bread, but to their guide, Maria Ikonnikova, he said not a word, gave no blessing, and actually drove her away from himself. A week later the Tomsk travelers began to prepare for the journey, and Maria Ikonnikova, having resolved to ask Father Seraphim for a blessing for the road, approached the door of his cell and called out through tears: “Father Seraphim! Bless me for the journey—my companions want to leave.” And Father Seraphim, coming out of his cell, looked sternly at her and called out loudly:

“Why did you go roaming across Russia? Brother Daniel told you not to travel across Russia anymore. Now go back home!”

“Father! Bless me to go just this one last time,” said the pilgrim woman; “I will not travel anymore after this.”

“I have told you: go back; and to go forward you have no blessing!” the elder again called out loudly.

“Father,” said the pilgrim woman, “how am I to go back alone? It is such a long road, and I have not a single kopek to my name.”

“Go, go back!” Father Seraphim insisted. “Even without money you will be carried by horse all the way to Tomsk.”

After this the elder blessed her, gave her a single dried crust, and closed the door behind himself. The pilgrim woman said farewell to her companions and returned home. In Nizhny Novgorod she found fellow travelers—Tomsk merchants—who took her all the way to Tomsk. Such is the distance over which the servants of God see and hear one another in the spirit!

Knowing and revering holy people, acting for the good of his neighbors in accord with them both in spirit and in the purpose of the Christian faith, Father Seraphim also kept watch over brothers who had fallen into sin. In his cell, as already mentioned above, a great multitude of candles always burned before the holy icons. Visitors coming to the elder brought candles and oil for this purpose, and sometimes left money for purchasing them—which Father Seraphim did not always accept. Regarding this multitude of candles, Father Seraphim said the following: “If anyone has faith in me, poor Seraphim, then for that person a candle burns before the holy icon in my cell. And if a candle fell over, that was a sign for me that that person had fallen into mortal sin. Then I would kneel before the mercy of God and pray for him.” Thus Father Seraphim spoke to the peasant Vasily Petrovich Vavilov, who resided in the city of Arzamas, worked in Diveyevo, and enjoyed the elder’s particular attention and trust. So it came about that another of Father Seraphim’s favorites, Mr. Vorotilov, was on the point of falling into mortal sin. Father Seraphim, seeing this, began to pray on his knees, that the Lord might save his soul from that ruinous sin. The Lord is merciful: He saved him. And so, upon their next meeting, the elder noted to Vorotilov that at such-and-such a time and in such-and-such a place “we were, by the mercy of God, saved from hell by the prayers of poor Seraphim.”

One year and ten months before his death, Father Seraphim was found worthy of a visitation by the Mother of God.

This visitation took place in the early morning of the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1831. “Father,” recounted the elder Evpraxia of the Diveyevo community (in the world, Eudokia), “two days beforehand he told me to come to him on that day. When I arrived, he announced: ‘We shall have a vision of the Mother of God’—and, bending me down face-first, covered me with his mantle and read over me from a book. Then, raising me up, he said: ‘Well, now hold on to me and do not be afraid of anything.’ At that moment a sound arose, like the sound of a forest in a great wind. When it subsided, singing was heard, resembling church singing. Then the door of the cell opened of itself, it grew bright—brighter than daylight—and a fragrance filled the cell, like frankincense but better. Father was kneeling with his hands raised to heaven. I was frightened. Father rose and said: ‘Do not be afraid, child—this is no calamity; this is mercy sent to us from God. See, our most glorious, Most Pure Mistress, the Most Holy Theotokos, is coming to us!’ Two angels came in front, each holding in his hand a branch covered with freshly blossomed flowers. Their hair resembled golden-yellow flax and lay loosened on their shoulders. They took their places in front. After them came Saint John the Forerunner and Saint John the Theologian. Their clothing was white, gleaming with purity. After them came the Mother of God, and after Her, twelve maidens. The Queen of Heaven wore a mantle such as is depicted on the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos of Sorrows, gleaming and of indescribable beauty—I cannot say what color it was—fastened at the neck with a large round clasp adorned with crosses variously decorated, though with what I do not know, and I remember only that it shone with extraordinary light. The garment over which the mantle was worn was green, girded high with a belt. Over the mantle was something like a stole, and on the hands cuffs, which, like the stole, were adorned with crosses. In stature She seemed taller than all the maidens. On Her head was a lofty crown adorned with crosses of various designs, beautiful and wondrous, shining with such light that one could not look at it with one’s eyes—nor at the clasp, nor at the very face of the Queen of Heaven. Her hair was loosened on Her shoulders, and it was longer and more beautiful than that of the angels. The maidens walked after Her in pairs, wearing crowns, in garments of various colors, of various heights, with various faces and hair of various colors lying also on their shoulders; all were of great beauty, but some were more beautiful than others, and they stood in a circle around all of us. The Queen of Heaven was in the center. The cell became spacious, and the whole ceiling was filled with lights, as though of burning candles. It was brighter than midday; the light was of a special kind, unlike daylight—brighter and whiter than sunlight. I was frightened and fell. The Queen of Heaven came to me and, touching me with Her right hand, said: ‘Rise, maiden, and do not be afraid of us. Maidens just like you have come here with me.’ I did not feel myself rise. The Queen of Heaven was pleased to repeat: ‘Do not be afraid—We have come to visit you.’ Father Seraphim was no longer kneeling but standing before the Most Holy Theotokos, and She spoke with him as graciously as if with her own kinsman. Overcome with great joy, I asked Father Seraphim where we were—I thought I was no longer alive; then, when I asked him who this was, the Most Pure Theotokos told me to approach the maidens and ask them myself. They stood in order on either side, as they had walked: in the first places stood the great-martyrs Barbara and Catherine; in the second, the holy first-martyr Thekla and the holy great-martyr Marina; in the third, the holy great-martyr and queen Irene and the venerable Eupraxia; in the fourth, the holy great-martyrs Pelagia and Dorothea; in the fifth, the venerable Macrina and the martyr Justina; in the sixth, the holy great-martyr Juliana and the martyr Anisia. I approached each of them; each one told me her name and the feats of her martyrdom and life for Christ’s sake, in accordance with what is written about them in the Menaion; and all said: ‘It was not so easily that God granted us this glory—it came through suffering, through reproach. And you too shall suffer.’ The Most Holy Theotokos said much to Father Seraphim that the participant in the vision could not hear; but this she did hear: ‘Do not abandon my maidens’—meaning the Diveyevo sisters. Father Seraphim replied: ‘O Mistress! I am gathering them, but by myself I cannot govern them.’ To this the Queen of Heaven replied: ‘I will help you in everything, my beloved one. Lay obedience upon them; if they fulfill it, they shall be with you and near to Me; but if they lose their wisdom, they shall be deprived of the portion of these My close maidens—there shall be no such place and no such crown for them. Whoever offends them shall be struck by Me; whoever serves them for the sake of the Lord shall be remembered before God.’ Then, turning to me, She said: ‘Look at these My maidens and at their crowns: some of them have abandoned earthly kingdoms and riches, desiring the eternal and heavenly kingdom; they have loved voluntary poverty, they have loved the Lord alone—and for this, see what glory and honor they have been found worthy of. As it was before, so it is today. Only the former martyrs suffered openly, while today’s suffer in secret, with sorrows of the heart—and their reward will be the same.’ The vision ended with the Most Holy Theotokos saying to Father Seraphim: ‘Soon, my beloved one, you will be with us,’ and blessing him. And all the saints took leave of him: Saint John the Forerunner and John the Theologian blessed him, and the maidens exchanged handshakes with him. I was told: ‘This vision has been granted to you through the prayers of Father Seraphim, Mark, Nazarius, and Pachomius.’ And then in one instant everything became invisible. The vision lasted not less than an hour. Father, turning to me afterward, said: ‘See, dear Mother, what grace the Lord has deemed us, poor ones, worthy of. In this manner I have already had the twelfth visitation from God. And you too the Lord has deemed worthy. See what joy we have attained! We have reason for faith and hope in the Lord. Overcome the enemy, the devil, and against him be wise in all things; the Lord will help you in all things. Call on the Lord and the Mother of God for your help, and remember me, poor one, in your prayers. Remember and say in prayer: Lord, how shall I die? How, O Lord, shall I come to the terrible judgment? How, O Lord, shall I give answer for my deeds? O Queen of Heaven, help me!’”

10. Preparation for Death, the Passing, and the Burial

A year before his death, Father Seraphim felt extreme exhaustion of his spiritual—and still more of his physical—powers. He was now about seventy-two years old. The ordinary order of his life, established since the end of his seclusion, inevitably now began to change. The elder started going to his hermitage cell less often. He also found it burdensome to constantly receive visitors in the monastery. The people, accustomed to the idea of seeing Father Seraphim freely at any time, grieved that he had now begun to withdraw from their sight. Nevertheless, their devotion to him drove many to stay for no small time at the monastery guesthouse, in order to find an opportunity that would not be too burdensome for the aged elder—to see him and hear from his lips the desired word of instruction or comfort.

The elder Father Seraphim, as in former years, continued, though infrequently, to instruct people; through his prayers he granted healings to the sick and foretold future events. To this final year belong the following remarkable incidents from his dealings with those who visited him.

The rassophore monk of the Nizhny Novgorod Caves Monastery, Vasily, recounted the following circumstances of his meeting with the Sarov ascetic:

“In 1825, my father, a serf of Countess Yulia Samoylova from the village of Zyablitskoye Pogost, Muromsky district, Vladimir province, set out with his two young children—myself, six-year-old Vasily, and my brother Kirill—to the Sarov Hermitage to pray and receive the blessing of Father Seraphim. We arrived there on the eve of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy and Life-giving Cross of the Lord, and the following day, after the early Liturgy, we went to Father Seraphim. The God-pleasing elder, as he blessed us, told my father about me that I would not be his provider, and asked him to buy me a copy of the Gospel; and about my brother he said that he would live with his parents and help them. From that time on, my father and mother often reminded me of this prophecy.”

At the age of fourteen I wished to verify for myself the words of the clairvoyant elder, and with this purpose I asked my parents’ permission to visit Father Seraphim at the Sarov Hermitage—this was in 1832. When I came to the elder and wanted to ask him about my future life, he himself, anticipating my words, said to me: “My joy, you should enter a monastery.” When I replied that I was a lord’s man—a serf—he said: “Go; the Mother of God will help you, and the countess, your mistress, through the intercession of great people, will set you free.”

With this consoling prophecy and with Father Seraphim’s blessing, I set off for home.

Having reached the age of seventeen, I finally obtained my parents’ consent to enter monastic life, and while still a serf I entered the Sarov Hermitage. After two years, the Sarov abbot, Father Nifont, blessed me—having found me, through probation, capable of monastic obediences—to seek release from serfdom. This prompted me to travel to St. Petersburg, and there Divine Providence directed me to turn with my petition for obtaining the desired release to the superior of the Sergiyevskaya Hermitage, Father Archimandrite Ignaty. The kind superior immediately agreed to my request and soon did indeed secure that release for me. Upon presenting it to Father Nifont, I was admitted to the Sarov Hermitage as a novice, and from there transferred to the Nizhny Novgorod Pechersky Monastery. Thus was the prophecy of Father Seraphim fulfilled to the letter.

The noblewomen sisters, the maidens Ekaterina and Anna Vasilyevna Ladyzhensky, who were among the sisters of the Diveyevo community, related the following:

“In 1832, our own brother, O. V-ch Ladyzhensky, who later became chairman of the military commission in Orenburg, was sent to China to escort a spiritual mission. Since the road passed through Nizhny Novgorod, where we had our own grandmother—a reverend mother at the Krestovozdvizhensky Maiden’s Monastery—and wishing both to visit our venerable grandmother, respected by all who knew her and even by Father Seraphim himself, and also to see us, his sisters, who were then still living in Penza as laywomen, our brother summoned us to Nizhny Novgorod.”

He arrived there during Holy Week of Great Lent, right in the spring thaw season, and was obliged to wait there for better road conditions, all the more so because the bad roads had made him ill. During the last Turkish campaign he had been wounded in the left arm, and now the pain in the arm had returned, forcing him to take treatment and baths.

We four sisters, having the happiness of knowing Father Seraphim and cherishing a fervent faith in the prayers of the venerable Father Seraphim, took advantage of our brother’s involuntary delay and began urging him to make the journey with us to the Sarov Hermitage, so that he might be privileged to see and receive Father Seraphim’s blessing for such a long and dangerous journey.

After much effort he finally yielded to our request—not out of faith in the holiness of Father Seraphim’s life and his clairvoyance, for though he respected him he was far from sharing our feelings toward him, but solely to set our minds at rest, out of love for us, since we kept telling him ceaselessly that we would only be at peace about him once he had visited with reverence the elder whom we so deeply venerated.

On the eve of our departure we had a lengthy conversation and argument with our brother about holy icons. We called many icons miracle-working, while our brother challenged us, saying that to distinguish icons and to call some of them miracle-working was a matter of superstition, and that all icons were the same.

We set out for Sarov with the intention of spending a Sunday or some other feast day there; we wanted our brother to see Father Seraphim for the first time in church, when he would be receiving Holy Communion.

Upon arrival, we all went to the early Liturgy, at which Father Seraphim customarily received Communion; and when it ended, our brother went into the altar to receive Father Seraphim’s blessing there and to convey to him a few words from our grandmother the abbess, and from His Eminence Athanasius, who then governed the Nizhny Novgorod diocese and was later transferred to Tobolsk, where he died; while we returned to the guest cell we were occupying.

Our brother returned soon after, and we noticed a great change in him. His first words were a declaration that Father Seraphim had worked a miracle upon him. He told us: “While I was conveying to Father Seraphim what our grandmother and His Eminence had asked me to pass along, he took me by my ailing arm and squeezed it so firmly that only shame kept me from crying out; but now I feel absolutely no pain in the arm whatsoever.”

After the meal we all went into the forest to Father Seraphim’s hermitage; catching sight of him in the distance, sitting by his spring, we suggested that our brother go to him alone, while we remained at a distance to watch them. Our brother went, and was received by Father Seraphim, apparently with great kindness, for he blessed him and, seating him beside himself, conversed with him for about half an hour. At last Father Seraphim lifted his head and beckoned us with his hand to approach. By the time we drew near, he had already risen from his place, and we found him with a spade in his hands, digging in his garden beds. He was wearing a white smock and had a rag tied around his head; his shoulders were covered with a piece of leather. We received his blessing, and when our brother approached him as well, he said to him: “Wait, dear friend—I will come out to you in a moment.” With those words he went into his hermitage cell and immediately brought out half a prosphora, and handing it to our brother said to him with affection: “Take this—from my very soul.” Then he added, as if with sadness: “You and I will not see each other again.” Moved, our brother replied: “No, dear Father, I will come to you again tomorrow; give me your blessing.” But Father Seraphim repeated: “You and I will not see each other again.” Our brother objected once more: “Dear Father, I will stop in to see you on my way back as well”; but Father Seraphim said for the third time: “No, you and I will not see each other again.”

After taking leave of Father Seraphim we set off for the monastery; the sisters walked ahead, while I—sinful Ekaterina—walked a little behind them with our brother. Noticing the great change in him, I asked him simply what had caused it, and he answered me thus: “Now I am completely convinced of the holiness and clairvoyance of this wondrous man. Everything you have said about him is true, and you have not exaggerated anything at all.” Before this he had usually spoken of him in these terms: “I believe he leads a good life, but you all exaggerate everything far too much.”

I asked our brother to tell me everything in greater detail, and he related the following: “When I went to him for his blessing and explained that I was traveling to China, and had made a special stop at Sarov on that account, to receive his blessing and ask for his holy prayers for such a distant journey, Father Seraphim blessed me and, seating me beside him, said: ‘What is my sinful blessing worth, dear friend? Ask the help of the Queen of Heaven; here in our warm cathedral we have the icon of the Life-giving Spring—have a moleben served before it; it is miracle-working, it will help you!’ And then he continued with a smile: ‘Have you read, dear friend, the life of Ioannikios the Great? I recommend you read it. He was a military man, very good and kind, and in the beginning it was not that he was not a Christian; he believed in the Lord, but he erred regarding icons in just the same way as you.’ And with those words he pointed at me with his hand. I was greatly struck by those words.”

“Father Seraphim then continued to converse with me kindly and to give me instructions, especially that I myself should be merciful if I wished God to be merciful toward me. In conclusion he prophesied that I would fulfill the commission laid upon me and would return safely.”

From the hermitage we went straight to the warm cathedral, because our brother, inflamed with faith and love for Father Seraphim, wished to fulfill his counsel at once and have a moleben served to the Queen of Heaven. After the moleben he borrowed from the hieromonk Anastasy, whom we knew, the Chetyi-Minei, found there the life of Ioannikios the Great, and discovered that Ioannikios was indeed a military man, good and compassionate; that he had believed in the Lord but had erred regarding icons; and finally that he had found a reclusive elder similar to Father Seraphim, who had led him out of his error. Thus our brother departed from Sarov with full faith and love for Father Seraphim. He discarded all his medicines, for he had no further need of them: he felt himself healed both in soul and body, and wrote to us from the road that he had never felt himself so well.

Having fulfilled his commission exactly, by the grace of God and through the prayers of the righteous man, the commission given him by the August Monarch, he returned to his homeland and wished on his way back to visit Father Seraphim once more; but we informed him that the wondrous servant of God was no more. And thus was fulfilled the prophecy he had spoken to our brother at their parting: “You and I will not see each other again.”

We think it not superfluous to include here one further circumstance that occurred with our brother and which demonstrates the gracious gift of clairvoyance in Father Seraphim.

On departing from Sarov, our brother had entrusted the aforementioned Hieromonk Anastasy with the task of delivering to Father Seraphim from him, as a token of his devotion, some small gift of no great value. Father Seraphim, upon receiving it, was pleased to say of our brother that “he will be here again, but not alone; I,” said he, “have told him not to abandon his wife.” Father Anastasy conveyed this news to me—says Ekaterina Vasilyevna—when I arrived at Sarov several months after our brother’s departure; and I had no doubt whatever of the truth of the righteous man’s words, although our brother had said nothing to us about any intention to marry. On returning home I wrote to our brother about what I had heard, and he replied to us thus: “The wondrous Seraphim has not erred in this matter either: he penetrated the secret of my soul; I have chosen someone after my own heart and have firmly resolved to marry the one I have chosen.”

Ekaterina Vasilyevna recounts one further incident concerning Father Seraphim. “On one of our visits to the Sarov Hermitage, my sister donated her diamond earrings toward an icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God; and to conceal this act, she handed them, in my presence, to the hieromonk Damaskinos whom we knew, with a request to pass them on to the superior and to say nothing to anyone. This took place at the porch of Father Seraphim’s cell. We had barely followed him into the elder’s entrance hall when he greeted my sister, who had made the donation, with the most joyful expression and with these words: ‘The Mother of God will reward you for your sacrifice, both here and in the life to come.’ We had been left after our parents’ deaths entirely orphaned in every respect, and took comfort above all in the fact that the elder, among his other saving counsels, always told us ‘he would comfort us, that he would pray for us.’ And indeed we now consider ourselves fully comforted, for the Lord God and the Queen of Heaven, through the prayers of Father Seraphim, deemed us worthy—two sisters, Ekaterina and Anna—to enter among the sisters of the Diveyevo community and to offer at least the smallest mite of our devotion in the service of this holy monastery.”

Particularly remarkable in its content is the conversation of Elder Seraphim with Mr. Bogdanov. On Christmas Day 1832, he was privileged to see Father Seraphim at the Sarov Hermitage. “I,” said Mr. Bogdanov, “came to the infirmary church for the early Liturgy before the service had begun, and saw Father Seraphim sitting on the floor at the right choir. I went to him at once for his blessing, and he, having blessed me, quickly withdrew into the altar, answering my request to converse with him: ‘Later, later.’ After the Liturgy ended, when I again approached him, he greeted me with the words: ‘Through the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God, all will be well!’ I then ventured to ask him to set a time for me to hear saving counsel from him. To this the elder replied: ‘Two feast days. No time need be appointed. The holy Apostle James, the brother of the Lord, teaches us: If the Lord wills and we live, we will do this or that.’ I brought my daughter Vera to him, and he, blessing us both, gave us each some dried bread.”

“At last, having prepared in advance the questions I wished to put to the elder, I went to him in his cell. He met me in the entrance hall, received the candles and oil that I had brought on others’ behalf, and gave his blessing to converse with him.”

“I asked him: should I continue my service, or live in the country? Father Seraphim answered: ‘You are still young—serve.’ ‘But my service is not going well,’ I objected. ‘That is a matter of your own will,’ the elder replied. ‘Do good; the Lord’s way is the same everywhere! The enemy will be with you everywhere. Whoever receives Communion will be saved anywhere; but whoever does not receive Communion—I cannot say. Where the master is, there the servant will be. Humble yourself; keep the peace; be angry at no one for any reason.’”

“I asked further: will my matter come to a good end? The elder answered: ‘One must divide amicably with one’s relatives when there is something to divide. Two brothers had two lakes; one found everything multiplying, the other did not. That one wanted to seize by force what was not his. One man’s field needs twelve fathoms, another’s more. Do not covet.’”

“Then I asked: should one teach children languages and other sciences? And he answered: ‘What harm is there in knowing something?’ I, sinful man, then thought to myself—reasoning in worldly fashion—that he himself would need to be learned to answer this; and at once I heard from the clairvoyant elder a reproof: ‘How should I, a mere child, answer this against your wisdom? Ask someone wiser.’”

“In the evening, when I came to him, his first words were: ‘It is better to leave off conversation. For every idle word we shall give account to God.’ But I entreated him to continue the saving conversation and put to him the following question: is concealing deeds undertaken in the name of the Lord—when one knows one will receive mockery sooner than praise for them—anything like Peter’s denial; and what is one to do when faced with contradiction? To this the elder answered me thus: ‘The holy Apostle Paul in his epistle to Timothy says: drink wine instead of water; and immediately afterward: do not be drunk with wine. For this one needs discernment. Do not trumpet it abroad; but where it is necessary, do not stay silent.’”

“I asked further: what does he bid me read? And received the answer: ‘The Gospel—four lessons each day, one lesson from each Evangelist—and also the life of Job. Though his wife said to him: better to die; yet he endured everything and was saved. And do not forget to send gifts to those who have wronged you.’”

“To my questions about whether one ought to seek medical treatment in illness, and how to conduct one’s life in general, he answered: ‘Illness cleanses sins. Yet still it is your choice. Walk the middle path; do not take on more than your strength can bear—you will fall, and the enemy will mock you; if you are young, restrain yourself. Once the devil urged a righteous man to leap into a pit; the man was about to agree, but Gregory the Theologian held him back. Here is what to do: if you are reviled—do not revile in return; if you are persecuted—endure; if you are slandered—give praise; judge yourself, and God will not judge you; submit your will to the will of the Lord; never flatter; recognize in yourself both good and evil: blessed is the man who knows this; love your neighbor—your neighbor is your own flesh. If you live according to the flesh, you will destroy both soul and flesh; but if you live according to God, you will save both. These feats are greater than walking to Kiev, or even farther, wherever God may call one.’”

“The last words of Father Seraphim referred to my desire to set out on a pilgrimage to Kiev and beyond, if he would give his blessing. I had not yet disclosed this desire to him, however, and Father Seraphim knew of it solely through the gift of clairvoyance, which he possessed by the grace of God.”

“After that I asked the elder: is a man obligated, for the maintenance of his station, to involve himself in expenditures that exceed his means and are not considered a necessity among people? He answered: ‘Each as he is able; but better to be content with what God has sent. Bread and water are sufficient for a man. So it was before the flood.’”

“I also asked: should pleasing other people extend even to those cases that are not in accordance with God’s will—for example, spending time in idleness, and the like? To this Father Seraphim replied: ‘For this kind of love many have perished: if anyone does not do good, he sins. One must love everyone, but above all God.’”

“I asked him to pray for me; he answered: ‘I pray for everyone every day. Establish peace of soul so as to grieve no one and to be grieved by no one: then God will grant tears of repentance’—and he confirmed once more: ‘If you are reviled—do not revile in return,’ and so on…”

“To my question: how to preserve the morality of the people subject to me, and whether lawful punishments—seemingly justified—are displeasing to God? He answered: ‘By acts of mercy, by easing their labors, and not by blows. Give them drink, give them food, be just. The Lord is patient; God knows, perhaps he will be patient even longer still. Do thus: if God forgives, you too should forgive. Preserve peace of soul, so that in your household there is no quarreling over anything—then all will be well. Isaac, Abraham’s son, did not grow angry when his wells were filled in, and he withdrew; yet afterward they came to seek him out themselves, when the Lord God blessed him with a hundredfold yield of barley.’”

“I also asked Father Seraphim about the danger of present-day counselors and whether one can trust the teaching of others. He answered: ‘That is not for you who are not yet renewed’—and he smiled—‘One guardian angel, given to us at the holy font, is enough. If someone has wrath in him—do not listen to him; if someone preserves virginity—the Spirit of God accepts such people. Yet have your own discernment as well, and read the Gospel.’”

“I asked Father Seraphim to explain a dream to me: I had seen someone who commanded me to build a church. Father Seraphim said to me: ‘This is your own desire, and if God has chosen you for this and need demands it, then—with God! In your patience possess your souls, and you will be like God; otherwise I do not think that anyone can be saved.’”

“I asked the elder: is it necessary to pray to God for deliverance from dangerous situations? The elder answered: ‘In the Gospel it is said: When you pray, do not use vain repetitions, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: Our Father, and so on—therein is the grace of the Lord; and whatever the holy Church has received and embraced, all of it must be dear to the heart of a Christian. Do not forget the feast days: be temperate, go to church, except in times of illness; pray for everyone—by this you will do much good; bring candles, wine, and oil to the church: almsgiving will bring you much good.’”

“When I asked about fasting and marriage, the elder said: ‘The Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit; only one must not desire anything vain, for all that is of God is good: virginity is glorious, and fasting is needful for overcoming the enemies of body and soul. And marriage is blessed by God: and God blessed them, saying: be fruitful and multiply—only the enemy troubles everything.’”

“To my question about a spirit of mistrust and thoughts of blasphemy, he answered: ‘An unbeliever cannot be convinced by anything. This comes from within oneself. Buy a Psalter—everything is there; it costs three rubles.’”

I asked him whether it is permissible to eat meat during the fasts if someone is harmed by fasting foods and doctors order meat to be eaten. The elder answered: “Bread and water harm no one. How is it that people lived for a hundred years? ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ And what the Church has established in the seven Ecumenical Councils—fulfill it. Woe to the one who adds a single word to this, or takes one away. What do doctors say about the righteous, who healed festering wounds with a mere touch, and about the staff of Moses, with which God brought forth water from a rock? ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?’ The Lord calls to us: ‘Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; for My yoke is easy and My burden is light’—yet we ourselves do not want it.”

I asked him how to destroy pride and acquire humility. He answered: “By silence. God said to Isaiah: ‘On whom shall I look, but on the meek and silent one who trembles at My word.’” Regarding spiritual pride he added: “Ask God that He lengthen your years. This cannot be done without effort. Through silence, however, great sins are overcome.”

Throughout our entire conversation, Father Seraphim was extraordinarily cheerful. He stood leaning on the oak coffin he had prepared for himself, holding a lit wax candle in his hands. When beginning his replies he often greeted me with the words: “Your God-loving soul!” Concerning my daughter he said: “Her path will be a difficult one—she will marry a husband who will have no knowledge of God at all.”

On taking leave of me, he thanked me for visiting his humble dwelling, as he himself put it. In giving his blessing, he even wanted to kiss my hand, bowed to me all the way to the ground, and, bestowing dried bread crusts upon me, told me to share them with those in my charge. Finally, as he saw me off, he said: “Go with God! These crusts are fresh—just out of the oven.”

To give greater glory to the wondrous gift of clairvoyance in the grace-filled elder Father Seraphim, it must be explained that I had no opportunity to question him in such detail or to remember all of his answers. Moreover, he spoke exceedingly rapidly. For this reason I had written all my questions down on paper beforehand as a reminder. I had barely managed to read them aloud before the elder when I immediately received his answers to them.

Through his gift of clairvoyance, Father Seraphim greatly contributed to the happiness and well-being of the family lives of those around him.

An officer who had come from out of town arrived at the hermitage to receive a blessing before entering into marriage. Father Seraphim told him that his intended bride was here, in Sarov, at the inn. A short time later, a young woman came to Father Seraphim and likewise confided to him her desire to marry and her prospects concerning this matter in the future. The elder said: “No! Your bridegroom is here, in Sarov.” The two visitors had never known each other and had never met. A simple circumstance directed by Providence brought them together; the young people became acquainted, decided their fate with the involvement of their families, came together to Father Seraphim, and the elder blessed them for their wedding. Having entered into marriage, these two lived very happily.

This was no simple coincidence, but the work of God accomplished through the elder. The works of God are always wrought with remarkable simplicity—that is their distinctive mark. Disregard of the elder’s counsel in such cases was followed by the precise fulfillment of the consequences he had foretold. Thus, a landowner from Ryazan, while visiting Sarov, asked Father Seraphim’s prayers and blessing before entering into marriage. The elder pointed him toward his God-appointed bride—a young woman living on a neighboring estate near the petitioner’s own—and called her by name. The young man refused to follow his counsel, saying that he already had a fiancee living in the town where his regiment was stationed. Father Seraphim said: “She will not be a joy to you, but a grief and tears.” The young man nonetheless married according to his own will—but his wife did not survive even a year and died, and there were “grief and tears” for the husband. The widower visited Father Seraphim again, and following his renewed counsel, took the one the elder had designated from the beginning. After their marriage they lived happily.

Family members who were living apart from one another, Father Seraphim would reunite, fulfilling the Scripture: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” The husband and wife of the T—family, from Penza Province and from Taganrog, had quarreled and parted ways, even separating their children. The husband was living in Penza and the wife in Taganrog. Fortunately for both, Mr. T—was at Sarov. Father Seraphim had no sooner laid eyes on him than he began to rebuke him and warn him sternly, saying: “Why are you not living with your wife? Go to her, go!” The elder’s words brought the erring man to his senses. He set out from Sarov to Taganrog, took his wife back, traveled with her on pilgrimage to Kiev, and from that time on they lived together in their village near Taganrog, in peace and according to the law of God. “I have seen,” writes the God-loving Maria to the recluse George, “their letters written after news of the elder’s death: they are full of grief that their father and benefactor has died.”

A mother was greatly distressed over her son, whom she had completely lost track of. With a torn heart she fell at Father Seraphim’s feet and begged his prayers on behalf of one she considered lost. The elder replied to the mother that she should stay at the Sarov inn and wait for her son. She waited—one day, then two, then three—and finally, at a loss over Father Seraphim’s answer, came to him to receive his blessing with the intention of setting off for home. But what happened? At the very moment she went to the elder’s cell, her son was there receiving his blessing. Father Seraphim took the son by the hand, led him to his mother, and congratulated her on her son’s return to her.

Besides making predictions for others, the elder began to foretell his own death as well.

Thus, a sister of the Diveyevo community, Paraskeva Ivanovna, came to him once with other fellow sisters. The elder began speaking to them: “My strength is failing; live now on your own—I am leaving you.” The sorrowful talk of parting moved the listeners to tears, and they parted from the elder with those words. Yet they did not think, in light of this conversation, of his death—rather they thought that Father Seraphim, on account of his advanced years, wished to lay aside care for them and withdraw into seclusion.

On another occasion the elder was visited by Paraskeva Ivanovna alone. He was in the forest, at the near hermitage. Having given her his blessing, Father Seraphim sat down on a tree stump, while the sister knelt beside him. Father Seraphim entered into spiritual conversation and fell into an extraordinary rapture: he rose to his feet, lifted his hands on high, and turned his gaze toward heaven. A grace-filled light illumined his soul at the contemplation of the blessedness of the life to come. For the elder was speaking at this time especially about what eternal joy awaits a person in heaven in exchange for the brief sorrows of this temporal life. “What joy! What rapture!” he said, “take hold of a righteous person’s soul when, after its separation from the body, it is met by the Angels and presented before the face of God!” Unfolding this thought, the elder several times asked the sister whether she understood him. The sister listened without saying a word. She understood the elder’s discourse, but did not see that his words were tending toward his own departure. Then Father Seraphim began again to say what he had said before: “My strength is failing; live now on your own—I am leaving you.” The sister thought he wished again to withdraw into seclusion; but Father Seraphim, responding to her thought, said: “I sought a mother for you—a superior—I sought… and could not find one. After me, no one will replace me to you. I am leaving you to the Lord and to His Most Pure Mother.” Yet the sister still did not understand that the elder was speaking of his own falling asleep, and thought to herself that even though Father Seraphim was commending them to the Lord and the Mother of God, the community could hardly remain without a human spiritual guide to salvation as well. The elder replied: “A human guide, dear mother, you will not find even by searching with a candle in daylight. I am leaving you to the Lord and to His Most Pure Mother.” Here he expressed himself more directly about his death. Then the sister, falling at the elder’s feet, burst into such bitter weeping that she could neither speak herself nor hear his words. Father Seraphim began to recite from memory the Gospel of Matthew, lesson 11: “You are the light of the world,” and when he finished, he turned to the Gospel of John, reading chapter 14: “Let not your heart be troubled,” then chapter 15, and concluded with lesson 55 of chapter 16 with the words: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Here Father Seraphim paused and said: “Why, dear mother, do you keep weeping? In time you too will have a righteous mother over you!”

When other sisters of the Diveyevo community visited Father Seraphim in his cell shortly before his death, he would customarily point to the icon of the Mother of God “Tenderness” and say to them repeatedly by way of consolation: “I entrust and leave you to the care of this Queen of Heaven.” This is recounted to this day by the elder nuns of the Diveyevo community who were contemporaries of Father Seraphim.

Five months before his death, Father Seraphim was visited by Platonida, a nun of the Simbirsk Monastery of the Not-Made-by-Hands Savior. She was on her way to Arzamas to consult a well-known physician of that time about rheumatic pains in the head, face, and ear on one side of her body, but stopped first at Sarov to receive Father Seraphim’s blessing for the medical treatment. She spent five days in Sarov, and though she came to the elder’s cell four times each day, she was unable to see him. For the reasons explained above, the elder was receiving visitors less frequently. At last she was received by him at the hermitage, privately. Bowing to Father Seraphim at his feet, she asked his blessing to undergo treatment. The elder replied to her words: “No, do not seek treatment,” and, pointing his hand toward heaven, added: “It is He”—meaning God—“who will heal you.” He then told her to wash at the spring. She had not washed for the entire duration of her illness—about three years—reasonably fearing that contact with water might bring on a severe chill. But trusting in the words of the righteous elder, she washed without any hesitation, and from this she felt not only no relief but, on the contrary, the most dreadful pain. The elder then told her to drink some of this water, after which she suffered the most torturous pains in her face and teeth. Finally the elder, placing his right hand on her aching cheek, said: “Before the Dormition, God will give you peace; go in peace!” Platonida immediately felt the pain beginning to subside; it passed entirely and never returned. At her departure, as he blessed her with the cross he wore on his chest, Father Seraphim said: “Do not be distressed that you did not see me for so long—I was performing a memorial service for a nun who had died.” Platonida in turn asked whether she could hope to see him again someday. The elder, pointing his hand toward heaven, said: “There we shall see each other—there it is better, better, better.” And rightly so—she never saw him again.

In this same year Father Seraphim was visited by the blessed elder Timon, who had been living, as is known, in the Nadeyevsky Hermitage and had not seen his spiritual mentor and teacher for more than twenty years. In the spring he came on foot to the Sarov Hermitage and, making his way to Father Seraphim’s cell, awaited the sweet moment of seeing him. But Father Seraphim would not admit him. On this occasion he was receiving everyone; men and women entered to him without hindrance—only to Timon was entry barred, and he stood fruitlessly at the cell until evening itself. At last he too was permitted to enter the cell. “But I,” recounted elder Timon, “upon entering fell at his feet and wept greatly from joy, that after so many years I had been deemed worthy to see him still among the living, and I said to him: ‘Holy Father! Why have you been angered with me, a sinner, and kept me from you the whole day?’ He seated me and began to speak: ‘No, it is not so, Father Timon! I love you; but I did this because you are a monk, and moreover a hermit—and therefore you must have patience. Moreover, I was testing you, to see what you had learned from living so many years in the desert: had you come out of it empty? The other people are worldly folk, and sick besides—they must first be tended to and sent on their way, for as the Lord said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; with you, one must have more conversation at a free moment.’ And so we spent the entire night in conversation.”

Among other things, Father Seraphim gave Timon the following instruction: “Sow, Father Timon, sow—sow everywhere the wheat given to you. Sow on good soil, sow on sand, sow on rock, sow by the roadside, sow among thorns—somewhere it will all sprout and grow and bear fruit, if not quickly, then in time. And do not hide in the ground the talent given to you, lest you be called to account by your master; rather, give it to the merchants—let them trade with it. I will tell you one more thing, Father Timon: do not make friends with or enter into alliance with—first, the enemies of Christ’s Church, that is, heretics and schismatics; second, those who do not observe the holy fasts; and third, women, for they greatly harm us monks. And in your newly established community”—meaning the Nadeyevsky one—“establish and confirm the rule of strict communal life according to the rules and regulations of the holy Fathers, so that no one acts by his own will; permit no wine or tobacco to anyone; and restrain people as much as possible even from tea—gluttony is not a monastic pursuit.” “Having thus instructed me,” says elder Timon, “Father Seraphim blessed me for the journey. And I returned again to my hermitage and live in it, giving thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ and to His Most Pure Mother, the Sovereign Lady, the Theotokos and Virgin Mary” (Parfenius’s “Journey,” Part 1, pp. 196–197).

In this same year Father Seraphim had to endure a grievance, in which he saw a sign of his approaching departure from this present life. A runaway girl, seeking to conceal her vagrancy more effectively, had cut her hair in a round crop, put on novice’s clothing, and thus wandered about the world. The police authorities, having been forewarned of her escape, searched for her and at last found her. Under questioning she declared that Father Seraphim had supposedly blessed her to dress in that manner. But Father Seraphim had never given such a blessing, and through his gift of clairvoyance he could certainly not have blessed her to conceal, perhaps, her own misdeeds. The civil authorities, following their own procedures, wrote to Father Hegumen Nifont to investigate this matter as well. It turned out that the runaway had falsely accused the innocent elder of God, hoping that out of deference to Father Seraphim’s supposed directive she would be pardoned for hiding under a novice’s clothing. The circumstance nonetheless grieved the elder, and he did not leave his cell for a full day on this occasion, spending the time in prayer. Other valiant ascetics of Sarov—for example, Father Hilarion and Nikodim—grieved bitterly over the distress that Father Seraphim experienced in this matter.

In this same year the elder had to endure other griefs as well—all of them undeserved and unjust. And regarding all of them he once said the following words: “All these circumstances signify that I will not be living here much longer—that the end of my life is near.”

Sensing his approaching end and discerning in circumstances themselves its nearness, Father Seraphim was at this time preparing himself for departure. He now went out to the hermitage less often and received fewer visitors in his cell as well, so as to occupy himself without hindrance in his final preparation for eternity. During this time he was often seen in the vestibule: the elder would sit on his coffin and give himself over to reflection on the end of life, on the fate of the human soul beyond the grave, and on his own. These reflections were often accompanied by bitter weeping, and they began and ended with prolonged prayers.

Six months before his death, Father Seraphim, as he took leave of many people, said with finality: “We shall not see each other again.” Some asked his blessing to come to Sarov during Great Lent to make their confession and once more enjoy the sight of him and conversation with him. “By then my doors will be closed,” the elder replied; “you will not see me.” It became very evident that Father Seraphim’s life was fading away—only his spirit, as before and even more so, remained alert: “My life is being shortened,” he said to some of the brothers, “in spirit I am as though just now born, but in body I am utterly dead.”

Four months before his death—namely in August of 1832—His Grace Arseny, Bishop of Tambov, was making his first visitation of the diocese and visited the Sarov Hermitage as well. Elder Seraphim, despite being at the hermitage at the time, considered it his duty to come to the monastery solely in order to greet his new archpastor together with the brothers. When the reception was over, he returned to the hermitage. His Grace Arseny, having attentively and thoroughly examined all the churches, the brothers’ cells, and the agricultural outbuildings within the monastery, wished to see all the establishments and structures belonging to the monastery that lay outside its walls. Accompanied by the Sarov treasurer, Hieromonk Isaiah, and the key-bearer of the Tambov Cathedral, Nikifor Telyatinsky, he visited the Seraphim and Dorofei hermitage cells. Father Seraphim was occupied with laying stones along the bank of a small stream that flowed past his hermitage cell. But as soon as he saw the archpastor approaching his dwelling, he immediately left his work and, prostrating himself at the bishop’s feet, asked for and received his blessing.

“What is it that you are doing?” the gracious and attentive His Grace Arseny asked him.

“Why, holy master,” the elder replied, “I am laying stones along the bank so that the water does not wash away the bank and damage it.”

“A fine work, elder of God,” said the bishop. “Now, do show me your little hermitage cell in the midst of the wilderness.”

“Very well, father,” he replied, and with warm hospitality led the bishop into the cell.

According to the description of those present on this occasion, the cell contained nothing out of the ordinary—it was a simple wooden cabin with a small entry vestibule. Its furnishings consisted entirely of a plain linden-wood unpainted table and two matching chairs. In the front corner stood holy icons with a lamp burning before them. There were also two liturgical books. Upon entering the cell, Father Seraphim offered the bishop as gifts: a prayer rope, a bundle of wax candles wrapped in linen, a bottle of vegetable oil, and woolen stockings. The bishop accepted the gifts with fatherly warmth. He then asked Father Seraphim:

“And where is that other little place of yours in this hermitage—that even more secluded spot?”

Knowing from accounts where this place was located and without waiting for Father Seraphim’s answer, he himself walked in the direction of the stove. Father Seraphim, stopping him, said with simple candor:

“Do not go there, father—you will soil yourself.”

But the bishop, opening the door that closed off the empty space between the cell wall and the stove, saw there a small enclosure so cramped that barely one person could enter and remain there in a standing or kneeling position, but to sit or lean was quite impossible. And here, as in the main cell—in the corner between the wall and the door frame—stood a small icon with a burning lamp before it. Evidently the elder would withdraw there at times for vigil and prayer. From here the bishop set out to the Dorofei hermitage cell, intending on his return journey to stop by Father Seraphim’s again. The elder remained with the key-bearer Father Nikifor Telyatinsky, awaiting him there and passing the time in conversation. In the course of their talk, pointing toward the bishop, he said to the key-bearer:

“Many, many labors will fall to him—but God will help him.”

When the bishop returned, Father Seraphim took him by the hand and reverently addressed him with a question:

“You see, father, pilgrims come to me, humble Seraphim, and ask me to give them something by way of blessing; and I give them dried bread crusts of black or white bread and a spoonful of red church wine—is it permissible for me to do this?”

To this the bishop replied:

“It is permissible, permissible—but only separately, so that to whoever you give the crusts, you do not also give the red wine. For simple folk, as I have heard, in their simplicity think, and spread it among others, that you are giving them Holy Communion. And better yet,” the bishop added further, “do not give wine at all—give only the dried crusts.”

“Very well, father,” the elder replied to this. “That is how I will proceed.”

Afterward it was observed that Father Seraphim did indeed proceed in this way until the end of his life.

After this conversation the bishop took leave of Father Seraphim. On the blessed elder’s part, this parting took place in a rather extraordinary manner. Having received the bishop’s final blessing, he bowed to the ground; and although the bishop helped him up and asked him to rise to his feet, elder Seraphim, remaining on his knees, continued to bow to him until the bishop had completely disappeared from view.

The following night Father Seraphim, as if to demonstrate his obedience, himself brought a small vessel of church wine to the cell where His Grace Arseny had stayed, and giving the offering to the bishop’s cell-attendant, said:

“Give this to the father from sinful Seraphim.”

Upon comparing these circumstances with the events that followed, it became clear that all of this had been a foretelling of Elder Seraphim’s approaching end, and referred to his request for commemoration, which he had also conveyed to the bishop in words. Bishop Arseny, for his part, fulfilled Father Seraphim’s wish exactly: from his gifts—the candles, oil, and wine, which had been kept intact—were used at the bishop’s celebration of a requiem liturgy for the eternal repose of the blessed elder Seraphim. The prayer beads, stockings, and linen cloth the bishop kept for himself. The Sarov Hermitage preserves a letter from Bishop Arseny in which, twenty-three years later, he describes his visit to the elder in detail. Here is what he writes in that letter:

“In all conscience, the peaceable relations between Father Abbot Nifont and Father Seraphim cast not the slightest shadow on the life and character of either man; on the contrary, in the former they show how highly he understood and faithfully fulfilled the duties of superior of a desert monastery, and how dearly he valued and strictly upheld the purity of monastic life; while in the latter they reveal an evangelical simplicity and guilelessness, by virtue of which he could never have suspected that his ostensible or genuine disciples—male and female—sometimes abused his name to advance their own vain designs, not yet purged of vanity or willfulness. It would also be fitting to mention in Father Seraphim’s biography his first meeting with me: it was full of deep significance, and beyond any doubt reveals in him the gift of clairvoyance. His words and actions during my visit—accompanied by you (Father Isaiah accompanied him then in the capacity of Treasurer)—to his forest cell; his subsequent gifts to me of lamp oil, red wine, several candles, a piece of linen, and woolen stockings; and finally his repeated prostrations of farewell before me, which I could not stop despite many entreaties and from which I was compelled to depart hastily with you so as not to tire the elder further as he continued kneeling and bowing—all of this proved, as events later showed, to be expressive symbols depicting his fate and mine: he died shortly thereafter, while I, with God’s help, continue still to lay stone upon stone to guard the Church’s shore against the press of worldly waters.”

In that same year, on the thirteenth of September, three and a half months before Father Seraphim’s death, Ekaterina Yegorovna Izvolskaya came to him with her four-year-old daughter Anna, whose eyes were so inflamed that those close to her feared the child might go completely blind during the journey. The mother brought her to Father Seraphim. He placed in her hands a bottle of water and instructed her to sprinkle it on her daughter’s eyes, saying that “by the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God of the Life-Giving Spring she will be healed.” And indeed, by morning the child rose with healthy eyes. Father Seraphim instructed them to remain in Sarov, to attend the early and late liturgies on the fourteenth, and to have dinner there. But since she did not fulfill the last instruction and departed immediately after the late liturgy, she was punished for her disobedience by wandering lost on the road the entire day.

After these events, still several months before his death, Father Seraphim had letters sent to certain persons, summoning them to him at the monastery; and to those close friends who could not come to him, he entrusted messages to be delivered after his death—things needful and beneficial to their souls—adding by way of explanation: “They themselves will not see me.”

One of the brothers of the Sarov Hermitage came to him; the elder, having given him instruction, said: “Blow out the candle.” The brother blew—the candle went out. The elder said: “That is just how they will not see me.” To his cell attendant, Father Pavel, the elder also said that the end was near; but Pavel, in his simplicity, could not make out whether the elder was speaking of his own death or of the end of the age. Before the new year of 1833, Father Seraphim himself measured out his grave beside the altar of the Dormition Cathedral, at the very spot he had marked after coming out of his reclusion by placing a stone upon it.

Shortly before Father Seraphim’s death, one brother, seeing his truly ascetic life and wishing to edify himself, asked him: “Why, Father, do we not have such a strict life as the ancient ascetics of piety led?”—“Because,” answered the elder, “we have no resolve for it. If we had resolve, we would live as the fathers of old who shone forth in ascetic labors and piety; for the grace and help of God toward the faithful and those who seek the Lord with their whole heart is now the same as it was before: for, according to the word of God, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb. 13:8). This deep and holy truth, which Father Seraphim had come to know through the experience of his own life, was, so to speak, the final word of his lips and the seal of his labors.”

A week before his death, on the feast of the Nativity of Christ in 1832, Father Seraphim came, as was his custom, to the liturgy celebrated by Father Abbot Nifont. He received the Holy Gifts and after the liturgy conversed with the abbot. Among other things, he asked the abbot on behalf of many, especially the younger brothers; he did not fail to mention—and for this occasion for the last time—that when he died he should be placed in his coffin. Having taken leave of the abbot and the brothers, the elder returned to his cell and entrusted to one of the monks, namely Jakob—who later became a hieromonk of the Tolshev Monastery—an enamel icon of the Venerable Sergius depicting the visitation of the Mother of God, saying: “Place this icon upon me when I die, and bury me with it; this icon,” he continued, “was sent to me by the venerable Father Archimandrite Antony, deputy of the holy lavra, from the relics of the Venerable Sergius.” Toward Father Antony, Elder Seraphim, as we have seen before, felt a particular love.

On the first of January, 1833, a Sunday, Father Seraphim came for the last time to the hospital church in the name of the holy Zosima and Savvaty, placed candles before all the icons himself and venerated them—something that had not previously been observed of him—and then received the Holy Gifts as usual. After the liturgy he took leave of all the brothers who had prayed there, blessed them all, kissed them, and said in consolation: “Be saved, do not lose heart, be watchful: on this day crowns are being prepared for us.” Having taken leave of all, he kissed the Cross and the icon of the Mother of God; then, walking around the holy altar table, he made the customary bow and left the church through the north doors—as if to signify thereby that a person enters this world through one gate, the gate of birth, and departs from it through another, that is, through the gate of death. At that moment everyone noticed in him an extreme exhaustion of bodily strength, but in spirit the elder was vigorous, calm, and joyful.

After the liturgy a sister of the Diveyevo community, Irina Vasilyevna, visited him. The elder sent with her two hundred rubles in paper money for Paraskeva Ivanovna, entrusting the latter to buy bread with that money from the nearest village, for at that time all the provisions had run out and the sisters were in great need.

That same day, after the liturgy, Hieromonk Feoktist of the Vysokogorsky Arzamas Hermitage visited Father Seraphim. Father Seraphim, concluding his conversation with him, said in closing: “You will serve a service here.” But Feoktist, hastening home, declined to serve at Sarov. Then Father Seraphim said to him: “Well then, you will serve at Diveyevo.” Father Feoktist, naturally, did not understand this either, and having received the elder’s blessing, set out from Sarov that very day.

It should be noted that next to Elder Seraphim’s cell stood the cell of the monk Father Pavel. They were separated from each other by a blank wall, beside which was a stove. The entrances to each cell were separate. It had long been the rule in the Sarov Hermitage that monks live each apart, one to a cell. As Father Seraphim had no disciples with him, so he had no cell attendant either; but by virtue of their proximity, Brother Pavel sometimes discharged the duties of a cell attendant. The elder distinguished him with his trust and used to say: “Brother Pavel, for the simplicity of his heart, will enter the kingdom of God without difficulty: he never judges anyone and envies no one, but knows only his own sins and his own worthlessness.”

Elder Seraphim had the habit, when leaving the monastery for the wilderness hermitage, of leaving burning in his cell the candles he had lit in the morning before the icons. Brother Pavel, availing himself of the elder’s goodwill, would sometimes say to the elder that the burning candles might cause a fire; but Father Seraphim would always reply: “While I am alive there will be no fire; but when I die, my passing will be revealed by fire.” And so it came to pass.

On the first day of 1833, Brother Pavel observed that Father Seraphim went out three times during that day to the place he had designated for his burial, remaining there a rather long time and looking at the ground. In the evening, Father Pavel heard the elder singing Paschal hymns in his cell: “Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ…” “Shine, shine, O new Jerusalem…” “O great and most sacred Pascha, O Christ…” and several other triumphant spiritual hymns.

On the second of January, at around the sixth hour of the morning, Brother Pavel, leaving his cell to go to the early liturgy, noticed the smell of smoke in the entrance vestibule near Father Seraphim’s cell. Offering the customary prayer, he knocked at Father Seraphim’s door, but the door was latched from the inside and there was no answer to the prayer. He went out onto the porch, and noticing in the darkness some monks passing on their way to church, said to them: “Fathers and brothers! A strong smell of smoke is coming from here. Is something burning nearby? The elder has surely gone to the hermitage.” At that point one of those passing by, the novice Anikita, rushed to Father Seraphim’s cell and, finding it locked, tore it off the inner latch with a forceful thrust. Many Christians, out of devotion, used to bring various linen articles to Father Seraphim. These articles, along with books, were lying this time on a bench in disorder near the door. It was they that were smoldering, probably from the drippings of a candle or from a fallen candle, the candlestick of which stood right there. There was no flame, but the articles and some books were merely smoldering. It was dark outside, barely beginning to dawn; in Father Seraphim’s cell there was no light, and the elder himself was neither seen nor heard. It was thought that he was resting after his nighttime labors, and with this thought those who had come crowded at the cell. In the vestibule there was some slight commotion. Some of the brothers ran for snow and smothered the smoldering articles with heaps of it.

The early liturgy, meanwhile, continued without interruption at the hospital church. They were singing: “It is truly meet…” At that moment a boy—one of the novices—unexpectedly ran into the church and quietly told some of those present what had happened. The brothers hastened to Father Seraphim’s cell. Quite a number of monks had gathered. Brother Pavel and the novice Ioan, who had come from the church, wishing to determine whether the elder was resting, began in the darkness to feel their way through the small space of his cell, and found him. A lit candle was brought, and they saw that the elder, in his usual white work-tunic, stood in his customary place of prayer before the icon of the Mother of God of Tenderness, on his knees, with his head uncovered, with a copper crucifix on his chest, and with his hands folded crosswise on his breast. They thought he had fallen asleep; they began to wake him gently—but there was no answer: the elder had completed his ascetic life… His eyes were closed, his face animated by contemplation and prayer. The elder’s body was warm, as if his spirit had only just that moment departed from its dwelling. But no one could now rouse him to life… The monks, with the abbot’s blessing, lifted Elder Seraphim’s body in their arms and laid it in the neighboring cell of Hieromonk Evstafy. There they washed his brow and knees, clothed him according to the monastic rite, placed him in the well-known oak coffin, and carried him immediately to the cathedral church. Later, when the agitation and commotion had subsided and they began to sort through the belongings in the departed elder’s cell, they noticed that the book before which he had fallen into his unawakening sleep had also been partially burned.

News of Elder Seraphim’s death spread swiftly everywhere. The entire surrounding region of Sarov quickly gathered in the hermitage. All mourned and wept bitterly over the elder’s death; the parting was especially hard for the Diveyevo sisters, who in him were losing their spiritual guide and protector. Their grief was all the more inconsolable because Father Seraphim had found no one to whom he could entrust them in his place.

The Diveyevo sister Paraskeva Ivanovna, to whom Father Seraphim had given money before his death, had bought bread and was returning to Diveyevo when on the road she heard the sorrowful news, and without stopping at her own lodgings drove her horse straight to Sarov.

Hieromonk Feoktist, who had visited the day before, departed from Sarov at the same time and spent the night in the village of Vertyanov; the next morning he continued on his way. On the road, for no apparent reason, the harness fastening of his sleigh broke, the horse became unyoked, and he was obliged to stop at the Diveyevo community. There he found all the sisters in deep grief and tears, mourning Father Seraphim’s death. The Diveyevo priest was away on his duties as dean. The sisters earnestly besought Father Feoktist to serve a memorial service for the repose of Elder Seraphim’s soul in the blessed habitations. Their wish was fulfilled, and the elder’s words came true: “Well then, you will serve at Diveyevo.”

Father Seraphim’s body was placed in the coffin, according to his testament, with the enamel image of the Venerable Sergius received from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. The grave for the blessed elder was prepared at the very spot he had long designated for himself, and his body lay open in the Dormition Cathedral for eight days. Until the day of burial the Sarov Hermitage was filled with thousands of people gathered from the surrounding districts and provinces. Everyone vied to kiss the great elder. All with one accord mourned his loss and prayed for the repose of his soul, as he in his lifetime had prayed for the health and salvation of all. On the day of burial, during the liturgy, there were so many people in the cathedral that the local candles near the coffin were snuffed out by the heat.

Father Seraphim’s burial was conducted by Father Abbot Nifont. His body was committed to the earth on the right side of the cathedral altar, beside the grave of Mark the recluse. In later years, through the generosity of the Nizhny Novgorod merchant Ya. Syrev, a cast-iron memorial in the form of a tomb was erected over his grave.

No eulogies were delivered at Father Seraphim’s coffin: the remembrance of his life and deeds, the verbal accounts of them at the coffin of this remarkable ascetic, were themselves the finest edification, replacing any other word. But some poet unknown to us, in mournful inspiration by the elder’s death, then composed, in the form of an elegiac song, a tribute to his life, labors, and end. We will include the text of his verses here—not remarkable in form, but fitting here by virtue of their origin.

To Father Seraphim, hermit of Sarov

A short time after Father Seraphim’s death, an officer, a Mr. Karat-v, who was traveling to Kursk province to rejoin his regiment, stopped in at Sarov in order, as was always his custom, to receive Father Seraphim’s blessing. The young man was deeply grieved to find the blessed elder no longer among the living. “The news of his death,” he said, “shook my whole soul; I took it as a punishment for my sins; but after serving a memorial service at his grave, I suddenly felt such peace of soul that it seemed as though through the elder himself I had received forgiveness for my sins and heard his promise to pray for me before the throne of God.” Abbot Nifont commissioned Mr. K-v to stop in Kursk at Father Seraphim’s relatives, to bring them a prosphora and a blessing from him, and to tell them of the death of their blessed kinsman. Upon arriving in Kursk, Mr. K-v went at once to Father Seraphim’s relatives and found Aleksey, his brother, already dead: he had only just passed away. A few days before this, the brother had been in perfect health, only subject to a heavy melancholy, knowing nothing of his brother’s death and unaware of the cause of his despondency. This sorrowful state of spirit had inclined him to seek consolation in prayer: daily he went to church, finally kept a fast, made his confession, and received Holy Communion. At that time a letter arrived from Sarov about Father Seraphim’s death, along with his portrait. Then the brother began to prepare himself fully for death; he received the sacrament of holy unction, after which he died. We record this circumstance in Father Seraphim’s biography because, it is said, when he was once in Kursk, he foretold his brother his death in words that have come down to us: “Know that when I die, your own end will follow shortly thereafter.”

Soon after the burial, the thought arose of its own accord to preserve the memory of the most blessed elder Seraphim. People began to collect and keep the portraits of him that had previously been painted. It is known that Father Seraphim was reluctant to consent to having his portrait painted. Thus the mother of the Diveyevo sister Anastasia, having great devotion to Father Seraphim, once asked his blessing to have a portrait made of him. Father Seraphim replied: “Who am I, a poor man, that my likeness should be painted? The faces of God and of the Saints are depicted, but we are men—and sinful men at that.” He said the same in reply on a similar occasion to a Sarov monk, adding by way of explanation: “We must always and in all circumstances strive to cut off the occasions of vanity at the very outset.” But the mother of Sister Anastasia began to implore him insistently not to refuse her. Only then, out of respect for her devotion, did he yield to her wish and said: “It is in your power; let it be according to your devotion.” Thanks to such persuasion, two faithful likenesses of Elder Seraphim were painted. One was made when the elder was about fifty years of age. Father Seraphim is depicted with his head uncovered; his face is clear and fair; his eyes blue, his nose straight with a slight prominence; his hair light brown, thick, and streaked with gray; his mustache and beard thick and streaked with gray; one hand clasped with the other on his chest. The elder stands clothed in a monastic mantle with an epitrachelion. This portrait was painted by the academician artist Dmitry Evstafyev for Mrs. Annenkova and given by her to the Sarov Hermitage. The other portrait, which is in the cell of the Sarov abbot, was painted from life about five years before the elder’s death. Father Seraphim is depicted in mantle, epitrachelion, and cuffs, as he would approach to receive Holy Communion. From this portrait it is evident that years and monastic labors had left their mark on the elder’s outward appearance. Here the face is rendered pale and worn with toil; the hair, both on the head and on the beard, is thick but not long and entirely gray. The right hand rests on the epitrachelion at the chest. This portrait was painted by the artist Serebryakov, who later became a monk of the Sarov Hermitage and fell asleep there in the eternal sleep. An exact copy of this portrait is placed at the beginning of this book.

After Father Seraphim’s death, many persons came to the Sarov Monastery bearing witness to what benefaction the glorious ascetic had shown them, and who had received healing from him and in what manner. Records of such events were submitted either in the person’s own hand or, at the least, certified by their signature.

Those persons who possessed articles belonging to Father Seraphim began carefully to keep them, while others sought to acquire something from among his belongings as a keepsake. According to the long-established custom of the Sarov Hermitage, all the belongings of a brother after his death pass into the so-called store room and become the common property of the monastery. Each brother takes from the store room whatever he needs and, having worn out one item, exchanges it for another. The belongings of Father Seraphim that went into the same repository did not remain there; but at the earnest requests of those who venerated the elder, they were distributed to them by the senior brothers, Father Nifont and Father Isaiah. Thus the monk of the Sarov Hermitage Gavriil had a portrait of Father Seraphim. The fortunate owner valued it so dearly that he was unwilling to show it to anyone, and if he did show it to the nearest and dearest, he would under no circumstances let it out of his hands. The copper cross that Father Seraphim always wore over his clothing, by the blessing of Bishop Ieremiya, former Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod, is kept in Diveyevo in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord on the altar. The large iron cross that the elder wore under his clothing around his neck is in the Sarov Hermitage. The Teplov family, having heard of Elder Seraphim’s death, sent a messenger all the way from Taganrog to Sarov to receive something from his cell, and two pitchers were sent to them—the ones in which the ascetic used to carry water for himself; both pitchers were filled with water from Seraphim’s spring. With one of the sisters of the Diveyevo community, namely Paraskeva Ivanovna, there remained a small ax with which Father Seraphim had worked in the wilderness. The sister had cherished it, even during the elder’s lifetime, as an extraordinary treasure; she later agreed to pass it on to her abbess for safekeeping in Father Seraphim’s wilderness cell. Mrs. Maria Kolycheva, who had been in close spiritual communion with another recluse of that time, Georgy, wrote to him with delight that after Father Seraphim’s death she had received from his cell a white linen kerchief, a lampada, and a small cup—the last two decorated with star patterns. Two cassocks remaining after Father Seraphim’s death were given to the sisters of the Diveyevo community, of which one sister wore on her person, while the other was requested by Mrs. Kolycheva for herself. Father Seraphim’s hair, which fell out twice, in the form of matted felt, from his head after two of his bouts of serious illness, is preserved in Diveyevo and in Sarov. The stones upon which the elder, to mortify the temptations of the enemy, would mount to pray during a thousand days and nights, are also preserved. The one on which he used to stand during the day in his cell remains in its original form in the altar of the Transfiguration Church in Diveyevo. Of the other stone, on which Father Seraphim prayed at night under the open sky, only two fragments remain: for pious visitors to Sarov, on inspecting the places where Father Seraphim had labored, would continually break off pieces and carry them away. One fragment, measuring about an arshin in diameter, was transferred to Diveyevo soon after the elder’s death and placed in the Transfiguration Church; the other remains in Sarov in Elder Seraphim’s cell. The cell in which Father Seraphim labored in the nearer wilderness was also moved to the Diveyevo Monastery. In it the unceasing reading of the Psalter is now performed for the repose of members of the Imperial family who have fallen asleep in God, of pastors of the Church, of Father Seraphim, of the departed sisters of the monastery, and of other persons who were benefactors to it during their lifetime. Father Seraphim’s farther ascetic cell in Diveyevo was incorporated as the altar of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord. The icon of the Queen of Heaven of Tenderness, painted on canvas stretched over a cypress board, which stood in Father Seraphim’s monastery cell, is now in the church of the Diveyevo Monastery. Before it, on a fixed day of the week, an akathist to the Savior and the Mother of God is sung. Pious visitors feel a particular devotion to this icon and, by their faith, receive spiritual consolation from it. One article among those left after Father Seraphim became especially well known. Shortly before his death he blessed the abbess of the Diveyevo community, Ksenia Mikhailovna Kocheulov, with the half-mantle he himself wore. When Sister of the community Elizaveta Andreyevna Tatarinova set out for St. Petersburg to collect alms, she was given Father Seraphim’s mantle as a blessing for the journey. It is now in the hands of the protopriest of the Gatchina court church. This mantle became known in St. Petersburg through the gift of healing bestowed upon a child whom the skill of the capital’s foremost physicians had failed to help. Of the Gospels that Father Seraphim used to read in his cell, one is in Sarov and the other in the Diveyevo Monastery. The latter Gospel, in a leather binding, is the very one that Father Seraphim always carried with him in a shoulder bag. On examining it, we found that this binding contained gathered together: the Psalter, the Gospel, the Acts, and the Epistles of the Holy Apostles. In Diveyevo is also preserved a small portion of a volume of the Menaion—the first third—which was scorched in the fire that occurred at the time of Elder Seraphim’s death. From this catalogue of the belongings left after Elder Seraphim, it is evident that the greater part of them were yielded to the Diveyevo community, in which he had taken so great an interest.

But the venerable remains of Father Seraphim will forever constitute the sacred treasure of the Sarov Hermitage. Into it the elder entered to save his soul; in it he also completed his righteous life. During his lifetime he never thought of leaving it, as he used to say, not even in thought. And after his death, his body must remain forever in the Sarov Hermitage, as the sign of his indissoluble spiritual bond with that monastery.

After Father Seraphim’s death, apart from a few unopened letters, nothing remained. The elder lived and died “to the glory of God.”

His name is blessed to this day throughout all of Russia. Memorial services for his blessed repose are now served not only in the Sarov Hermitage or the Diveyevo Monastery, but in many other places of the native Church. We have had occasion to hear his name commemorated in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, and even in district towns and villages of distant parts of our homeland.

Ekaterina Vasilyevna Ladyzhenskaya was for fifteen years the superior of the Diveyevo community.

In earlier editions it was stated that the hands of the departed Father Seraphim rested on a small lectern, with his head upon them; here the unanimous account of contemporaries of the elder has been restored—those of the hieromonks Sergiy and Georgy (the author of the narrative published in the Mayak for 1844), and of Ioasaf and N. A. Motovilov (the latter in the Chronicle of the Diveyevo Monastery by Priest Chichagov, p. 449). In the same way, the first three of these sources call the novice who came to Father Seraphim’s cell with Father Pavel by the name Ioan.

11. The Manifestation of the Gracious Help of Father Seraphim After His Death

Healing from demonic possession of V. K.—From fever of N. K.—From demonic possession of F.—From an eye ailment of F. V.—Deliverance from robbers of K-v. Healings from illness of the legs;—from cholera;—from demonic possession;—from blindness.—The punishment of one who failed to keep the elder’s commandment.—The account of a pilgrim from the Holy Mountain.—Healing from fever.—Healing of a sick child.—Relief from headache.—Healing from a contusion;—from demonic possession.—The restoration of sight.—The punishment of one who was inattentive to the elder’s portrait.—Help granted to a woman in childbirth.

The righteous man lives forever, and the righteous elder Seraphim, even after his repose, continues through his mighty intercession before the throne of God to manifest his protection to those who call upon him for help with faith and fervor. Many who were afflicted with grave illnesses, who found themselves in difficult circumstances of life, and who were burdened with sorrows and temptations openly testify that they received swift help when they besought the intercession of Elder Seraphim before the Lord. Such cases are very numerous; but we shall here recount only some of them.

Not half a year had passed after the repose of Elder Seraphim when one of the sisters of the Diveyevo community, V. K., was seized, for no known reason, with fits of demonic possession. In this state, losing her reason, she would beat herself against the ground, in her frenzy tear her hair, and with incredible strength struggle to run away from people with no definite purpose. One night she saw herself in the Diveyevo church dedicated to the Nativity of Christ; there was the sister D. F. and Elder Seraphim. The elder, taking her hand, placed it in his own, and bade the sister D. F. take hold of the other arm; and leading the sick woman into the altar, he walked with her around the holy table: she suddenly felt light and well. Waking up, she made the sign of the cross, looked about her on all sides, felt her closely shorn head, understood everything clearly, and arose of herself in complete health. From that time she was no longer subject to her former fits.

In June 1833, Madame Kolycheva wrote to Georgy, recluse of Zadonsk, from Sarov: a novice of the Sarov Hermitage named Theodore, a native of the town of Kozlov in Tambov province, had in the world been subject to demonic possession and suffered greatly. Having tried various means of treatment in vain, he presented himself to the abbot of the Sarov Hermitage, Father Niphon, and with tears begged to be received into the community for a life of repentance, acknowledging that the Lord had permitted him to bear this terrible temptation from the devil on account of his sins. Moved by his earnest entreaty, the abbot received him into the community. The newly tonsured monk fulfilled with complete diligence the obediences laid upon him, and the few free hours of rest he devoted to prayer, leaving only the briefest time for sleep. One day, after tearful prayer to God, hardly had he fallen into a doze when in a light sleep he beheld before him Elder Seraphim in the clothing the elder customarily wore in his final years. The apparition counseled him to have a moleben served to the Mother of God and a memorial service for the departed Seraphim the humble, and upon the fulfillment of this promised him recovery. With firm faith in the efficacy of the prayers of Father Seraphim who had reposed in God, the young monk immediately carried out what the elder had commanded. After the moleben to the Most Holy Theotokos was completed, the memorial service was served. When the deacon began to intone: “Grant eternal rest in blessed repose, O Lord, to Your departed servant, the hieromonk Seraphim,” Theodore fell to the ground, and a fit came upon him, during which, in terrible convulsions, smoke issued from his mouth, observed by all who were present. Thereafter he lay for about half an hour in an unconscious state, and from that time, by the prayers of Elder Seraphim, he was freed forever from demonic possession.

Two years after the repose of Father Seraphim, a sister of the Diveyevo community, N. K., fell ill with fever and was already at death’s door, so that, all means of treatment being despaired of, she was anointed with holy oil. During her illness she lost all use of her arm, and had to be moved in her bed with a cloth placed underneath it. One day she saw Father Seraphim in a dream.

He said to her: “Why do you not come to me at the spring, little mother?”

She answered: I am ill; my arm has given out.

“Which one?” the elder asked.

The right one.

The elder, taking her by her afflicted arm, lifted it, repeating: “Come to me at the spring.”

Waking up, she found her arm healed and was able to use it as a sound one. But being weak from the fever she had suffered, she could not make the journey to Sarov on foot: that very day she was taken there, doused with water from Father Seraphim’s spring—and she received complete recovery and a renewal of strength. (As recounted by the sister herself, on the 20th of July, 1862.)

A sister of the Diveyevo community, F. V., fell ill with her eyes. On the eve of the New Year 1835 she had a dream in which she found herself in the church of the Tikhvin Mother of God. Father Seraphim came out from the royal doors in a white vestment, held out the aer, and bade her wipe her eyes with it, while he himself stood behind her. She asked him: “Is it you, dear Father?” Seraphim replied: “How unbelieving you are, my joy! You yourself asked me, yet you do not believe—for I serve the Liturgy among you.” After this Seraphim became invisible. From that time the sister’s eye ailment passed. (As recounted by the healed one herself.)

I. Yakov. Karat-v recounted of himself that in 1833, while returning to his regiment from home leave, he was saved from robbers who attacked him on the road, through the prayers of Elder Seraphim, upon whom he had called in his moment of danger.

Captain Afrikan Vasilyevich Teplov, who had always held Father Seraphim in particular esteem and was himself beloved by him, came to Sarov in 1834 with his family, in which there was a three-year-old daughter who suffered from an illness of the legs and could scarcely stand. Having had a memorial service served at the grave of the departed elder, they carried the child to the spring of Father Seraphim, firmly believing that the Lord would have mercy on the sick one through the elder’s prayers. Having given the child water from this spring to drink and washed her legs, they took some of this water to the monastery with the intention of having a moleben with the blessing of water served over it. Upon entering the monastery the child suddenly asked to be put down from the nurse’s arms, showing a desire to walk on her own. The nurse, after long resistance, finally decided to set her down and, taking her by the hands, led the child; but the little girl pulled away her hand and ran forward on her own, like a healthy child. The overjoyed relatives of the healed one hastened to the grave of Father Seraphim and with tears gave thanks to him for his merciful intercession on their behalf.

In 1846 the second son of Captain A. V. Teplov dislocated his leg and suffered from the pain for about two years. Meanwhile the time came for him to enter service. Trusting firmly in the intercession and help of Father Seraphim, who had shown so many benefactions to his family, A. V. T. set out for the Sarov Hermitage. Having had a memorial service served for Elder Seraphim, despite the cold (this was on the 21st of December, 1848), he set out to Father Seraphim’s spring with his two sons, and the sick one washed his leg with water from the spring. A few hours later both brothers went again to the spring. The ailing one doused himself with water from head to foot, and then on his knees before the icons fixed to a special post in the chapel by the spring, he prayed at length together with his brother, asking God to have mercy on him through the prayers of Father Seraphim. Returning home, the sick one declared that he no longer felt any pain in his leg, and being in perfect health he served in the cavalry regiment.

The schema-monk of the Sarov Hermitage, Father Cyprian, wrote in 1840: “After the death of Father Seraphim, his cap made of black homespun cloth, which he customarily wore on his head, came to me. I had long been subject to severe and prolonged headache, from which I would lie in bed for several days at a time. Upon receiving the cap, I began to put it on when the ailment appeared, and mentally asked for the prayers of Father Seraphim for my deliverance from the suffering. Upon placing the cap on my head, the pain would pass each time. The same effect against toothache I had occasion to experience repeatedly from a fragment of the stone upon which the blessed Father Seraphim labored in his desert skete, when I placed this fragment on the aching teeth.”

A state peasant, G. D. S., of the village of Bolshoye-Cherevatovo, Ardatov district, Nizhny Novgorod province, in 1848 felt symptoms of cholera while on the road to the village of Okil. By his faith in Elder Seraphim he made haste to Father Seraphim’s spring: he washed his face, doused himself, and drank from the spring—and from this felt such relief as if he had never been ill.

Once a woman possessed by a demon was brought to Father Seraphim’s spring: the wretched woman was tearing her own hair, rending her clothing, and screaming terribly. They began to pour water from the spring over her, and she cried out: “Let me go, let me go—the monk is tormenting me!” Notwithstanding this, they continued to pour water over her until she came to a calm state and lost consciousness. Coming to herself after some time, she was completely well, made the sign of the cross over herself, drank of her own accord from the spring—and from that time her former fits did not return to her.

A landowner of Nizhny Novgorod province, D. A. A., a benefactor of the Diveyevo community, for the repose of whose soul the Psalter is read daily according to the rules of that convent, in his old age lost his sight, so that he could see nothing at all. With this loss he was also deprived of the other enjoyment he had felt in reading books of Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. This occupation had been the sole consolation of his old age. Weighed down with sorrow, he sent a messenger to his cousin, Ye. A. B., with word of his grief and a request that she come to visit him. The sister, upon hearing from the messenger of her brother’s misfortune, immediately sent him water from Father Seraphim’s spring, which she always kept at her house. This gift greatly consoled the old man, and he immediately set about following the instructions conveyed to him by his sister as to how to use this water. “I ordered”—he said—“a clean towel to be brought to me; I moistened it with the water from Seraphim’s spring, and then applied it to my sick eyes with the prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, by the prayers of Your servant Seraphim, heal me. I repeated this three times. And now, when after several minutes I removed the towel from my eyes for the first time, I saw everything around me as through a kind of mist, or as if through a very fine sieve. The second time I began already to distinguish objects, and finally, after the third time, I was even able to read; my illness had completely passed. Astonished at this sudden and so miraculous healing, through the prayers of God’s saint Seraphim, I made haste first of all to the Sarov Hermitage, to have there a thanksgiving moleben to the Lord God and His Most Pure Mother and a memorial service for Father Seraphim; and then I laid it upon myself as a rule to set aside each year a portion of my income for the Diveyevo women’s community, knowing what fatherly care the beneficent Elder Seraphim had for it.”

About a year and a half before the repose of Father Seraphim, N. M. K., having visited Sarov with his wife and conversed with the elder, received from him a certain injunction, in the nature of a commandment, for their married life. Father Seraphim said with an angelic smile: “If you do not fulfil this, you and she will soon die.” While Father Seraphim was alive, they observed the elder’s commandment with God’s help; but afterwards, little by little, they began to forget it and transgressed it several times. After this, N. M. K. suddenly fell ill with a general weakening of all his members and something resembling a severe fever, so that two weeks after he took to his bed, he lost his voice, his lips grew numb, and he was beyond all hope. On that very day when death was already ready to take its victim, in the morning his attending physician, D. A. V., came to him and told those gathered around the sick man of a dream he had had: it seemed to him that he was on his way to K.’s house, and suddenly he encountered an old gray-haired man, in bast shoes and rags, who stopped him and said: “You are going to cure him? You will not cure him, and he must die; but tell him to make some vow before God—and then he will remain alive.” The sick man heard this account of the physician, and after his departure began to reflect on what he had heard. He immediately understood that this old man was none other than Father Seraphim, though already departed, and that his present illness was the consequence of his breaking of the commandment. Then K. began bitterly to repent of his conduct and made a vow before God that if he remained alive he would take under his care one of his female relatives, the orphan Nadezhda. Scarcely had he made this vow in his soul than he felt an instantaneous relief from the illness: within a few minutes he sat up in bed on his own, and then began to call to his wife in the ordinary voice of a healthy man, and together with her poured forth before the Lord tears of joy over the wondrous, gracious healing granted him by Father Seraphim. On the very next day the sick man began to walk about the rooms and soon recovered completely.

The Russian ascetic of Mount Athos known and revered by all under the name of the Svyatogorts, the hieromonk Seraphim, in schema Sergius, conveys the following circumstance in his private notebooks. “In 1849, on my departure from Vyatka, I fell ill. My illness was devastating: I did not think I would remain alive, for the enemy attacked me fiercely. No ordinary means could restore me and return my strength and health. I despaired. Only on the first evening of 1850 it was as if someone quietly said to me: ‘Tomorrow is the anniversary of the repose of Father Seraphim of Sarov, the elder; serve a memorial Liturgy for him and a memorial service—and he will heal you.’ This greatly comforted me. Now it must be said that although I had not personally known Father Seraphim, in 1838, being in Sarov, I had visited his desert skete, and from that time conceived faith and love toward him. This heartfelt attachment and faith were further strengthened in me when in 1839 I dreamed that I was serving a moleben to Father Seraphim, from my whole soul and loudly singing: ‘Venerable Father Seraphim, pray to God for us!’ Only at the sixth ode it was necessary for me to read the Gospel, and I was troubled by the thought: which Gospel should I read—that of a venerable father, such-and-such or another? Suddenly someone said to me: read from Mt 36 the pericope. At these words of the mysterious voice I awoke. From that time to this day I sincerely believe that Father Seraphim is a great saint of God. But let me return to what I had begun. At the secret prompting that urged me to commemorate Father Seraphim, I asked—not being strong enough myself—for a Liturgy and a memorial service to be served for him, and no sooner was this done than my illness passed and I felt extraordinary peace, freed from the oppression of the adversary. And from that time to this day I have been well, by the grace of God. (From the Works and Letters of the Svyatogorts. St. Petersburg, 1858, p. 209.)”

Ye. P. M. recounted the following incident concerning her aunt. In 1854 the aunt came to the Diveyevo community to pray, and after the All-Night Vigil, having perspired, she drank two glasses of water, from which a violent fever developed in her. For three weeks the sick woman neither drank, nor ate, nor slept; in the fourth week of illness she fell into a faint. There was no hope of recovery; the sick woman was administered the last rites in preparation for death. But a nun from Smolensk who was her fellow traveler, and who had come to collect donations for her convent, prostrated herself before the icon of the Mother of God and besought Father Seraphim to obtain from the Queen of Heaven the prolongation of the sick woman’s life.

One morning she approached the sick woman and said: I have had such a dream about you.

The sick woman said with a tremor: “Surely about my death?”

No, you will be alive and well—Father Seraphim told me so.

The sick woman, who until then had not lifted her head from the pillow, rose and sat up, saying: “Well then, tell me quickly!”

She recounted that Father Seraphim, reassuring her, had said to her: “Be at peace: the handmaid of God Eudokia will live. I have prayed to the Lord and to His Most Pure Mother.”

She also saw in the dream that he took the sick woman, led her along the canal, walked her around the cathedral, and brought her to the icon of the Tenderness of the Mother of God set into the wall of the cathedral.

Having heard this account, the sick woman felt herself completely well. On the following day, wishing to breathe fresh air, she told the coachman to take her wherever he wished, naming no particular direction. He drove her along the canal, then around the cathedral and to the icon of the Tenderness of the Mother of God. Thus were fulfilled the words of Elder Seraphim, spoken in the dream to the Smolensk nun. (This healing was recorded in the sick woman’s own hand beneath the icon standing at the spring.)

In 1856 the only son of the vice-governor of Kostroma province, Actual State Councillor A. A. Borz-ko, being eight years old, began to suffer from stomach spasms. This illness, at first fairly mild, soon turned severe with fits. After some time the spasms ceased, replaced by a melancholy, so that the child, quite cheerful and healthy one moment, would suddenly become gloomy. The melancholy intensified continuously, and the fit ended in tears, and not infrequently in the appearance of foam at the mouth. Finally spasms of the windpipe appeared. The fits of illness would occur five times a day, while at night the child slept peacefully; only in the final period of the illness did the fits begin to appear at night as well. Medical assistance was of little help, and the parents feared losing their son, and only their hope in God’s mercy kept in them some remaining expectation. At this time a riasophore nun of the Kostroma women’s monastery, S. D. Dav-va, later abbess of that convent, Maria, who was well acquainted with this family and was setting out to visit certain Russian monasteries, gave the mother of the sick child a description of the life and labors of Father Seraphim of Sarov. The parents read this book together frequently, marveling at the elder’s labors and the workings of God’s grace that had been revealed in him. It was the middle of September, and the child’s illness, which had begun in July, continued still. One night the child saw in a dream the Savior in red raiment, surrounded by angels, who said to him: “You will be well if you fulfill that which the elder who will come to you shall command you.” When this vision ended, an elder appeared and, calling himself Seraphim, said to the child: “If you wish to be well, take water from the spring in the Sarov forest called the Seraphim spring, and for three days morning and evening wash yourself with this water on the head, chest, hands, and feet, and drink it.” This dream the child recounted to his nurse, who told his parents, before whom he himself repeated his account. Thanking God for His mercy, the parents were at a loss as to how to obtain the water and committed themselves to the will of God, hoping that the Lord would show them the means to do so. In the morning the sick child recounted another dream. The Mother of God had appeared to him, surrounded by angels, and lovingly commanded him to fulfill without fail that which Father Seraphim had advised. This second vision further confirmed the parents’ trust in the intercession of Father Seraphim and the mercy of God toward the sick one. While they were deliberating how to obtain the water, a note arrived from S. D. Dav-va, informing the mother of the sick child of her return from her journey. The parents’ first thought was to ask D-va how to obtain water from Father Seraphim’s spring in Sarov. In response to this request she sent a bottle of water drawn from Father Seraphim’s spring. Seeing in this a special mercy of God, and having given thanks to God, they began to use the water according to the instructions given in the dream. The child, gradually recovering, became completely well. Then the parents, if not for themselves, at least on behalf of their son, made a vow to go without fail to Sarov and pray at the grave of Father Seraphim. Circumstances of service and family life only in 1860, on the 14th of July, made it possible for Mr. B-ko to go to Sarov together with his son and fulfill his promise. At that time he personally delivered a written statement to the abbot of the Sarov community reporting the healing of his son through the intercession of the blessed Elder Seraphim.

A landowner of Tambov province, Shatsk district, Colonel V. A. Pan-v, suffered continuously from headache. In 1857 he came to Sarov by the 15th of August, for the very feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God. Having stood through the early Liturgy in the hospital church, he wished, before the late Liturgy, to go to Father Seraphim’s spring. But the thought that his wife would be waiting for him at the guest-house with tea troubled him, and he had already turned his steps toward the guest-house, when suddenly, without knowing how, he found himself on the path to the spring. Arriving there, he was afraid to pour the water over his aching head, feeling in it a buzzing and a throbbing, and the morning was cold, damp, and a light rain was falling. Here an invisible hand of God arranged his healing in a wondrous manner. Unexpectedly his feet slipped on the wet clay, and he fell at the spring with his head directly under the trough: involuntarily he was drenched all over with the healing water. No longer fearing a chill, the sick man, rising to his feet, himself poured water over his head several more times and felt not the slightest pain.

When Colonel P-v was returning to the monastery, he was met by a peasant, who in his turn recounted the following concerning his own healing: “Just now Father Seraphim has healed me! My arm was aching, swollen, stiffened, and could not be raised; and I came to Sarov with this ailment. Today I moistened it twice with water from the spring, and my arm became completely sound.” Arriving at the guest-house, the colonel recounted to all the story of these two healings.

In 1858, a sister of the Diveyevo community, Eudokia, on a Wednesday in the fifth week of Great Lent, was together with other sisters packing a great communal ice-cellar, three fathoms deep, with ice. Slipping accidentally off the plank laid over the timber frame, she fell to the very bottom of the ice-cellar, where some ice had been thrown in sharp chunks. The unfortunate woman, from the force of the blow, did not utter the slightest groan. The other sisters at that time were all outside the cellar, busy around their sledges. When the elder sister noticed that one of them was missing, she asked: “Where is Eudokia?” No one knew what to say. Entering the cellar, they saw her at the bottom, in the darkness, in her clothing. Horror seized them all; they supposed she was already dead. Two men, with the help of the sisters, with the greatest difficulty drew her up out of the pit. Seeing that she was still alive, they thanked the Lord, carried her to the nearest cell, sent for the spiritual father, and, with the blessing of the abbess, dispatched to the village of Vertyanov for a physician. After some hours the sufferer came to her senses, made her confession and received Holy Communion; she complained of a mortal pain in her side and in her head, on which many lumps had appeared. The physician who arrived performed the necessary bloodletting, but said the injury was very dangerous. The entire side had swollen up; it was impossible to determine whether any ribs were broken, and the mere touching of them would plunge the sick woman into a prolonged faint. Four days later she was transferred to the infirmary, but there too the sufferer would cry out and moan when four people could barely lift her to place her on her pillows; she lay entirely on her right side. Two weeks after the injury, during which time she had scarcely slept for the pain, at midnight before Holy Thursday she fell into a light sleep and saw that Father Seraphim, entering the cell where the sick woman lay, said: “I have come to visit my poor ones; I have not been here for a long time,” and saying this, drew near to the sick woman’s bed. She said to him with bitter tears: “Dear Father, how my side aches!” The elder, folding the three fingers of his right hand, made the sign of the cross over her injured place, saying: “I am applying to you a plaster and a bandage.” Having repeated this three times, he became invisible. Eudokia opened her eyes—in the cell was complete emptiness and silence. She fell asleep again shortly. Waking at five o’clock in the morning, she found herself lying on her injured side, feeling no pain at all. Recalling the apparition of Father Seraphim to her, she said that “I long felt as if a plaster lay on the injured place.” That same day the sick woman, alone and without any assistance, rose from her bed, walked several times across the cell, and told everyone of her miraculous healing; she made her confession and received Holy Communion, being strengthened in spirit and body through the prayers of Elder Seraphim.

A young peasant woman of Ryazan province and district, Olga I., was seized with fits of a grievous illness accompanied by hiccupping, yawning, dimming of the vision, and frenzy. She would torment herself, scream, display unnatural strength, and tear her clothing to shreds. Her sufferings lasted eight years. In 1858, together with three pilgrim women, she set out for Sarov and Diveyevo; along the way she sometimes felt fits, but was still able to walk. As she drew nearer to Sarov the fits intensified, and upon seeing it she lay down in the road and flatly refused to go any further. With great effort the sufferer was brought to Sarov. After a moleben to the Queen of Heaven and a memorial service for Father Seraphim, she set out with her companions to his spring. Here the fit was uncommonly strong; she cried out: “What are you doing, choking me! I am strong—why do you bind me? I will go out, I will go out!” She was struck to the ground several times as if dead, for about two hours she was blind and mute. At last the evil spirit cried out: “Three have gone out, one remains.” A day later she received Holy Communion in Sarov and set out for Diveyevo. But about half a verst before the monastery she fell to the ground. Several times on the road she was rolled over like a wheel; with great effort she was brought by evening to the guest-house; all night the sick woman was restless and would have fled had she not been held. In the morning, without telling her where they were going, they led her to the church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, where Father Seraphim’s desert cell had been converted into a holy altar and all his clothing was kept. Unnatural strength resisted the strength of several people when they dragged her into the church. The evil spirit cried out: “I will go out, I will go out, I will be silent.” With arms, legs, and neck outstretched and the abdomen swollen, she was dragged to Father Seraphim’s stone. Placing the sick woman upon it, they covered her with a mantle and laid upon her the elder’s epitrachelion: the sick woman cried out loudly, and after his mittens were placed on her hands, she became as if dead. Little by little the neck, the abdomen, and all the members began to return to their natural position; having lain without consciousness for about an hour and a half, the sick woman came fully to herself, prayed with tears, thanked the Lord and His saint for her healing, but was weak and could not speak much, and everything the companions recounted about her she confirmed—she confirmed also that never had she felt so light and peaceful as now. The abbess of the community blessed her for the journey with a portrait of Father Seraphim and a piece from his stone. On the following day, having stood through the Liturgy, the moleben, and the memorial service, she departed for Moscow.

Eudokia Ochkina, the wife of a townsman of the city of Penza, recounted the following: “In 1843 I was walking in the garden with my three-year-old daughter Elizabeth; I do not know how a bur became attached to the fringe of my dress. When I pulled it off, a bit of fluff probably flew off and got into the child’s eyes. My Elizabeth suddenly cried out and, closing both eyes, began to weep, shedding streams of tears. I called old women to examine her; they searched for the speck with their tongues, turned the eyes back on a ring, but my daughter finally lost her sight entirely. A year passed; a doctor came to Penza from St. Petersburg: I carried my blind child to him, but he too could not examine her eye—no means availed to open the tightly shut and as it were grown-together eyelids. The doctor declined to offer help. Another year later, my blind daughter was sitting beside me on the floor; I had laid toys on her lap: she felt them over with her hands. I wept, looking at her, and said in my thoughts: ‘Father Seraphim! Pray to the Lord that the eyes of my blind daughter may open; I will come to you in Sarov on foot.’ At that very moment she jumped up and ran about the room. From that time she began to see as before; but having lived about two years, she died; and I, sinful wretch, entirely forgot the promise I had made about the journey to Sarov, and for this I was punished a second time. My other daughter, Maria, being also three years old, fell gravely ill with her eyes; fomentations and medicines gave her no relief; then I remembered my promise to go to Sarov. Without any delay I set out on the journey, and that very same day that I served a memorial service for Father Seraphim, my little girl was healed. Only on one eye there remained a mark—not quite a cataract, but a small spot, which, however, does not hinder her from seeing—as if in remembrance that by her mother’s forgetfulness of a promise the woman had offended the man of God. In 1858 she was in Diveyevo with her fifteen-year-old daughter Maria, and herself recounted everything that is written above.”

In 1859 the wife of the postmaster of the town of Temnikov, having received from Sarov a portrait of Elder Seraphim painted on a fragment of the stone on which the elder had stood and prayed, wished to send it as a gift to her benefactor in Tambov. With this thought in mind, she fell into a doze and saw Elder Seraphim, who, looking upon her sternly, said: “Why do you not wish to keep my portrait yourself?” and with these words struck her on the shoulder. Waking from this, she felt a trembling throughout her whole body; the shoulder on which the blow had fallen, and her arm, became completely numb, as if struck by paralysis. She immediately set out for Sarov, had a memorial service served, prayed fervently at the grave of Father Seraphim, and received complete healing from her ailment on the spot.

Madame Al-va, being with child, was greatly afraid as the time of delivery drew near, since her labors had always been especially difficult and dangerous for her. At this time a pilgrim came to our house who carried with him a description of the life of Elder Seraphim. Having read this book, Madame A., after prayer to the Lord God, placed her hope in the blessed Elder Seraphim and asked for his help. After this she felt considerably better; all fear had already passed, and there was something joyous in her soul. The time of delivery came. Without any assistance from people, calling only upon the Most Holy Mother of God and Elder Seraphim for help, A-va gave birth without her former sufferings to a son, whom she named Seraphim. (A letter in her own hand from Madame Alt-va to the abbot of the Sarov community.)

All the accounts set forth here concerning miraculous healings through the prayers of Elder Seraphim of Sarov are taken from the fourth edition of the book: The Life of Elder Seraphim. Property of the Sarov Hermitage. Murom. 1893.

12. Continuation of the Account of the Manifestation of the Gracious Help of Father Seraphim After His Death

In the preceding chapters, after the portrayal of the ascetic life of the elder of God and the accounts of those miraculous works of God’s mercy which were performed through his intercession upon those who came to him for help while he was still alive, an account was also given of those miracles worked through his prayers after his repose. The accounts of these miracles were brought up to the 1860s, when the first edition of this book appeared. In the present chapter these accounts are continued, for the source of God’s mercy through the prayers of the blessed elder Seraphim has never dried up and does not dry up to this day. From eighty written statements from persons who received gracious help through his prayers during the period from the 1860s to the 1890s—statements verified by an ecclesiastical commission, as mentioned in the preface to this book—the statements of fourteen persons are included here, persons over whom, through Father Seraphim’s prayers, especially remarkable manifestations of the Lord’s mercy were performed.

We bring first the letter of Mrs. Zhukovskaya to the abbess of the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery, Maria: “One day our daughter, being about five years old, fell ill with all the signs of concealed scarlet fever that had gone to the brain. Knowing from experience all the horror of this illness, I asked my husband to call on Father Nazary, priest of the Court Hospital Church at the Police Bridge in St. Petersburg, and to ask the father to roll water over the little stone of the holy elder Seraphim. Learning of our child’s illness, Father Nazary was kind enough to give us also a fragment of the stone, telling my husband that when we rolled water over it, we should read ‘Our Father’ three times and ‘Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos’ the same number of times, dipping the stone itself into the water. Before my husband returned from Father Nazary, a doctor had visited us and informed me that if the illness took a bad turn, the patient would complain of dizziness accompanied by vomiting. The doctor had barely left when all of this occurred, and the patient began to rave with her eyes open. At that moment my husband returned home. Learning all my fears about the patient, he said to me, handing me the stone: ‘Here is your medicine,’ explaining how the water was to be rolled over it. With reverence I kissed the stone and immediately prepared the water. This was at about twelve noon. My husband left for work and returned at four; during that interval I tried to give the patient water more frequently with a teaspoon; by the time her father arrived she had come out of her stupor, and by evening she asked for her toys. The doctor, visiting the patient at about eight in the evening, expected to find her in a dangerous condition. His amazement was great when he found her well.”

Ivan Latkin, a merchant of Krasnoyarsk, wrote to the same Diveyevo abbess Maria: “In the 1860s I was unwell in the city of Krasnoyarsk from autumn for about two months—I could not even walk. But the master in whose employ I was sent for me, so that I should prepare to travel with him to the city of Tomsk. The medical orderly who was treating me at that time told me that if I did not change the dressings on my wounds four times every day, I would have to die. Despite this, though involuntarily, I was compelled to travel with the master, and we sat in the carriage side by side; owing to the poor road, the journey to Tomsk took more than three days, and I dared not tell the master of my illness and changed no dressings throughout the entire journey. In Tomsk we stopped at lodgings, where in the evening, after some time had passed, I lay down to sleep on a sofa on my side and fell asleep. And there in my sleep I saw—a little old man came in wearing a short white tunic that reached above his knees, with a belt. Coming up to me, he struck the palm of his hand against my leg and said: ‘So you stopped getting treatment and recovered!’ I woke up at once, struck a light, and looked at my wounds, from which I had not removed the dressings during the entire journey. To my astonishment, not a trace of the illness was to be found, which gladdened me to such a degree that I ran back and forth several times during the night, without fully thinking where I was going, to the chapel of the Iveron Mother of God, intending to buy a book of the Lives of the Holy Fathers—but they were asleep there, since it was past midnight. When it began to grow light, I ran again, and to my joy and happiness I saw a monk sweeping the snow at the chapel. I asked him whether there were books of the Lives of the Holy Fathers, and he answered that there were. The monk unlocked the chapel, went in, and handed me a small book. Remembering the face of the elder I had seen in the dream, I took the book in my hands, opened it, and unexpectedly beheld that very Elder. It was Father Seraphim, hieromonk of the Sarov Hermitage, whom I had not previously seen or known.”

Priest Gavriil Galitsky wrote to the abbess of the Diveyevo Monastery, Maria, the following: “In August 1861, owing to a cold and still more to my grievous sins, I was struck down with typhoid fever. I was being treated in the city of Orlov in Vyatka province, but the medicines gave me no relief at all, and hour by hour my illness grew stronger and stronger, so that I despaired of recovering, all the more so since I could take no medicines without them causing me to vomit. There was also no sleep. One night I began to take leave of my wife, for I felt death drawing near. But my wife said to me: ‘If you no longer hope to live, you must at least die as a Christian.’ But I had no inclination to cleanse my conscience through repentance and receive Holy Communion; instead there was a kind of despondency and anguish. I told this to my wife, and she with tears begged me to send for the archpriest, even though it was already midnight. I told my wife to bring me some book in the hope that reading would dispel the tedium, and she brought me the book ‘Life of the Sarov Hermit, Hieromonk Seraphim.’ Having read this book, I at once resolved to repent of my sins, and then and there had the archpriest sent for; he came to me immediately and administered the last rites. About four days after receiving communion, I set out for treatment to the city of Vyatka, arriving there in the evening. This was already in early September. The next morning at seven o’clock, an elderly woman came to my lodgings and offered me a portrait of Father Seraphim of Sarov; I took two portraits from her, and as she was leaving she said to me: ‘Father, when the time comes, do not forget Agafya.’ Regarding both of these occurrences as a sign from God, I turned in prayer to the servant of God Seraphim and gave a vow to visit the Sarov Hermitage and serve a memorial service at Father Seraphim’s grave. From that time I began to feel better, so that within a week the doctor even permitted me to go out to the monastery and into town, and I began to repent of the vow I had made. And, as it seems, it was as a result of that repentance that my illness intensified once again, so that the doctors I summoned refused to treat me, and the last of them, the surgeon F-n, said to me: ‘Father, I will continue to visit you, but I give no word that I can cure you: seek a spiritual physician.’ Then once more I gave a firm vow to go without fail to the Sarov Hermitage. And through the prayers of the Venerable Father Seraphim I was completely healed of my illness. Being in the Sarov Hermitage, I bought the book ‘Life of Elder Seraphim,’ the 1863 edition, and reading it I learned that the first superior of the Diveyevo community was Agafya. I then recalled the last words of the elderly woman from whom I had bought Father Seraphim’s portraits—‘When the time comes, remember Agafya’—and thought that I must pray also for this venerable one, that she too is close to the Lord.”

The account of the healing of Matvey Karpov, a townsman of Krasnoslobodsk, from a toothache. “I was afflicted with severe toothache for about two and a half years. It distracted me from my work. I took various medicines, but they gave no relief, and various spells were of no use. In 1866 I felt a desire to go to the Sarov Hermitage to ask God, through the prayers of Father Seraphim at his grave, for healing from the toothache. On the eighth of September, on the feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God, after the celebration of the Holy Liturgy, I, along with other people, asked the serving hieromonk to serve a memorial service at Father Seraphim’s grave. After the service was completed, I wished to press my cheeks three times against the memorial stone, and from this I at once felt relief, and afterward complete healing.”

The account of the wife of Priest Alexander Vinogradov about the healing of her son from stammering. “In 1865, for my sins, my three-year-old son, a boy who was quick in conversation, suddenly began to stammer. This stammering grew worse and more severe with time, and by the beginning of 1866 had increased to the point where he could not get out a single word at once, but would first struggle for five minutes or more: ‘a, a, a…’—go completely red, finally seize his cheeks with both hands, and run off in tears to hide somewhere and weep over his inability to say what he wanted. For us his parents it was very painful to see; we looked with dread toward the future, wondering how the poor boy would answer his lessons when he went to school. We would often say to him: ‘Sashenka! Think first, then speak’—imagining that he had acquired the habit of stammering so terribly from haste in speech; and sometimes we would say to him: ‘Better keep silent: it is very unpleasant to hear your stammering.’ All of this visibly distressed the boy himself, who was precociously clever for his age. During Great Lent in 1866, acquaintances gave me the book of the Life of the Sarov ascetic Father Seraphim to read. I read it aloud to my son; the son listened to my reading with remarkable attention and comprehension, and began thereafter to have faith in the holiness of Father Seraphim and to feel love for him. He expressed this by kissing with reverence the small images depicting Father Seraphim. So the days of Holy Pascha passed; during those days, namely on Tuesday, his father sent Sasha from the front part of our house to the back rooms to say something to me. He opened the door to us, tried to speak, but could not—went red, clenched his cheeks (for the stammering caused him pain in the cheeks), ran back behind the door, and wept. Seeing him in this condition, I and the nursemaid—a young woman living with us—both wept. I embraced my unfortunate son and advised him, at the sound of the bells calling to ‘It is truly meet,’ to pray, or at least to cross himself wherever he might happen to be at that moment, and to ask Father Seraphim to heal him through his prayers. The boy received my advice with joy and promised to do so, which he then faithfully did. That very hour I privately made a vow to serve a memorial service for the repose of the soul of Father Seraphim, went to my husband, and told him everything. But my husband, who at that time had not yet read the Life of Father Seraphim, received my vow with great indifference and promised to serve the memorial service someday. Remarkably, from that very day on which we made a vow to appeal to Father Seraphim and to pray for the repose of his blessed soul, our son suddenly stopped stammering altogether and began to speak everything well, distinctly and clearly… We careless sinners thought: here is what people said was true—that with time this illness would pass; and so it has passed—and we served no memorial service. Only I harbored in my soul the thought that someday I would fulfill the promise on some occasion. About three weeks passed thus. And then the Lord was pleased to instruct us careless ones and to show us that our son had not recovered by himself, but through the prayers of Father Seraphim. Our son suddenly began to stammer again as before, again could not say a single word at once. Then I, sinful one, understood everything and conveyed my view of this to my husband. My husband then wished to read the biography of Father Seraphim; he began to read it, felt reverence toward the elder of God, and soon expressed to me a desire to serve the promised memorial service for the father—which he did. After the memorial service our child recovered completely at once. More than that: in that same year 1866, being four and a half years old, he insistently demanded to be taught to read.”

Collegiate Secretary Andrei Vasilyev wrote to the Sarov Abbot Seraphim the following: “In March 1866 my wife Aleksandra Nikolaevna, returning from the Sarov Hermitage, saw in a dream the departed ascetic of the Sarov Monastery, the holy elder Father Seraphim, who told her that she would have pain in her side and that no one could help her but he. Indeed, in April of that same year my wife felt a severe pain in her right side, and the illness took on such extreme proportions that it drove her to distraction. We sought the advice of doctors in the cities of Penza and Saransk, who treated her for more than two years, and though they gave some relief, they provided no definitive help, and informed me that my wife’s illness was incurable. Trusting in the power of the prayers of the holy elder Father Seraphim and recalling his appearance to my wife in the dream, I set out with all my family in September of that year for the Sarov Hermitage, where, having remained until the eighteenth, we were found worthy to receive Holy Communion, to hear a moleben before the icon of the Queen of Heaven of the Life-Giving Spring, and a memorial service in the cell and at the grave of the holy Father Seraphim. We then set out for the Seraphim-Diveyevo women’s monastery, and there the next day likewise heard a moleben before the icon of the Queen of Heaven of Tenderness and a memorial service in Father Seraphim’s cell, where all kissed the humble garment of the holy elder, and returned to our lodgings. During the night of that day the illness with my wife repeated so violently that it was repeatedly accompanied by vomiting of bile in separate chunks and finally by a black liquid resembling earth, and the patient was drained to the last of her strength; but having faith in the power of Father Seraphim’s prayers, I again appealed in prayer to him and asked also for the prayers of the sisters of the monastery, after which the abbess, Mother Maria, visited my sick wife and placed upon her the cap and towel of Father Seraphim that she had brought. After this my wife never felt even the slightest pain, as though she had never had it at all. Finally my wife again saw Father Seraphim in a dream, and he said to her: ‘Well, my joy, your illness will not return to you, and you will be well.’”

From a letter by the Alferov family. In 1866, on December 6, writes Mr. Alferov, my daughter Sofia, being one year and two months old, suddenly lost the use of her left leg; the little one’s suffering was unbearable—she could sleep neither day nor night. The doctors who treated her could not even determine what the illness was, for there was no swelling. In short, she could not use her leg at all, and the various ointments prescribed by the doctors only intensified the pain. My wife and I were deeply distressed to witness the child’s unbearable suffering and, being unable to relieve it, we turned for help to the Most Holy Heavenly Lady—we asked a priest to serve a prayer service to the Kazan Mother of God, beseeching the Queen of Heaven to send our daughter healing. Shortly after this, before dinner, my wife, while sitting by the cradle of the sick child, fell asleep for a few minutes and saw the hieromonk elder Seraphim in a white smock, who said to her: “Do not weep and do not despair—your daughter will be alive and well. She has a dislocation; her leg must be set as soon as possible.” At that my wife awoke and told me of her dream at dinner. After dinner I lay down to rest and myself saw the elder Seraphim in a dream, also in a white smock, who, turning to me, said: “Do not worry: your daughter will be alive.” Upon waking, I went to the dining room, where I found my wife speaking with a midwife, who had come specifically to advise us to consult a bone-setter—a peasant well known throughout the Glazov district of Vyatka province, where I was serving at the time. I told them of my dream and sent the coachman for the said bone-setter, who arrived the following morning. After examining our daughter’s sick leg, he found a dislocation in three places: at the foot, above it, and at the knee. He also told us that it would need to be set two more times. After the first setting of the leg, on the third or fourth day, she lifted it for the first time, to our great common joy; after each setting she improved, and within three weeks she was completely well. In 1867, around July 8, my son Alexander fell ill, being three months old. Around July 15, I returned from the district, went to bed at one in the morning, and in a dream saw the elder Seraphim, in the same white smock, who said to me: “He will die.” Three days later, my son died. In 1870, on August 2, in St. Petersburg, a daughter Olga was born to me. When she was six weeks old, my wife went to visit the godfather, and I, remaining at home, fell asleep by the baby’s crib and saw in a dream the hieromonk elder Seraphim entering my room in a white smock, who said to me: “She will not live to one year.” And indeed she died on July 20, 1871, twelve days short of a year. When I was serving in the town of Glazov, in 1865, I felt a sharp pain in my left side; at times my suffering was unbearable. When I arrived in Petersburg in 1870, the physicians I consulted found my illness incurable. Leaving service in 1876, I traveled to the town of Zadonsk, Voronezh province, went frequently to the Liturgy at the monastery, and mentally always asked the elder Seraphim to relieve my illness. On the night from the 23rd to the 24th of August, while I slept, the elder Seraphim approached my bed—in a cassock, epitrachelion, and cuffs; a deacon in full vestments stood some distance behind him, and someone else in monastic garb. Father Seraphim drew close to me, pressed his left knee against my aching side, and with both hands scraped my ribs in such a way that when I looked at the afflicted spot, some bloody sinews—like leeches, the thickness of a finger—hung beneath the ribs. When the vision passed, I awoke and immediately felt relief. From the first days of September, writes Mr. Alferov’s wife, I suffered from palpitations of the heart and tightness of breath in the chest, with a severe cough, pain in the chest, back, and left side; all this time I underwent treatment, but the medicines brought no relief. In the summer of 1884 I suffered from a debility of the whole body; at times from weakness I could barely walk. In my prayers I always asked the Mother of God and the elder Seraphim to send me healing. On the night from the 4th to the 5th of August, I saw in a dream the elder Seraphim in a black mantle, epitrachelion, and cuffs. He came up to me—though I do not know where—took me by the shoulders, and placed me in a large room, saying: “Fear not, my daughter! You are about to receive a great joy: a vision of the icon of the Mother of God.” At once a loud noise was heard; from fear and weakness my head was spinning, but it was supported by the hands of Father Seraphim, and I was encouraged by his word: “Fear not!” Suddenly the noise subsided, a door opened, and a woman entered in monastic garb, holding an icon of the Mother of God, accompanied by a great many persons, also in black monastic dress, who remained in the doorway. Beholding the beauty, majesty, and divine goodness of the nun, I could barely stand on my feet from awe, but Father Seraphim’s hands held me firmly. He said to me again: “Fear not!” and led me up to the icon of the Mother of God. The woman in monastic garb blessed me three times with the said icon, and I kissed it. She who had blessed me sat down on a nearby bench—Father Seraphim also helped me to sit beside her. The divinely gentle face of the nun holding the icon of the Mother of God moved me to beg her for healing, and I asked her permission to kiss her hand (from awe, I long hesitated to do so). She, smiling with divine graciousness, extended her hand to me, saying: “As much as you wish.” I kissed her hand with reverence, mentally never ceasing to beg her for healing. When my sinful lips touched her divine hand, my whole soul was filled with an inexpressible blessedness, from which I was recalled by the voice of Father Seraphim, who had been near me all the while, on my right side: “That is enough for you now—go; here, the deacon will see you out.” At once a deacon appeared in a black cassock, whom I had not noticed before. The vision passed; the deacon walked ahead, while I rose from the bench on my own and followed him, feeling no weakness at all. We passed through many rooms, and at last he led me into a small room hung all about with icons, before which lamps were burning. Entering that room, he asked me: “Do you know where you are now?” I answered: “No.” “In Kostroma,” was his reply. At that I awoke. From great joy and awe I was shaking as if with a fever; when I had calmed somewhat, I felt relief. The whole day I felt stronger, and on August 6, the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, I went for a walk with my family from the Finland Railway station, where we were staying at a summer cottage, and reached Shuvalovo station without fatigue, a distance of about three versts. Thanks to the intercession of the Mother of God and the hieromonk elder Seraphim, I feel no more weakness, and my health has improved.

The candidate Potapy Maksimov wrote the following to Seraphim, abbot of the Sarov Hermitage. In 1868, on the feast of the Holy Trinity, I went to the church of God with my children to hear the Liturgy, while my wife Maria, who professes the Roman Catholic faith, went for the same purpose to the Catholic church. After the service ended and I returned home, I learned that my wife had not yet returned. Under the influence of an unpleasant feeling I awaited her return, and when she arrived, I began to reproach her for her long absence. When she answered that the reason for her absence was the wish to hear the divine service to its end, I spoke blasphemously of her piety. At that moment our daughter Darya, seeing her mother’s grief and my agitated state, came up to me with a plea not to offend her mother. “Get out!” I shouted at her. The poor child recoiled, and that same day she fell ill. Supposing that my daughter’s illness was the result of a minor fright, a week after she fell ill I invited more than twelve physicians to the house to provide assistance to the sick child. But medical assistance did not relieve the child’s sufferings. For eleven months my daughter suffered a debility of the whole body to such a degree that she could not even lift her head. Deeply repenting of my hastiness and attributing my daughter’s illness to a trial sent upon me by God, I wept and prayed. Having read the life of the elder Seraphim of the Sarov Hermitage and his miraculous intercession on behalf of true believers and those who pray, I, at the advice of my spiritual father, served a memorial service for the reposed elder of God. The priest who conducted the service then heard the confession of and gave communion to my nearly dying daughter. And on the following day, March 19, 1869, my daughter Darya rose from her bed and began to walk freely about the room. To our question of how this had happened, Darya replied that in her sleep she had seen a priest who, approaching her bed, said: “Rise, little Dashenka, the Mother of God has told you to get up.”

Pavel Ivanov Baykov, a townsman of Nizhny Novgorod, testifies: in 1868, when I was a shop clerk for the merchant Storozhev in the town of Arzamas, Nizhny Novgorod province, in the month of December, while at work in a wine cellar, at eight o’clock in the evening, an illness of the eyes came upon me, and at the same time a kind of dread seized me. The illness of the eyes and the fear that attacked me intensified day by day and continued for more than a year, so that in the end a severe aching pain in the eyes developed, and I could barely look at anything, still less at the light. The doctors, both those in Arzamas and those in Lukoyanov, who treated me for a considerable time, could bring me no benefit. At that time my mother, a God-fearing old woman, having heard much about the healing of various ailments through the prayers of the hieromonk elder Seraphim, gave me the instruction to ask Father Seraphim in prayer for the healing of my illness, and she also advised me to walk on foot to the Sarov Hermitage to serve a memorial service for him. I received my mother’s counsel with zeal and constantly asked Father Seraphim in prayer for the healing of my illness, and I also walked on foot to the Sarov Hermitage, where I served a memorial service at Father Seraphim’s grave. After arriving from Sarov at the village of Ivantsevo, about two weeks later, it pleased God, through the prayers of Father Seraphim, to work a miracle for me. My elder brother Alexei had at that time rented an estate garden in the village of Ivantsevo, belonging to Countess Protasova. In June of 1870, at midday, my brother suggested that I walk with him to the garden, which was about one hundred or one hundred and fifty sazhens from our dwelling. We went to the garden, sat near the shelter for a while, then my brother said it was time for dinner, and I told him: “Go ahead, I will come by myself in a few minutes somehow.” My brother had not gone more than a few sazhens from me when I was suddenly and instantly overcome with a powerful urge to sleep, even though I had no habit of sleeping during the day at that time. At that very moment, in the space of some five minutes, I saw in sleep that I was in Sarov near the grave of Father Seraphim, praying on my knees to God and asking for the healing of my illness; at that moment great fiery sparks flew from my eyes. I cannot recall whether I was asleep or in some kind of oblivion, but when I came to, I was trembling violently, and I felt no more pain in my eyes.

The healing of Anna Semyonovna Rubtsova. “Wondrous is God in His saints, the God of Israel”—so wrote Mrs. Rubtsova to the abbot of Sarov—and upon me, a wretched, unworthy sinner, He has shown His mercy, through His great servant, the desert-dweller of Sarov, the hieromonk Seraphim. May his glory spread from one end of Russian soil to the other! Here, on the border of Russia with Poland, I sing memorial services for him with tears of heartfelt gratitude; and I ask you, Your Reverence, to convey my humble request to one of the hieromonks, to serve a memorial service at his tomb and a prayer service of thanksgiving to the Mother of God of All Who Sorrow. Now please do not find it troublesome to hear how I, living several thousand versts away, came to know that your holy hermitage possesses such a treasure. As a child I often visited a monastery where my aunt lived and saw a painting on canvas, done in oils, of magnificent workmanship—“The Repose of the Hieromonk Seraphim”—and she told me a great deal about his lofty life and his unfathomable labors. Decades passed; my husband was appointed vice-governor to the town of Kovno, right on the border with Poland; there, I do not know why, this painting began to come into my mind frequently, though previously I had never thought of it. A year later my husband was transferred to the town of Vilna as director of the chancellery of the Northwestern Region. On my arrival in Vilna I became gravely ill and was sick for nearly four years with various ailments. At last my nose became diseased—a severe swelling and redness appeared in the left nostril. For eight months various doctors treated me, but nothing helped: some said it was a polyp, others threatened an even more serious illness. In the end it was decided to perform an operation in the spring if the growth did not yield to treatment; but the operation was very dangerous for me on account of my anemia. One day, having wept to my fill, I lay down to sleep and in a dream saw the painting I have mentioned, and it remained so vividly in my memory that even now I could draw that pale, wax-white elder with gray hair, kneeling with his hands folded on his chest, in a white smock with prayer beads, his eyes cast down, as if in inner prayer, looking nothing at all like a dead man. This painting so gripped my soul that I did not want to get up for a long time—I kept closing my eyes and savoring it, sincerely regretting that the painting could now not be obtained, since no one knew who had received it after my aunt’s death. That very same day (it was a Sunday) I sent to the abbess Flaviana asking for books to read, and—can you imagine my astonishment and joy—she sent me the life of the hieromonk Seraphim with six illustrations, among which was his hermitage with the spring. Having read of all the healings granted by him during his life and after his death, I pressed that little picture to my face and wept, saying: “How fortunate are those people: they saw you, Servant of God, and through your prayers and blessing received healing from this spring; whereas I can never do this, living so far from this holy place.” My aching nostril pressed right up against the image of the spout on the picture, and to my astonishment blood began to flow from it; then it seemed slightly easier for me to breathe. The next day I repeated the same thing, and again blood flowed. And each time I pressed the picture to my face, blood would come from my nose—the swelling and the tissue swelled down, and my nose came to its proper condition.

The healing of Ivan Zasukhin, a merchant of Murom, and of his son and daughter (described in the journal “Grazhdanin” for October 1884). Ivan Ivanov Zasukhin, a merchant of Murom, arrived in Murom at his home from the village of Uryupino on March 21, 1882, very ill. By his own account he had fallen ill there with typhoid fever on March 3. The local doctor of Uryupino who treated him somewhat alleviated the illness but advised him to travel to his home region, which he did. The journey greatly exhausted the patient, and he arrived in Murom very weak. A doctor, Stabrovsky, was summoned. Mr. Stabrovsky also diagnosed the illness as typhoid fever and began treatment; the illness weakened, and according to Zasukhin’s own observation, the fever temperature dropped from 40.1 degrees to 37.5 degrees. After a few days, the patient began to improve. But during the illness a swelling had formed behind his ears and then at the top of his right leg. The physician found it necessary to lance this swelling in order to allow the accumulated matter to drain. But the lancing was unsuccessful—the matter did not come out, and the swelling began to grow more and more. Neither Stabrovsky nor another physician could help with this condition. Then it was proposed to the patient to go to St. Petersburg, on the assumption that perhaps a surgical solution might be found there. The patient did just that and traveled to St. Petersburg. A council of Petersburg professors Bogdanovsky and Multanovsky found surgery impossible and advised the patient to return home. After returning to Murom, a new complication appeared in Zasukhin’s illness: inflammation of the pleura developed, accompanied by a stomach disorder; the patient weakened entirely. Other physicians were invited for a consultation, and they acknowledged the patient’s condition to be hopeless and even named the day of his death. After such a verdict from the physicians, the patient began to prepare himself for death. A priest was invited, as a physician of the soul. He found the patient very weak but in his right mind. As a true Christian, Zasukhin made a sincere confession and was found worthy of Holy Communion. A few days passed, and the priest was summoned to the patient again. He arrived to find that although the man was still conscious, his strength had given out entirely, and the prayer of departure was read over him. But on the third day the patient improved. This came about because in the neighborhood of the patient lived a certain respectable Mrs. M. F. Bychkova; she was very sorry that such a good neighbor was dying so young, and she brought to the dying man’s wife some water taken from Father Seraphim’s spring and asked her to give it to the dying man to drink. The wife, taking this water, offered it to her husband to drink, but he could barely open his mouth—she could only pour a few drops into his mouth from a teaspoon, and poured the remaining water over his head. From the moment she poured a few drops into his mouth and moistened his head, the patient fell completely still, so that she thought he might actually be dying, and she began to watch closely. But the patient, to her astonishment, fell into a quiet sleep. Several hours passed in this state. Then the patient awoke and asked for something to drink. His wife, from such unexpectedness, was completely at a loss and did not know what to give him that would not be harmful; it occurred to her to give him milk, which she did; but then she remembered that milk had been forbidden to him, and so she began to fear bad consequences. The patient drank and felt that it was good for him. His stomach returned to function and the previous symptoms did not recur. From that moment (November 16) his condition improved. The next day the physician listened to Zasukhin’s chest and found an improvement. However, the hip remained as painful and swollen as before; the fistulous tracts did not close. At that point the patient conceived a desire, despite the extreme impossibility owing to his illness, to personally make a pilgrimage to this servant of God, and he set out for the Sarov Hermitage. The patient’s wife took along all the necessities for burial, just in case. All the children were taken so that the patient, in case of a sorrowful outcome, might see his children in his last moments. The patient’s condition was very grave: he could not sit in a carriage because his sick leg was bent, and the jolting of the road produced unbearable pain. At every stop he was carried out of the carriage in arms. In such a painful state Zasukhin arrived at the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery. Here the patient intended to rest for a time from the difficult journey and to stay for a full day. This was June 5, the feast day of the Holy Trinity. The time for the all-night vigil came, and the patient, despite his severe pain, resolved to attend the service. With the help of his wife and servants he was carried on a stretcher from the guesthouse to the church and was brought into it almost entirely by hand. When after the magnification the entire people had venerated the icon of the Holy Trinity, the sick man also went, with great effort, aided by his wife and others, on his crutches, to venerate the festal icon and receive unction with holy oil. When he had venerated the icon and received unction, his eyes involuntarily turned to the holy icon of the Mother of God standing in the iconostasis—the very icon that had been in the cell of the elder Seraphim and before which he had prayed so fervently—and at that moment the patient felt his leg firmly placed on the floor, without pain. He lifted his crutches and, without their help, to the amazement of all who were present, walked to his place. When the service ended, Zasukhin boldly stood on his feet and walked out of the church, where his servants were waiting with the stretcher; but he, needing no assistance, even gave away his crutches and walked to the guesthouse (a distance of about a quarter of a verst) entirely on his own. The next day the patient already went on foot again to the church, where he received Holy Communion, and that same day he hastened to Sarov, directly to Father Seraphim’s grave, where he served a memorial service. In the morning, after the service, he hastened to that healing spring from whose water he had so miraculously been saved from death. This spring is about two versts from the monastery. But the patient seemed to feel no fatigue: before, he could not cross even a room without outside assistance, and now he walked this considerable distance with ease. Father Seraphim’s spring flows from a hillside, and the faithful approach it by undressing to the skin; the approach to the spring was quite difficult because of the terrain. On the way the patient deliberated whether or not to remove the drains from the afflicted area. Many advised him not to remove them, and he did not. Then the patient undressed to the skin and went under the spring itself; as soon as he felt the cold stream of the spring upon him, that cold stream aroused in his body a certain relieving warmth, and his strength increased. He came out of the spring and saw that one of the drains in the swelling was no longer with him, while he removed the other himself. The next day the patient received Holy Communion at the Liturgy. Thereafter Zasukhin became completely well. Where the swelling had been, that spot came to its normal condition. The son of Mr. Zasukhin, a boy of eight years, had his entire head covered with scabs and severe pain; they had taken him to the renowned professor of skin diseases, Mr. Polotebnov, who, upon examining the boy, said that it was impossible to interrupt his illness in less than two years. Zasukhin took the boy with his family to Sarov; on the way to the Sarov Hermitage, on June 5, the feast of the Holy Trinity, they stopped to rest from the road at the Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent—founded by Father Seraphim and, as it were, born of his spirit—and there they learned from the nuns about the elder’s commandment to walk with inner prayer along the little trench dug at his direction by the labor of the sisters, along which, by his own words, the Mother of God Herself had walked. The Zakhuins set out as a whole family to fulfill what the holy elder had commanded. The sick boy, at the advice of the accompanying nun, bending down into the very depths of the trench, plucked grass and flowers, spreading them all the while over his sick head. Arriving in Sarov, he bathed in the Seraphim spring, and upon returning home on June 13 to the town of Murom, his head had not only completely cleared but had grown over thickly with beautiful hair, without the slightest trace of any ailment. The third sign of the mercy of God to those who come to Him in faith occurred with Zasukhin’s daughter, whose injured finger was healed by the oil from the lamp above Father Seraphim’s tomb.

A four-year-old girl, Feodosia Vlasova, living with her parents in the town of Chelyabinsk, in 1885, on January 7, was seized with a severe fever throughout her body, which lasted two weeks; afterwards a hump gradually formed on her back, and she screamed through the nights to the point of losing consciousness. This continued for four years: village healers treated her, and physicians were also consulted, but they refused, saying she would not live long. The parents then placed all their hope in God. Over the course of four years the girl became so hunched that she could not walk upright; if she went anywhere, she held on to her knees with both hands and moved forward slowly. Her elder sister had been given to the Chelyabinsk Odogitrievsky Convent, and it occurred to her parents to teach Feodosia to read and write. In 1888, on September 1, they brought her to the convent, and the mother abbess accepted her for instruction, but not into the school—simply into a cell, because attending school was too difficult for the girl—and placed her in the care of the senior nun Evpraxia. Feodosia lived there three months, and her illness grew so severe that she could not walk at all. When the sisters would go to church, they used to carry her in their arms. Having heard of the miracles of the venerable Father Seraphim and on the advice of the senior nun Evpraxia, the parents of Feodosia sent to the Sarov Hermitage to have a memorial service and a prayer service served at Father Seraphim’s grave, and they asked that some earth from his grave be sent to them. When they received the earth from the grave, they served a prayer service to the Mother of God and a memorial service for Father Seraphim, put the earth in a bottle, poured water over it, and began giving the sick girl water infused with this earth to drink—whereupon she felt herself completely well, and within a week she began walking on her own, without any special assistance.

On March 26, 1890, a peasant from Astrakhan province, Tsarevsky district, the village of Zaplavnoye—Ivan Kharitonov Shazhkov—appeared before the prior of the Sarov Hermitage, Abbot Rafail, and made the following statement: in the previous year, 1889, in the month of December, a week before the Nativity of Christ, both his extremities, without any cause that he could identify, suddenly went numb, though he felt no pain in them; yet he could not use his hands up to the elbows or his feet up to the knees; in addition, the cavity of his mouth swelled. The fingers of his hands clenched into a fist, so that when it was necessary to take a spoon to eat, the handle was pushed into the gap between his thumb and index finger and he ate in this manner; he could neither dress himself nor put on a belt, and when he was helped to stand he fell either forward or backward. Shazhkov took no medicines. His condition lasted about three weeks. His mother-in-law, who had visited Sarov and had witnessed the gracious help of Father Seraphim to many sick persons, advised him to make a vow to walk to Sarov, to bow at the tomb of the holy elder Father Seraphim, and to ask his assistance in illness. Shazhkov gratefully received his mother-in-law’s counsel and with faith made a vow to go to Sarov and fulfill everything according to her instruction. From that very day when he made his vow, the strength in his hands and feet began to return; the swelling in his mouth disappeared; by the start of the Great Fast he had recovered and grown strong enough that on Wednesday of the first week of the fast he resolved to set out on the long journey to Sarov. However, in both his feet and hands, especially in the fingers, he still felt weakness, which gradually disappeared on the road. He arrived in Sarov on March 21, having made the entire journey of about 1,000 versts on foot with no harmful consequences to his health. There in Sarov he made his confession and was found worthy to receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ; and on the 26th he went to Father Seraphim’s spring, where he bathed several times and received complete healing from his illness.

Mrs. Yu. V. Karazina writes in her account of the following miraculous occurrence: during my visit to the Sarov Hermitage on May 22, 1890, I went to visit Father Seraphim’s cell, where he had reposed. I approached his portrait and saw that the face was coming to life—the eyes were moving and opening, and the eyebrows were moving as well. I was so struck by this that I trembled all over and nearly fell. I turned to those standing near me and said in agitation: “Father Seraphim has come to life—his eyes have opened and his eyebrows are moving.” Coming back the following day, I found an entirely different expression on Father Seraphim’s portrait, but the eyes seemed to come alive again.

In conclusion we find it fitting to cite the letter of Lieutenant General Vrassky concerning the gracious help granted him by Father Seraphim during the elder’s lifetime. Although this event took place back in 1826, it was not included in earlier editions of the life, because P. A. Vrassky communicated it in writing to the former abbot of the Sarov Hermitage, Rafail, only in 1892.

In the year ‘26, being an officer, I visited the Sarov Hermitage and went, following the example of other pilgrims, to receive a blessing from the venerable Father Seraphim. In the corridor of his cell the cold was terrible, and I in my military overcoat was shivering from the frost. His cell-attendant told me that at that moment a monk was with Father Seraphim and the elder was conversing with him, while I, standing in the corridor, prayed to the Most Holy Mother of God. The door opened, the monk came out, and a few minutes later Father Seraphim opened the door and said: “What joy God gives me!” He led me into his cell, and since it was filled with various objects, he seated me on the threshold of his cell, while he himself sat on the floor facing me, holding my hand and speaking kindly with me—he even kissed my hand. Such was his love for his neighbor! I, sitting across from him, was in a state of some extraordinary rapture. After many conversations, I told him that my chest was aching (I was myself a thin, pale young man). To this he replied: “That is nothing,” rose, took a bottle, and handed it to me, saying: “Take a large swallow.” What was my horror, then, when olive oil poured into my mouth! I thought the consequence would immediately be bad, but on the contrary the oil proved pleasant. From that moment, thanks be to God, my chest no longer ached, and from a thin, pale young man I became a healthy and strong man. After a rather long time I was compelled to leave military service and depart on indefinite leave. This parting from St. Petersburg brought upon me such a melancholy that for a whole year I could find no peace from it. On my way to Arzamas I stopped at the Sarov Hermitage and immediately went to Father Seraphim’s grave, asked for a memorial service to be served for him, and as soon as it was served, my melancholy vanished in an instant and I became well.

In concluding our account, let us pause in reverent thought upon the particular ways of God’s providence in the life of the elder Seraphim.

The son of a citizen of Kursk, from his youth drawn by a secret desire to leave the world and serve God exclusively, as did St. Theodosius of the Caves, himself also a native of Kursk, he comes as a young man, known to no one, to the Sarov community, having left behind his mother, his brother, his property, and his home. Bringing nothing to the community but the ability to read and write, he begins his life from the lowest degrees of obedience and passes through them humbly, drawing to himself the love and respect of the authorities and brothers for his diligence and meekness. Meanwhile, in the depths of his soul—unnoticed by anyone, under the cover of deep humility—an inner man was ripening. The hard labor of monastic life—prayer, fasting, obedience, non-possessiveness—which would of itself be difficult enough for others, no longer satisfied him. In him there awakened a thirst for ever higher and higher struggles. And so in silent solitude he leads a life of strict reclusion, takes up a labor akin to that of the pillar-saints, imposes upon himself for a long time a vow of silence, and as if in a certain tomb, shuts himself away in enclosure. Then, having ripened in the spiritual life, moved by a special prompting of God, he opens the door of his cell and the door of his mouth—and for many years sweet streams of spiritually edifying teaching flow out to a countless multitude of people who sought his instruction. After prolonged struggles in various virtues, having acquired the spirit of love—which is the summit of perfection—he became a comforter of sorrows of the soul, a healer of bodily ailments, a guide of conscience for many. And so the obscure and poor newcomer to the Sarov community became, by the grace of God and his own humility, not only its glory, but an ornament of the whole Orthodox Church. The name of Seraphim was justly spread abroad as the name of one of the great ascetics of antiquity. In his person, for our age so poor in virtue and so weak in faith, it was as if an ancient ascetic of the Thebaid deserts or of the Caves of Kiev had been raised to life again. The noble and the simple, the rich and the poor—all flocked to the threshold of his cell, fell prostrate before the stooped elder clothed in a poor smock, opened the secrets of their conscience, confided their sorrows and needs, and received with sincere love and gratitude his every word, warmed by grace. And for a long, long time the words of the elder, spoken in a narrow cell, will resound throughout the wide expanse of Russia! For a long, long time they, like fertile seed, will bear the good fruit of good deeds! And never will his memory be blotted out, according to the word of Scripture: The righteous shall live forever.

The places hallowed by remembrance of Father Seraphim had always been carefully preserved and protected for the benefit of posterity, yet many of them took on a fully fitting appearance worthy of a holy site only recently. The place of Father Seraphim’s blessed repose—the grave with the gravestone—had previously remained uncovered, and pilgrims, when memorial services were served, sometimes had to stand bare-headed in rain and mud in summer and in blizzards in winter, kneeling in an open, unprotected spot. In the early 1890s, at the corner formed by the eastern wall of the side-chapel altar of the Dormition Cathedral and the southern wall of its main altar, above Father Seraphim’s grave, a chapel of sorts was constructed with a small dome and two doors. Two walls of this chapel consist of metal frames with panes of glass. Above the elder’s tomb an undying lamp burns, and on the two stone walls of the chapel are placed six canvas paintings depicting Father Seraphim: (praying on the rock, the appearance of the Mother of God to the elder on the feast of the Annunciation, his repose, feeding a bear, a full-length depiction of Father Seraphim, and his blessing of a pilgrim by the spring). Since the grave of another great Sarov ascetic—the schema-monk Mark, who had died before him (in 1817)—lies at Father Seraphim’s feet, there is placed across from it a depiction of that elder as well.

The spring constructed by Father Seraphim—this truly “source of miraculous healings,” which every visitor to Sarov has always considered and still considers it an absolute obligation to visit, and, if not to bathe in it, at least to wet one’s head and drink of the healing water—had previously remained in appearance a simple well with a trough leading from it at the level of the water it contained, from which the water overflowing above that level ran off in a fairly strong stream, under which those wishing to bathe would stand. But since this spring stands in an open spot, it was quite inconvenient for pilgrims—who gathered very often in large numbers and of various ages and genders—to bathe there. Nowadays above Father Seraphim’s spring a beautiful chapel has been built with holy icons and two large depictions of him, and beside it a bathhouse with two fully separate sections. Near the spring, on the site of Father Seraphim’s near desert cell of wood, a new cell has been built according to the same plan and dimensions (the original was transported to Diveyevo).

In the forest, one verst from the spring, on the spot where the rock stood upon which Father Seraphim performed his prayerful feat of 1,000 nights, a shelter was erected in 1890 in the form of an open chapel on four carved pillars with a tent-shaped roof, with a cupola and a cross covered in iron sheeting. The lower sides of this structure are enclosed by railings. Inside a cross has been placed bearing an image of the Crucifixion of the Lord, and a large stone has been set there in remembrance of Father Seraphim’s labor.

On the site of Father Seraphim’s far desert cell, during excavations in 1893, an underground grotto of brick construction was uncovered, approximately three arshins in length and one arshin in width, into which the elder would withdraw from visitors who beset him during his prayerful labors, and where he had stones for standing upon. This grotto was left in exactly the same condition as it was found, and above it a cell was also built according to the plan and dimensions of the previous one—which had likewise been transported to Diveyevo and converted in its entirety into the altar of the cemetery church. Pilgrims consider it an absolute obligation to visit this place as well, hallowed by the memory of Father Seraphim’s wondrous labors. Beside this cell is the spot of his small kitchen garden. Father Seraphim’s cell, in which he labored from the time of his return from the desert enclosure in 1810, in which he was found worthy, a year and ten months before his repose, of the visitation of the Mother of God, and where his righteous soul departed to the Lord, stands within the monastery enclosure directly across from his grave. It formerly constituted part of the southern wing of the monastic cells. From the enclosure a narrow passage led into it, with two doors on the right: the first door led to the cell of the monk Pavel who lived with Father Seraphim, the second led to the cell of the elder himself. This latter cell is five arshins in both length and width, with a height of three arshins and ten vershoks. On its southern side are two small windows looking onto the gardens and the Sarovka River; to the right is a tiled stove with a small sleeping bench. Beside the stove there are displayed in a cabinet and in a glass case several objects that remained after the elder: his mantle (together with the mantle and staff of the schema-monk Mark), his cap, prayer beads, cross, hair that had fallen out during his illness, the Gospel he carried with him, a piece of the stone from the hermitage on which he prayed for 1,000 nights; and also the bench made by Father Seraphim’s own hands, signed by him. At the front wall of the cell stands a copy of the Diveyevo icon of the Mother of God “Tenderness,” together with several other icons, and beside the glass case with the elder’s belongings are placed two large canvas depictions of him (full-length, blessing, and his repose).

From 1897 the cells adjacent to Father Seraphim’s cell have been dismantled, and an expansive and magnificent church in the name of the Most Holy Trinity is being constructed over it. Thus the place of the prayerful labors and the blessed repose of the elder of God will be sheltered, in its inviolate state, under the roof of a church of the Lord.

Father Seraphim’s Cell Prayer Rule

Before beginning the Psalter, read the following:

O God, cleanse me, a sinner, and have mercy on me. Bow.

O Lord who created me, have mercy on me. Bow.

I have sinned without number, O Lord; forgive me. Bow.

O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Bow.

O God, forgive me my iniquities and transgressions. Bow.

We bow down before Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your holy Resurrection. Bow.

O Lord, if I have sinned in word or deed throughout all my life, have mercy on me and forgive me, a sinner, according to Your mercy.

It is truly meet. Glory, both now. Lord, have mercy. Three times. Bless.

By the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Glory to You, our God, glory to You. The Trisagion. Then the Our Father.

At the Glories:

Glory, both now. Alleluia, three times. Lord, have mercy, three times. Then: Save, O Lord, and have mercy on all Orthodox Christians and those who live in Orthodoxy in every place of Your dominion; grant them, O Lord, peace of soul and health of body, and forgive them every transgression, both voluntary and involuntary; and by their holy prayers have mercy also on me, the wretched one.

Grant rest, O Lord, to the souls of Your departed servants—our forebears, fathers, and brothers lying here and to all Orthodox Christians who have passed away everywhere; grant them, O Lord, the kingdom and participation in Your endless and blessed life, and forgive them, O Lord, every transgression, both voluntary and involuntary.

After the completion of the kathisma, read:

Troparia and kontakia

Conceived in iniquity, I the prodigal do not dare to look up toward the height of heaven; but trusting in Your love for mankind, I cry: O God, cleanse me, a sinner, and have mercy on me.

If the righteous man is scarcely saved, where shall I, a sinner, appear? I have not borne the burden and heat of the day; yet number me at least with the workers of the eleventh hour, O God, and save me.

Hasten to open to me the embrace of the Father: I have spent my life as a prodigal, yet gazing upon the inexhaustible wealth of Your mercies, O Savior, I shall not despair. Now in compunction I cry to You, O Lord: I have sinned against heaven and before You—do not despise my impoverished heart.

It is truly meet, to the end.

I have sinned against You, O Savior, as the prodigal son; receive me, the repentant one, O Father, and have mercy on me, O God.

I cry to You, O Christ the Savior, with the voice of the tax-collector: cleanse me as You did him, and have mercy on me, O God.

Being the very source of mercy, make us worthy of Your mercies, O Mother of God; look upon a people that has sinned; manifest as always Your power—for in You do we hope. Rejoice, we cry to You, as once did Gabriel, the archangel of the bodiless hosts.

All your mysteries, O Theotokos, surpass understanding and are most glorious! With your purity sealed and your virginity preserved, you were known in truth to be a Mother, having borne the true God: implore him to save our souls.

We venerate your most pure image, O gracious One, asking forgiveness of our sins, O Christ our God; for you willingly deigned to ascend the cross in the flesh, that you might deliver from bondage to the enemy those whom you had created. Therefore we cry to you with gratitude: you have filled all things with joy, O our Savior, who came to save the world.

Save, O Lord, your people and bless your inheritance, granting victory to our Orthodox Emperor (name) over his adversaries, and by your cross preserving your dwelling.

O Commanders of the heavenly hosts, we who are unworthy beseech you without ceasing: by your prayers, shelter us beneath the canopy of the wings of your incorporeal glory, keeping us who earnestly fall before you and cry out: deliver us from every danger, as leaders of the higher Powers.

O God of our fathers, who always deals with us according to your gentleness, do not remove your mercy from us; but by their prayers guide our life in peace.

O you who by the depth of wisdom governs all things with love for humankind, and grants what is beneficial to all—O you who are the one Creator—grant rest, O Lord, to the souls of your servants; for they have placed their hope in you, their Maker, Builder, and our God.

Give rest with the saints, O Christ, to the souls of your servants, where there is no pain, no sorrow, no sighing, but life without end.

O Most Holy Virgin, the hope of Christians, who bore God beyond all mind and word, intercede without ceasing together with the heavenly Powers, to grant forgiveness of sins and amendment of life to all of us who honor you always in faith and love.

Lord, have mercy. Forty times. And the prayer of Saint Ephrem.

O Lord and Master of my life, grant me not a spirit of sloth, despondency, ambition, or idle talk. Prostration.

But grant to me your servant a spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love. Prostration.

Yes, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own sins and not to judge my brother; for you are blessed to the ages of ages. Amen. Prostration. Then twelve small prostrations, saying at each one: O God, cleanse me a sinner and have mercy on me. And again at the end the whole prayer: O Lord and Master.

After the completion of the three kathismata, say:

O Lord who created me, have mercy on me.

I have sinned without number, O Lord; forgive me.

O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

O God, forgive my lawless deeds and my sins.

We venerate your cross, O Master, and we glorify your holy resurrection.

O Lord, if I have sinned in word, or in deed, or in thought throughout all my life, have mercy on me and forgive me, a sinner, according to your mercy.

It is truly meet: Glory, both now. Lord, have mercy, three times. Give the blessing. Through the prayers of our holy fathers.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to you, our God, glory to you: O Heavenly King: the Trisagion: then the Our Father: Lord, have mercy, twelve. Come, let us worship, three times. And Psalm fifty; and: I believe in one God the Father.

My hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my shelter is the Holy Spirit: O Holy Trinity, glory to you.

Our Father, and so forth.

Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos, and so forth.

To your cross, and so forth.

O commanding General and Lord, and so forth.

To you, the champion leader, a hymn of victory, and so forth.

O most glorious Ever-Virgin, and so forth.

All my hope I place in you, and so forth.

O Virgin Theotokos, do not despise me, a sinner, and so forth.

My hope is the Father, and so forth.

O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner; and forgive my lawless deeds and sins.

O my most merciful Lady, most holy Mistress, most pure Virgin, Theotokos Mary, Mother of God, save me, a sinner.

O holy Archangels and Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, and all the heavenly Powers, have mercy on me and pray to the Lord God for me, a sinner.

O holy Angel of the Lord, my holy Guardian, have mercy on me and pray to the Lord God for me, a sinner.

All you saints, have mercy on me and pray to the Lord God for me, a sinner.

Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos, and so forth.

Save, O Lord, and have mercy on our father the abbot (name), together with all the brotherhood in Christ: grant them, O Lord, peace of soul and health of body, and forgive them, O Lord, every sin both voluntary and involuntary; and through their holy prayers have mercy also on me, the wretched.

Save, O Lord, and have mercy on all Orthodox Christians in every place of your sovereignty, and grant them, O Lord, peace of soul and health of body, and forgive them, O Lord, every sin both voluntary and involuntary; and through their holy prayers have mercy on me, the wretched.

Grant rest, O Lord, to the souls of your departed servants—our forefathers, fathers, and brothers lying here and all Orthodox Christians who have fallen asleep everywhere—and grant them, O Lord, a share in your endless and blessed life, and forgive them, O Lord, every sin both voluntary and involuntary.

Glory, both now and ever. Alleluia, three times. Glory. Save, O Lord, and have mercy on all the righteous.

Both now and ever. Grant rest, O Lord, to the souls of the departed, and so forth. Then: “In you all creation rejoices”: Glory, both now and ever. Lord, have mercy. Three times. Bless. Through the prayers of our holy Fathers:

Release, forgive, pardon, O God, our transgressions, voluntary and involuntary, in word and in deed, in knowledge and in ignorance, by day and by night, in mind and in thought—forgive us all, for you are good and love mankind.

Forgive those who hate me and wrong me, O Lord, lover of mankind, and so forth. Prayer.

Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos, and so forth.

Shine, shine, O new Jerusalem, for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you; rejoice now and be glad, O Zion; and you, O pure Theotokos, delight in the resurrection of your Son.

We who have been saved by you, O Virgin, truly confess you to be the Theotokos, glorifying you together with the bodiless hosts.

It is truly right, and so forth.

Rejoice, glory of virgins; rejoice, O most pure Mother, whom all creation magnifies with divine hymns.

O never-failing protection of Christians, O steadfast intercession before the Creator: do not despise the voices of our sinful prayers, but hasten, as you are good, to help us who call to you in faith; come quickly to our prayer and make haste to entreat on our behalf, O Theotokos, who ever intercede for those who honor you.

Open to us the gates of mercy, and so forth.

O pure, O blameless, O incorruptible, and so forth. (Prayer at Compline.)

Glory, both now and ever. Lord, have mercy. Three times.

Bless. Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.

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.

1 Samuel

1 Samuel 2:306. The Near Hermitage and Father Seraphim’s Dwelling There (12.21)

Psalms

Psalms 36:5–69. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.158)

Psalms 36:69. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.51)

Psalms 36:259. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.48)

Psalms 63:79. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.130)

Psalms 75:35. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.33)

Psalms 113:96. The Near Hermitage and Father Seraphim’s Dwelling There (12.26)

Proverbs

Proverbs 18:194. Solitude and Ascetic Labors in the Distant Wilderness (11.94)

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 4:9–124. Solitude and Ascetic Labors in the Distant Wilderness (11.94)

Isaiah

Isaiah 8:65. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.2)

Isaiah 26:199. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.49)

Isaiah 66:25. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.2)

Joel

Joel 2:325. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.48)

Matthew

Matthew 5:169. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.51)

Matthew 7:66. The Near Hermitage and Father Seraphim’s Dwelling There (12.19)

Matthew 8:125. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.24)

Matthew 10:225. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.33)

Matthew 10:284. Solitude and Ascetic Labors in the Distant Wilderness (11.86)

Matthew 11:28–309. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.100)

Matthew 11:294. Solitude and Ascetic Labors in the Distant Wilderness (11.93)

Matthew 24:379. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.103)

Matthew 25:465. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.24)

Matthew 26:524. Solitude and Ascetic Labors in the Distant Wilderness (11.84)

Mark

Mark 9:46–485. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.24)

Luke

Luke 10:206. The Near Hermitage and Father Seraphim’s Dwelling There (12.26)

Luke 16:255. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.25)

John

John 21:1–144. Solitude and Ascetic Labors in the Distant Wilderness (11.28)

Romans

Romans 10:135. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.48)

Romans 13:19. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.44)

Romans 13:29. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.45)

2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 12:45. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.22)

1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians 5:179. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.158)

Hebrews

Hebrews 5:149. The Final Years of Father Seraphim’s Life (7.16)

Hebrews 11:376. The Near Hermitage and Father Seraphim’s Dwelling There (12.12)

Hebrews 13:810. Preparation for Death, the Passing, and the Burial (8.90)

1 Peter

1 Peter 4:185. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.24)

1 Peter 5:75. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion (4.2)

Colophon

Life of Elder Seraphim of the Sarov Hermitage
by St Seraphim of Sarov.

This edition was produced by
Royal Archives.

The cover features
Birch Grove (1879)
by Arkhip Kuindzhi (Russian, 1841/2–1910), Wikimedia Commons, which is in the public domain.

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

- 1. From His Birth to His Entry Into the Sarov Hermitage

- 2. From His Entry Into the Hermitage to His Tonsure as a Monk

- 3. From His Tonsure to His Withdrawal Into the Distant Wilderness

- 4. Solitude and Ascetic Labors in the Distant Wilderness

- 5. The Practice of Silence.—Return to the Hermitage and the Reclusion

- 6. The Near Hermitage and Father Seraphim's Dwelling There

- 7. Elder Seraphim's Relationship to the Diveyevo Community

- 8. The Elder Seraphim's Influence on the Ardatov Convent and the Zelenaya Gora Community

- 9. The Final Years of Father Seraphim's Life

- 10. Preparation for Death, the Passing, and the Burial

- 11. The Manifestation of the Gracious Help of Father Seraphim After His Death

- 12. Continuation of the Account of the Manifestation of the Gracious Help of Father Seraphim After His Death

- Father Seraphim's Cell Prayer Rule
- Scripture Index
- Colophon