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

The Sarov Hermitage, Past and Present

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: Саровская пустынь в ее прошлом и настоящем

Edition identifier: urn:royalarchives:sarovskaja-pustyn-v-ee-proshlom-i-nastojashhem:en:1

Introduction

The Authors

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

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

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

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

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

The Works: Occasion & Purpose

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

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

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

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

Argument & Structure

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

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

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

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

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

Theological & Spiritual Significance

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

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

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

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

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

Reception & Influence

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

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

The Text & This Edition

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

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

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

Suggestions for Reading

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

The Sarov Hermitage, Past and Present

The Sarov Hermitage makes a powerful, profound impression on the Orthodox pilgrim—both through the striking grandeur and beauty of its outward setting and through the entire character of its inner life: a life of prayer and labor, of ascetic struggle, of holiness. No less remarkable and instructive, for anyone who cares about the fate of Russian Orthodoxy, is the whole past life, the entire history, of the Sarov Hermitage. True, this history cannot boast great antiquity, nor does it shine with any particularly prominent, celebrated events or great deeds in the annals of our fatherland; yet it is rich in inner content and deep religious meaning. The history of Sarov speaks plainly to us that apart from all human plans, calculations, and efforts, it was solely through the working of God’s mercy and goodness that this star of Russian piety arose from nothing—as though miraculously—a bright beacon of Orthodoxy casting its beneficent rays far around. Like other of our most celebrated monasteries—the Kiev Caves, the Trinity-Sergius—Sarov too was raised up, in the words of the Caves monk Nestor, not by gold or silver, but by the prayerful sweat and tears of its desert-dwellers; the cornerstone of its foundation was the solitary prayer of a forgotten hermit in an earthen cave. This history, familiar to us from many of the most remarkable and glorious Christian monasteries, is especially significant when applied to Sarov. It stands not merely far from the populous centers of Orthodoxy—such as ancient Kiev or the capital Moscow—but is cast deep into barely accessible virgin forests, in what seemed the impenetrable darkness of pagan and non-Christian habitations. No creature comforts, no human joys, still less wealth or glory—nothing, in a word, inviting was promised by the wild, lightless wilderness to the first hermits who came here; and nothing—neither the human strength absent here, nor the earthly wealth unknown here—could promise them prosperity, exaltation, or the flourishing of their obscure, humble refuge. But evidently they sought nothing but God; evidently they hoped in no one but His almighty help. And God looked upon those who sought Him, and blessed the community of those who strove toward Him. And so, amid impassable forests, amid the darkness of pagan unbelief, there arose a new stronghold of Orthodoxy, now casting the rays of its beneficent, moral, and enlightening influence not only upon the surrounding countryside—already now illumined by the faith of Christ—but upon Orthodox Russia at large. The name of Sarov is now known everywhere; the glory of its greatness and holiness draws pilgrims from every corner of the Orthodox homeland. And without doubt, anyone who has visited Sarov goes away from it at least a little—if not for long, yet nonetheless—kinder, more upright, and better than when he entered.

Without intending to set out a detailed history of the Sarov Hermitage, I will note only certain facts from the history of the founding, organization, and glorification of this celebrated monastery—facts that strike one by their extraordinary character and convince one that Sarov is a place chosen by God, a holy place, that over Sarov rests the almighty blessing of God.

It is remarkable, first of all, that such a prominent stronghold of Christian faith and Orthodox piety arose precisely on the site of what was once a strong center of a different faith—Islam. Even in the era of the Mongol yoke and the dominion of the Golden Horde over Russia (in the fourteenth century), there stood here, on this very spot where Sarov now stands, the city of Saraklich—a central town of the Horde for an entire district, one of its capital cities. The remains of the fortifications and deep moats that once surrounded this city, which stood on the Sarov hill, are still visible near Sarov today. After the fall of the Golden Horde, the city of Saraklich was razed to the ground, fell into utter desolation; the very site became overgrown with forest and in time turned into impenetrable thickets. It was precisely this place that Divine Providence saw fit to hallow, raising up here for Holy Russia one of the centers of Orthodoxy.

This came about, however, gradually and by no means at once. The fearsome remoteness of this place, the absence of all conveniences for living, and the distance from human habitation long prevented the founding of a monastery here. The initial, originating threads of Sarov’s history reach back to the mid-seventeenth century; and yet, in the course of almost the entire first half-century, only three great ascetics were found who, having taken up the exploit of solitary withdrawal from people, could find no more secluded, more remote place than the Sarov hill, and who lived here in succession, one after another, in tiny, self-made cells or in caves dug by them into this hill. Meanwhile, Divine Providence, which was drawing these hermits here, was already foretelling by miraculous signs the great future of this God-chosen place. Common tradition, as well as ancient written records, have preserved for us both the names of these first inhabitants of Sarov and testimonies of the miraculous phenomena that took place there. The first hermit to choose the Sarov hill and settle there for an ascetic life was the monk Theodosius (in the 1660s). The holiness of his solitary life was nonetheless made manifest to the world; the inhabitants of the areas nearest that forest place came to know of him and began coming to the holy man for his blessing and counsel. And so, among other things, Theodosius told his visitors of the miraculous phenomena that occurred on the Sarov hill and disturbed his solitary peace: “I will reveal to you a wondrous thing,” he told them. “You see this hill; more than once in the night I see before my eyes that the sky opens and from it there appears a marvelous light, descending upon this hill; at the same time, a great peal rings out loudly, as though someone were ringing many bells.” Theodosius himself long did not understand the meaning of these astonishing and repeatedly occurring phenomena; still less, of course, could the ignorant, superstitious crowds of nearby inhabitants understand them—among whom the rumor spread. The latter explained these phenomena in their own way: that the light and ringing probably came from precious treasures hidden in the Sarov hill, all the more so as tradition told of a once-populous and wealthy Tatar city on that spot. And so, people came from nearby villages with spades and shovels, began digging the hill in many places, but of course found nothing, since it was not material treasures that were being foretold by the heavenly signs.

Theodosius spent about six years on the Sarov hill; yet despite his fame as an ascetic, during all that time no imitators had appeared who would, like him, take up the exploit of solitary life; all that time he remained here entirely alone. When Theodosius in deep old age withdrew from this place back to his former monastery (in the city of Penza), Divine Providence, as though in his stead, brought here another similar hermit, the monk Gerasim. The same supernatural phenomena on the hill continued in his time as well; astounded, he too told of them to the peasants who came to visit him. Again crowds came to dig the hill (in 1667), searching for treasures which, in the people’s opinion, were giving off the powerful ringing that Gerasim heard at night. This time, during the digging, a folding copper cross was found in the hill—how it had come there, no one knew. This cross was long and reverently kept by the villagers, and was afterward donated to the cave church of the already-founded Sarov Hermitage; to this day it remains one of the great sacred objects of Sarov.

The ascetic life of Gerasim kept the Sarov hill’s reputation alive among the people, yet Gerasim too, during all five or six years of his stay there, remained entirely alone. In his old age he likewise—and that as a result of threats and attacks by certain ill-disposed persons upon his cell—withdrew to his former monastery (in Krasnoslobodsk). For about ten years after Gerasim the Sarov hill remained uninhabited. But then another hermit appeared there: the monk Hilarion. Following the example of his holy patron, Saint Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kiev (in the eleventh century), who had lived as a hermit in a cave near Kiev on the bank of the Dnieper, this Hilarion of Sarov dug himself a cave in the hillside near the Sarovka River. His cave has survived to this day; it was the origin of the Sarov caves, which to this day bear, by the name of their first founder, the name “Hilarion’s Caves.” To Hilarion—the first among the hermits who had labored on the Sarov hill—fell the happiness of having a disciple and immediate successor, who went on to become the founder of an entire monastic community there, that is, of the Sarov Monastery.

This was Isaac, a hieromonk from the Sanaksar Monastery, a man of extraordinarily strict ascetic life. As a young man he had left his monastery, wishing to serve God in the harder exploit of solitary life. Popular accounts of the great Sarov hermit Hilarion brought Isaac into the depths of the forest, to the Sarov hill, and there he remained. An exceedingly moving story is told of Isaac’s life in the Sarov caves after he was left alone there following Hilarion’s death. He had to endure there unimaginable attacks from the spirit of evil: terrors of every kind, nightly visions, anguish and unbearable despondency that assailed his soul, and finally even severe bodily illness—so that his entire life there during the first seven years appeared as one unbroken and incredible martyrdom. But Isaac overcame all of this by the power of his unshakeable faith and all-enduring patience—and God blessed this His proven confessor! One after another, people of various ranks who were seeking the solitary life began gathering around Isaac from different directions, until a whole family of desert-dwellers formed around him. It was then that Isaac conceived the plan of founding a properly organized monastic community at Sarov, confirmed by church authority—all the more urgently compelled to do so by the circumstances of that time.

The situation was this: the time had come that was most dangerous and unfavorable for the Sarov hermits. Under Peter the Great, everything was directed toward the reduction of monasteries; among other measures, a decree had been issued forbidding monks to live outside monasteries, so that all desert-dwellers, hermits, and all those living in the forests without enclosure or churches were declared fugitives or schismatics and were subject to prosecution by law. Thus the Sarov community had only one of two choices: either to abandon the beloved Sarov hill and disperse, or to try their fortune—to petition for the opening of their new monastery, though to count on this at that time was in the highest degree difficult, almost impossible. Nonetheless, Isaac resolved on the latter. And as strange as it may seem again, the threatening misfortune led to an unexpected blessing: what appeared likely to put an end to the Sarov solitary life served instead to firmly establish the Sarov Hermitage. Trusting in God’s help, Isaac applied himself seriously to petitioning for the founding of a monastery. First, he went in person to the owner of that forested locality where their cells and caves were situated—Prince Kugushev—and obtained from him the land for a monastery in perpetual possession. Then Isaac drafted a strict rule for the hermitage being founded and, committing himself to the will of God, sent it for confirmation to the Russian patriarchate of that time, with a petition for the opening of the Sarov Hermitage. It is easy to understand the fear and apprehension with which the Sarov hermits awaited the decision of their fate. We do not know the full procedure of the case concerning the opening of Sarov; at all events, what took place is striking and in the highest degree significant—a fact that came about, clearly, by God’s particular will: the petition of these entirely unknown, poor, powerless hermits of Sarov, who had no earthly patron of any kind, was granted. More than that: not only was a patriarchal charter issued in 1705 for the opening of the Sarov Hermitage, but the then-locum tenens of the patriarchal throne—following the death of Patriarch Adrian—Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky of Ryazan, well known in the history of the Russian Church, turned his special attention, for some not entirely explicable reason, to the newly opened hermitage, and soon sent here his lengthy charter with instruction on the monastic life. At the end of the charter, Stefan Yavorsky appended a special epistle to the Sarov community, composed even in verse. Here is that interesting poem of our celebrated archpastor of ancient Russia, known in his time as an orator-preacher and a church poet. It is curious, first, as the work of so well-known a historical figure, and second, as a sign of his special attention and goodwill toward the newly opened Sarov Hermitage: “By the mercy of God, the humble Stefan, Metropolitan of Ryazan and Murom, to the abbot of the Sarov Hermitage and to the brotherhood in Christ:”

It is impossible to describe all the understandable joy of the Sarov hermits when, at the beginning of 1706, they received the decree authorizing the opening of the monastery. With their own hands they immediately set about building a church, and within fifty days the first wooden church of Sarov was already complete. In order, as it were, to hallow the spring that gushes from the ground right beside the Hilarion Caves—the founding seed of the Sarov Hermitage—it was decided to dedicate this church to the Mother of God of the Life-Giving Spring. On May 16, a wooden cross was raised over the newly built church. An extraordinary joy and religious exaltation seized and animated the small Sarov community still more intensely when on the evening of that same May 16, and again at noon the following day, they heard an inexplicable, miraculous ringing from their church, even though the bell tower was still entirely empty and had not a single bell on it. All understood that they had been vouchsafed a miracle, that the Lord had blessed the beginning of their community. Exactly one month later, on June 16, the church was consecrated. Word of the new monastery and of the miraculous phenomena occurring there spread quickly, and pilgrims began streaming to Sarov—and with them and through them came donations and offerings. The Sarov Hermitage grew, expanded, and was beautified rapidly.

Just as the very origin of the hermitage in such a forest wilderness—and at that time, under such unfavorable conditions—was unexpected and significant, so too its growth and glorification proceeded in an extraordinary and striking manner. In less than two centuries of its existence, from a humble cave dug in the earth, hidden in impenetrable forest thickets as far as possible from human habitation, the Sarov Hermitage was transformed into a splendid, most wealthy monastery, now known to all of great Orthodox Russia, on a level with the most ancient and historically renowned monasteries: the Kiev Caves, the Trinity-Sergius, the Solovetsky, the Pochaev, and several others.

Even the external rise and embellishment of the Sarov Hermitage—the growth of its splendor—often proceeded in a remarkable, seemingly miraculous way. Into the brotherhood of Sarov gathered only the poor, the destitute, those without means; no boyars, nobles, or men with generous donations ever entered here, as had happened in the history of other monasteries. Sarov is, even today, rightly called a peasant monastery. From its very founding to the present day, it has consisted of obscure laborers—for the most part peasants and in any case simple men, distinguished neither by name, nor education, nor wealth. And yet this peasant monastery is not only now richly built and magnificently adorned, but it also possesses substantial property that fully provides not only for its comfortable existence but for its broadly organized charitable work, which is especially active during times of popular calamity—such as years of famine. For all this wealth and well-being the monastery owes a great deal to itself—that is, to its monks, their industry and ascetic dedication; every member of the brotherhood in Sarov is obligated to work for the monastery in one way or another and to support its well-being through his own personal labor.

Even the monastery’s finest buildings arose in an equally extraordinary way—almost entirely without outside assistance, by the combined fraternal efforts of the community itself. At Sarov there have apparently never been any architects or specialists skilled in the arts—and yet what magnificent structures now adorn Sarov! Naturally the most grandiose and imposing of them is the Dormition Cathedral; but how grandly simple and extraordinarily remarkable is the history of this priceless ornament of the hermitage! There was nothing of what we ordinarily expend enormous sums on and what costs much effort even for specialist architects—no plans, no estimates, no appropriations, no architects elaborating an overall design. The church itself took shape and was transformed, gradually, from its original simplest form into its present one, striking in beauty and grandeur. Its beginning was laid as far back as 1730, under Sarov’s founder and first abbot Isaac. As his monastery gradually grew, Isaac conceived the idea of adorning it with a stone cathedral—naturally on the most modest scale. The cathedral was built with their own hands, little by little, as means accumulated in the monastery. Under the following abbot, Hieromonk Dorotheos, the church was completed in 1744 and served as a great source of joy—and, if one may so express it, of pride—for the humble and then still-poor Sarov community. But a little over a hundred years later, Sarov had changed beyond recognition, and the Dormition Cathedral no longer suited the grandeur and wealth of the hermitage, nor was it large enough to accommodate the enormous influx of pilgrims. It had to be rebuilt in some way. Abbot Ephrem was the first to recognize this necessity and undertook the task himself. He began it with incredible simplicity and resourcefulness; he reasoned that one should not only avoid demolishing but even substantially altering the cathedral—as true architects would certainly do—in order to expand it into something new and larger; nor was it possible simply to push its walls outward. The solution was very simple: remove only the western wall, leave the whole original church intact, convert it into an altar, and add a new, large church onto this altar. And so, as the result of Ephrem’s ingenious idea, first, the original cathedral was preserved as a precious monument for the monastery, almost untouched, and second, there is now a vast, spacious new cathedral with a uniquely original and magnificently beautiful sanctuary; that sanctuary is itself an independent church with a tall, wide iconostasis of ancient design spanning the entire eastern wall.

Further, with equal originality and simplicity, Ephrem himself proceeded to carry out his ingenious plan. Without any drawings, plans, or sketches, he began around the old cathedral—with a blessing—to stick stakes into the ground, marking out a large area for the proposed new cathedral building. At first the Sarov community, seeing the large area staked out, even condemned their abbot for his grandiose ambitions, saying that “such magnificence does not befit a hermitage.” But Ephrem was not troubled by this, and all the brothers immediately set to work; the project was continued under Ephrem’s successor, Abbot Pachomius. In this process, one monk, Joachim, drew up the plan, while another, Pitirim, as building overseer, constructed according to that plan. Thus one staked out the area, a second carried out the construction itself, a third drafted the plan, a fourth supervised the work, and finally all the monks labored. And in this way—with God’s help, evident to all in so complex and difficult an undertaking, for simple self-taught men—their very own magnificent cathedral arose, erected without outside assistance: a grandiose adornment of the “peasant” monastery. Such is the simplicity, self-reliance, industriousness, and evident blessing of God that characterize all the works and undertakings of the Sarov Hermitage, which rose so quickly from insignificance to outstanding strength and glory.

Still more significant is the history of Sarov’s inner life. It is precisely to the perfections and the greatness of that life that Sarov owes both the almighty protection of Divine Providence and its fame and renown among the Orthodox Russian people. Amid the general strictness of the common ascetic life of all the monks—a life wholly occupied and filled with prayer in the churches and with labor that is obligatory for all without exception in the various forms of monastic obedience—Sarov, throughout the whole of its not very long history, can point to a whole series of great names of remarkable ascetics, men of the highest, most holy lives. Setting aside the very first hermits who laid the foundation of monasticism on the Sarov hill—Theodosius, Gerasim, Hilarion—one should name several of the hermitage’s abbots who were great for their holy lives. Such, first of all, is the founder and first abbot of the Sarov Hermitage, already mentioned above: Hieromonk Isaac, who at the end of his life took the schema under the name John. The author of the strictest monastic rule for the Sarov Hermitage, he was himself throughout his entire life the most zealous and unwavering observer of that rule. Toward the end of his life he was subjected to yet another grievous trial: through a misunderstanding, under Empress Anna Ioannovna, this feeble old schema-monk—who was already thinking of nothing but a Christian passage into the world above—was suspected of a political crime, suddenly summoned to St. Petersburg, and there died from the severe shock to his soul. And so even the remains of Schema-monk John—sacred to the Sarov Hermitage—found their obscure resting place in some Petersburg cemetery; despite many efforts and inquiries, his grave was never found.

Known for his holy and ascetic life is also the successor of Isaac, the second builder of Sarov, Hieromonk Dorotheos. After seventeen years as abbot, he renounced the governance of the monastery and took the schema under the name Demetrius. But especially remarkable for the holiness of his life and the much-suffering nature of his fate was Ephrem, the sixth abbot of Sarov in order. The Description of Sarov says of this remarkable man: “It pleased Divine Providence to lead Ephrem through fire and water, to test him in the crucible of tribulations, so that, like gold, the virtue of patience might shine in him.” In early youth, having taken monastic vows, Ephrem was among the first to come to the then-solitary Sarov hermit Isaac, and later became his right hand in organizing the hermitage. As Isaac’s closest assistant, he was summoned along with him to Petersburg on the above-mentioned suspicion. Although in Petersburg he was found innocent of any guilt, he was nonetheless severely punished as one who, in the old legal phrase, “had been implicated in the case”; already a hieromonk at that time, he was stripped of his priesthood, exiled to Orenburg, and spent a full sixteen years there in harsh imprisonment, taking upon himself the duties of a sexton in the fortress church. Though afterward, upon the accession of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna to the throne, it would have taken only the slightest reminder of himself for Ephrem to receive full freedom—yet he, in incomparable humility, resolved unconditionally to submit to the will of Divine Providence concerning him. And Providence did indeed free him, as it usually happens in such cases, through a wholly unexpected and seemingly chance circumstance. One day, while digging in the earth, the unfortunate prisoner Ephrem found a rich treasure and immediately brought it to the authorities, firmly refusing to accept any reward at all for the find. Ephrem’s extraordinary behavior drew the attention of the fortress commander. Inquiries were made about him: who he was, where he came from, and why he had been exiled. Upon learning of his complete innocence, they not only freed him but obtained a decree from the Holy Synod restoring him to the rank of priest. Ephrem immediately returned to the Sarov Hermitage and was there unanimously elected by the brotherhood as abbot. During his seventeen years of governing the monastery, he was always a living rule and example of holy monastic life for the monks, and through his kindness and incomparably broad charity—especially during the terrible famine of 1775, when Ephrem selflessly opened all the monastery storehouses to the starving—he spread the fame of Sarov throughout all Russia, nurturing toward his monastery the deepest respect and unshakeable grateful love among all the Russian people, especially the common people. Abbot Ephrem was, in his time, a very well-known man; many Russian archpastors knew him and regarded him with reverent respect, and Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk carried on a constant correspondence with him.

I will not name the other abbots of the Sarov Hermitage—those who were normally elected to that honored office by the entire brotherhood precisely for the holiness of their lives and their spiritual perfections. Let me turn attention instead to outstanding individuals from among the Sarov brotherhood itself—that is, from among the simple, ordinary monks. How many truly great men, more or less known to all of Orthodox Russia, has Sarov already produced and sent forth! Who, for example, among those interested in the fate of Russian Orthodoxy and Russia’s holy places, has not heard of Mark and Seraphim, the ascetics of Sarov! And there were far more than just two such men—only the others led their holy lives in a more hidden fashion, away from the public eye, and therefore remained less well known among the people; nonetheless, the fame of their spiritual perfections often reached far beyond the monastery walls and came to the notice even of the highest representatives of the Russian Church.

Take, for example, the elder Nazarius, one of the greatest luminaries of Sarov—a monk educated in the Christian sense, widely read, holy, and ascetic in life. Metropolitan Gavriil of St. Petersburg himself knew of him and summoned him in order to send him to certain monasteries to restore the monastic life in them. In vain did Nazarius try in every way to decline this honor; in vain did Sarov’s abbot Pachomius and even the local diocesan bishop of Tambov, Theophil—wishing to keep Nazarius at Sarov—write about him that he was supposedly not suited for the proposed mission, being a simple man, of little intelligence. Nothing helped; the Metropolitan understood the meaning of these evasive responses and wrote: “I have plenty of clever men of my own—send me your fool.” There was nothing to be done; Nazarius submitted and for many years was sent from one monastery to another, organizing and reforming them in every respect. To him came to owe their good order, among others, such ancient and well-known Russian monasteries as the Yuzhsky (in Yaroslavl province), the Znamensky near Kursk (known as the Korennaya), and the famous ancient Valaam Hermitage. Through the incredible labors and exploits of Nazarius, these monasteries were brought into a flourishing state and will probably remain, for all time, copies of Sarov. Having fulfilled his high and most fruitful mission, Nazarius returned to Sarov and there, on what one might call his spiritual homeland, brought his laborious and deeply righteous life to a Christian end.

There were other occasions as well when great elders of Sarov—outstanding for the perfections of their spiritual life—were called upon by the higher authorities for various purposes. But being strangers to ambitious striving and seeking only secluded ascetic life, these ascetics always tried to decline all flattering proposals and assignments, and carefully guarded their monastic right to remain in obscurity. Thus, for example, the same Metropolitan Gavriil of St. Petersburg, when it was necessary to appoint a head for the Orthodox mission to North America, turned his attention, from all of Russia, once again precisely to Sarov, and summoned from there for that purpose the then-well-known Sarov ascetic Joachim, offering him even the rank of bishop. But the humble Joachim, in order to avoid this honor, imposed upon himself the exploit of holy folly, and as a holy fool was, of course, left at Sarov.

Closer to our own time, already within the present century, the glory of Sarov as the arena of great and—in our own day—particularly striking ascetic endeavor was sustained and strengthened by several renowned hermits and recluses: Dorofei, Ilarion, Alexander, Lev, and Mark, who labored in the dense forests of Sarov. Some of them never showed themselves to the people at all, dwelling in complete seclusion and obscurity. The best known among them is Mark; of him we have at least some information. Having passed through all the monastic offices and having served the monastery and the brotherhood faithfully, he resolved to devote himself exclusively to God. Having taken upon himself, for the sake of Christ, the exploit of holy folly and imposing on himself the discipline of silence, he withdrew from the monastery into the forest wilds and spent a full sixteen years there in unbelievable feats of asceticism, without even a cell of his own, wandering shelterlessly through the forest and constantly changing his place of abode so that no one could disturb his solitude. Only on great feast days would he appear in the monastery church for communion of the holy mysteries, and then immediately vanish again. The very thought of it fills one with wonder—the mind can scarcely take in those sixteen years of such an incredible life! Can faith be any stronger, can human self-denial for the sake of God be any more complete, than what Mark showed in his life?! Only when he at last felt death approaching did the eighty-year-old, emaciated elder, the schema-monk Mark, return to the monastery, where he found his eternal rest at the altar of the Dormition Cathedral, beside Father Seraphim.

A somewhat different pattern of holy life was followed by the Sarov ascetic, Hieromonk Seraphim, whose memory literally fills all of Sarov and whose name—without exaggeration—is known throughout Orthodox Russia. I will not retell in detail the life of this renowned ascetic, the more so because the most thorough biographies of him are accessible everywhere and to everyone, just as his widely circulated portraits have surely been seen by all. Nevertheless, I consider it my duty to recall at least a few of the most significant facts from the life of this most remarkable man, for it is unthinkable to speak of Sarov and say nothing of Father Seraphim—so inseparably have these two names, Sarov and Father Seraphim, become fused on the lips and in the thoughts of every Orthodox person!

Father Seraphim, Prokhor in the world, was a native of the city of Kursk, born into a pious merchant family. From early childhood he loved piety, enlightened himself through the reading of religious and moral books, and at seventeen years of age resolved to sever all ties with the world. He hung about his neck a large copper cross—which never left him his whole life, the blessing of his own mother—slung a knapsack over his shoulders, took a staff in hand, and set out on his new path toward a new life. That path led him first to Kiev to venerate the wonderworkers of the Kiev Caves, and then nearby, on the outskirts of Kiev, to the Kitaevo hermitage and to the renowned ascetic there, the clairvoyant elder Dosifei. Prokhor approached the holy man with trembling—first, because he had resolved in his own mind to submit unconditionally to Dosifei’s decision regarding his future; and second, because the elder Dosifei was stern and severe, far from accessible to all. But how great was Prokhor’s joy when, to the astonishment not only of himself but of all those around, the austere elder received Prokhor in a manner altogether unlike his treatment of others—with extraordinary warmth and kindness, with a heartfelt joy incomprehensible to all at the time, as though welcoming a native son. “Go to Sarov, my son, and abide there,” said Dosifei to Prokhor. And so, without deliberating or calculating further, Prokhor set out at once on the long road toward the Sarov unknown to him. The way was very long, difficult, and—given the poorly developed roads of those days—not without danger; yet Prokhor pressed steadily forward, step by step, mile by mile, province by province. Summer gave way to autumn, autumn passed into winter blizzards and snowstorms, yet still he walked on. But, glory to God, at last the promised land opened before him: there was the dense Sarov forest! And in the evening, on the eve of the Presentation of the Theotokos (in 1778), Sarov itself lit up before the eyes of this future bright and inexhaustible spiritual lamp of the monastery. Thus was fulfilled the whole purpose of Prokhor’s life: “Go to Sarov and abide there”—the words of Dosifei rang in his ears; meaning that Sarov was to be his eternal home, that here he was to live and to die.

And so began, in the Sarov hermitage, the life of the newly arrived novice and laborer of Sarov—a life full of profound edifying meaning and of incomparably lofty, so to speak, religious poetry. For eight years Prokhor fulfilled various arduous duties as a novice, and was then tonsured into monasticism with the name Seraphim. Steadfastly fulfilling all the vows of the monastic life he had embraced, Seraphim, through contemplation and through the reading of sacred and patristic writings, deepened himself ever more in the meditation of God, attaining ever greater spiritual perfection. Unspeakable was the joy of the young ascetic when one day, during an illness, after receiving communion of the holy mysteries, the Mother of God herself appeared to Father Seraphim in a bright cloud that illumined his entire cell. He understood that the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God were accepting his labors and looking upon him with mercy. And this moved him all the more decisively to devote himself and his entire life to God as fully as possible. Seraphim imposed chains upon himself, frequently withdrew from the monastery to a forest cave for prayer undisturbed by anyone or anything, and at last withdrew entirely into the forest. Five versts from the monastery, on the bank of the Sarovka River, he built himself a tiny cell, and there, in seclusion, continued his righteous life, filling it entirely with prayer, the reading of sacred books, and physical labor; he felled timber, dug the earth, cultivated a garden plot, even dug a cellar, and so forth. The fame of his holy life, nevertheless, could not remain hidden even in the depths of the wild forest; and so people began making their way to him in crowds—all who were poor and unfortunate in life, all who suffered in the constriction of their souls, and then pious pilgrims of every kind as well—some to hear a word of consolation and encouragement from the holy man, some to discern in his words something of their own future fate, and some simply out of pious curiosity, to see God’s ascetic.

Humble, without malice, most gentle of soul, Father Seraphim could refuse no one; he received all who needed him with extraordinary warmth and kindness, heard out everyone, and gave to all whatever he had from his spiritual wealth—to one a wise counsel, to another instruction and gentle admonition, and to yet another prophecies that afterward came to pass in a striking manner. Meanwhile, the great crowds of visitors to Father Seraphim tempted certain evildoers, who supposed that Father Seraphim was accumulating donations from everyone and hoarding wealth. On one ill-fated night in 1804, three criminals attacked Father Seraphim, demanding money of which he had not a single kopek; they beat him into unconsciousness and left off only when they counted him already dead. Coming to himself the next day, Father Seraphim gathered his last strength and, covered in blood, made his way back to the monastery. To the horror of all the Sarov brotherhood, for more than a week he hovered between life and death; but God heeded the prayers of all and restored the strength of his long-suffering chosen one. The evildoers were found as well, but Father Seraphim himself pleaded that they not be handed over to justice, but released in peace.

In vain did both the abbot and the brotherhood of Sarov beg Father Seraphim to remain in the monastery and not to expose himself once more to the danger of a solitary, terrible life; Father Seraphim returned to the forest and labored there for another six years in that same cell. Only after twelve years of reclusion, feeling his strength already declining, did the elder Seraphim return to the monastery; but he spent the first five years there in still more grievous ascetic feats—strict enclosure and silence. For all five full years he did not leave his cell and did not utter a single word, occupied himself exclusively with prayer, the reading of sacred books, and the meditation of God; moreover, every Sunday he received communion of the holy mysteries—also in his own cell. And only after all these trials and exploits that surpass human nature, having as it were assured himself of the strength of his spirit and having attained a high degree of spiritual perfection and self-mastery, and having already received from God the gifts of clairvoyance and healing, did Father Seraphim open the doors of his cell and unseal his lips; he began to receive all who came and to hold with everyone holy, edifying, and prophetic conversations. But even now he sought the solitude of the forest as a place of rest; two versts from Sarov, likewise in dense woodland, he arranged for himself a new cell and constantly went there, spending whole days in seclusion. Until his blessed repose in 1833, he was as a great angel of God among men, a true luminary of the Sarov hermitage. To this earthly angel, this shining spiritual lamp of Sarov, hundreds and thousands of Orthodox people from every corner of Russia were drawn. The light of Sarov’s spiritual lamp was so powerful and left so indelible a mark in the memory of the people, that the mere name of Father Seraphim and his grave alone still draw no fewer hundreds and thousands of pilgrims to Sarov to this day.

Yet it is not only Sarov’s great past that draws the Orthodox pilgrim to it; not only the great and forever unforgettable men of Sarov who have passed into eternity—men such as Mark and Father Seraphim—that have brought it glory. Even after them, and even now, Sarov possesses much that is attractive, rare upon earth, and dear and consoling to a Christian. Sarov to this day lives by the sacred covenant of its great fathers, imbued with the same spirit of desert-dwelling, diligence, non-acquisitiveness, and unceasing contemplation of God—the spirit that animated in the highest degree the aforementioned great Sarov ascetics, who by their earthly holiness and the light of their lives drew to Sarov thousands of pilgrims thirsting for spiritual enlightenment. And so Sarov even in the present day, as one of the great centers of Russian pilgrimage, draws to itself not only by its past glory or by the wondrously majestic sight of its virgin surroundings, but by its very inner perfection, by the light of the pious life of its present monks—its “Sarov men”—who have withdrawn far from the world and devoted themselves to a life of dispassion and asceticism. The stern communal rule of the Sarov hermitage, in accordance with the precepts and counsels of the Gospels, the Apostles, and the holy fathers, has ensured for Sarov a body of genuine monks—men strong in faith, firm in character, undaunted by the strict life, the prolonged services, and the heavy burdens of obedience. The entire life of a Sarov monk constitutes an unbroken feat of asceticism, which cannot but strike the Orthodox pilgrim with tenderness and inspire sincere, reverent respect for every “poor Sarov man,” as the Sarov monks—following the example of the ascetic Ilarion—love to call themselves. They are truly, as it were, men not of this world—men who have managed to suppress within themselves the most burning, the most powerful in the world, and the most destructive of all human passions. Having deprived himself of all worldly pleasures of common life, the Sarov monk is even within the monastery a hermit and a man of silence; each one lives in a separate, individual cell, and sees his brothers only during the silent hours of the prolonged services, or during the equally strictly silent moments of the common meal in the refectory. All the remaining time he is occupied with work or remains in solitary contemplation undisturbed by anyone or anything. The mutual visiting of cells by monks, permitted in some monasteries, and the receiving of guests and visitors in one’s cell, are strictly forbidden at Sarov. Furthermore, every Sarov monk, having completely renounced his own will and placing himself entirely at the disposal of the monastery, ready for any obedience assigned to him, is at the same time deprived of the right to any private, personal property, however small. Receiving clothing from the monastery and sustenance at the common table, he works for the monastery, and any acquisition he makes he is obligated to hand over to the common use of the monastery. These rules and demands—to renounce oneself and all that is one’s own—constitute for a man a terrible trial, the full weight of which it is difficult for us even to imagine; yet in return, these rules greatly elevate the moral life of the Sarov monks: here there are no grounds for quarrels, no love of gain, luxury is unthinkable, and moral license is impossible. Not without reason did the most ancient Russian ascetics, the founders of monasteries—such as Feodosi of the Caves, Sergius of Radonezh, Joseph of Volokolamsk, and others—lay as the foundation of the inner life of their monasteries precisely such a communal rule as was adopted from the very beginning in Sarov and is maintained there to this day with strict and unwavering faithfulness.

United with such deprivations, the life of the Sarov monk is at the same time a positive feat of asceticism, demanding no small exertion of strength. Every one of them is obligatorily assigned to some common monastic task and bears some obedience. It is owing chiefly to this general, unwavering, and unceasing labor that the Sarov monastery has been brought into excellent condition and its economy stands in a flourishing state. But apart from labor, a large portion of the Sarov monk’s time is devoted to his primary obligation—prayer. All the monks are required to be present at all the church services; and these services, owing to the strict observance of the church typikon and the drawn-out ancient chant, occupy on average up to ten hours a day, and on feast days, the eves of feasts, and especially during fasts, considerably more. The length of Sarov’s worship—which leaves the monks (who must also fulfill their obligatory obedience) not even a free minute—brings our Sarov close to the most celebrated Athos, known for its extraordinarily prolonged prayer. Perhaps more than anything else, even for a layperson, the lengthy prayers of the Sarov monks are striking—prayers far from easy to endure for us, unaccustomed people. Undoubtedly, habit plays an important role here, even the mere habit of the body to prolonged standing; but still more undeniably, in this case, is the influence of the soul over the body—the uplifting of the spirit, the power of religious thought, the intensity of moral consciousness—infusing energy and vigor even into wearied and weakening bodily members. Everyone knows well from personal experience that a person who does not feel a heartfelt disposition to prayer finds even a brief prayer burdensome, and a short service already demands an effort of will from him and arouses unbearable tedium. On the other hand, for the Christian whose heart is genuinely disposed to prayer, any prayer is easy, and even its great length passes, as it were, unnoticed. This everyone experiences for himself when he happens, for example, to find himself in the highly reverent and prayer-inducing atmosphere of Sarov’s own worship; no pilgrim withdraws from that service, and in the first moments—thanks to the novelty and power of the impression—does not seem to feel weariness at all, even if he has walked a thousand miles and can barely move his aching feet. All the more so the Sarov monks themselves: by the very structure of their monastic existence, they live almost entirely in the church, in prayer; through the whole tenor of their life and their moral disposition, they gradually cultivate within themselves an insatiable need for prayer, they attain the possibility of true prayer and deep, sincere reverence before the sacred rites. Therefore, the prolonged services are for them not a torment, not a form of self-mortification, as some laypeople might perhaps judge, but on the contrary, as it were the necessary fullness of their happiness, the blessedness of their monastic life. It goes without saying that among them, too, many approach the height of such a life only with great difficulty, struggle, and violence to themselves; many even prove unable to attain this height and therefore such men soon depart from Sarov; but assuredly, very many Sarov monks do attain and realize the ideal of angel-like dwelling, of ceaseless walking before God, of uninterrupted service to Him. Even the very uniformity of the services and the daily repetition of more or less the same things—which so often gives rise to mere mechanical routine in the clergy and tedium in those at prayer—seems to have no enervating effect on the Sarov monks; their worship strikes one with sincerity and deep feeling; everything is pronounced with remarkable clarity, all actions are performed without the slightest haste. It is evident that here people truly celebrate the sacred rites, that here they sing and read not for others and not from outward obligation, but for themselves and from their own inner need; evidently, these people are performing the most serious business of their lives, and for that reason the sincerity in the voices of those serving rings so genuinely, and the profound tenderness in those at prayer is so apparent. As if spellbound, they stand along the walls of their majestic cathedral, wholly absorbed in the thought of God’s presence.—No less striking is the sight of the young novices standing in the middle of the church; many of them have evidently already entered into the spirit of true monasticism; they stand motionless before the icons—some with their bright eyes fixed upon them, others in deep humility and self-recollection with their eyes nearly closed, as though forgetting that they are on earth. Indeed, it seems scarcely possible that one who has seen Sarov’s worship, and has visited even once that reverent atmosphere which, so to speak, reigns in the Sarov churches, could ever forget it!

In conclusion I will name one more trait by which Sarov has declared and continues to declare itself in the pious life of holy Russia—a trait most sympathetic and truly Christian: mercy toward all who suffer and are unfortunate, and a self-sacrificing readiness to give of one’s own for the needs of others. Whoever comes to Sarov and from wherever, he always finds here, free of charge, both good lodgings and quite adequate sustenance, even in some measure adapted to the station of the visitor (in the noble guesthouse, for example, a dinner is served far better than the monastic and capable of satisfying even a fastidious guest). The monastery’s hospitality is enjoyed especially by peasants, pilgrims, and the poor generally, who dwell here for weeks at a time. Throughout the whole year, and especially on great feast days, hundreds and thousands of pilgrims live at Sarov’s full expense. But to say nothing of this exceptional hospitality of Sarov, to say nothing of the constant generous distributions of bread, clothing, and even money to the poor, the Christian mercy of the Sarov monks is especially active and manifest in times of public calamity among the people. In famine years, for example, the Sarov hermitage opens its granaries with self-sacrificing generosity for the suffering people—and there were times when it thereby came itself to the point of extreme depletion and distress. Particularly memorable to Sarov to this day is the terrible famine that visited Russia in 1775. At that time, the official and public relief for the hungry was not yet organized as it is in our time, and the people were perishing in desperate need with no help whatsoever. Then Sarov opened all its granaries, feeding thousands of the hungry who had fled there from all quarters. At last the supplies were exhausted; some of the brotherhood were troubled, foreseeing famine-death not far off for themselves as well. But Ephrem, the abbot of Sarov at that time, gathered all the monastery’s brotherhood and persuaded them—it is better to suffer to the end ourselves and die with the people than, satiated, to watch the torment of hunger and the death of others. “For as long as it pleases God, for our sins, to prolong the famine,” said Ephrem, “it is better that we too suffer together with all the people than to abandon them to perish of hunger. What profit is it to you to outlive people like yourselves? And among them, it may be, some have themselves fed you with their own gifts before this time of calamity!”5 Thus all the supplies were exhausted to the last, and the brotherhood of Sarov, isolated in the forest depths, was already foreseeing destruction with dread—when suddenly the Lord, by His wondrous ways, had mercy on the merciful: unexpectedly and from an unknown source there arrived at Sarov a great convoy of fifty wagons laden with bread. It remained never precisely determined who among the benefactors sent this bread; though indeed was it not pointless to inquire into this manifest instrument of God’s saving Providence?!

Remembering this wondrous event, the Sarov hermitage has never since restricted its mercy, but has always striven in every way to increase and extend it according to the need. And the past year as well, when Sarov found itself at the center of no fewer than seven famine-stricken provinces, is said to have resulted, owing to the intensified hospitality, in a very noticeable deficit in the monastery’s economy…

Marked by wondrous signs and divine protection, the founding and establishment of the Sarov monastery—together with Sarov’s past, full of sacred majesty and distinguished by great ascetics pleasing to God and unforgettable in the memory of the people—as well as its spiritual perfection in the present day: all of this has made the Sarov hermitage, in the estimation of the Orthodox people, a holy place and an attractive beacon of Orthodoxy. Matching the outward grandeur and the magnificence of Sarov that strikes the eye, its inner Christian beauty draws and beckons the Orthodox Christian. Among the great holy sites of Christianity in Russia, such as our celebrated lauras, Sarov too has become a cherished destination toward which thousands of pilgrims thirsting for religious consolation and encouragement make their way.

Amid the ceaseless noise of daily life, amid the anxieties and cares of worldly vanity, the Christian ordinarily lacks the leisure and opportunity for moral self-examination and spiritual self-deepening. The spark of heavenly fire in the Christian soul, mercilessly suppressed and stifled by this vanity, nevertheless frequently troubles the conscience and cries out insistently in one’s awareness. A person, not without dread, often feels the whole poverty of his soul and recognizes the full destitution of his spirit. And so, in order to shake off, if only for a time, the oppressive burden of worldly vanity and to be renewed spiritually—in order to satisfy the hunger of his soul—the Christian resorts to the best and most effective means: he withdraws for a time to a monastery. Here he finds the richest nourishment, abundantly feeding his reverence, his faith, his whole soul; here he lays in spiritual strength that long afterward sustains him and guards him from sinking wholly into the mire of worldly life. Whether much moral impurity has accumulated in the Christian soul, whether a person has been overcome by meaningless, purposeless day-to-day drift, whether life has become repugnant, whether grief and despair have crept into the soul—he goes on pilgrimage to a monastery. And he finds for himself peace and consolation, discovers tranquility and reconciliation with life in this realm of grace, where the Christian soul has such spaciousness, where nothing presses or oppresses, where all worldly things are forgotten and complete happiness is drawn from fervent prayer and reverend contemplation. Whether a man is beset by poverty, heavy toil, and unrelieved misery—he seizes, as upon a bright, gracious beacon in life, upon the thought of “laboring for God,” of going to a monastery, of drawing near to a holy place. And he long nurtures this cherished thought within himself; he often denies himself, skimping on drink and food, only to secure for himself the possibility of pilgrimage. With the last kopek earned by hard labor, he sets out on his way; with his own laboring feet, at an unhurried, steady pace, he measures off thousands of miles in order to reach the holy monastery, to venerate its shrine, to find beside it an oblivion from his cares and sorrows, to pour out before it his griefs, and by fervent prayer to quiet his troubled soul. Here a new world and altogether different people meet him; they meet him with love and treat him with respect; not disdaining his grief and poverty, they receive him kindly and care for him as for all others. Is this not a festival for the soul, a triumph for the spirit worn down by life?! At peace and joyful, the “little worker of Christ” undoubtedly feels here the presence of God, who calls to Himself all who labor and gives rest to all who are burdened; as nowhere and never before, he prays here with his whole heart, from the fullness of his soul, and undoubtedly finds here genuine relief for his aching soul, receives consoling comfort, draws new strength to bear without complaint his heavy cross of life.—Such is the great power and mighty life-giving significance of holy places, toward which the Orthodox person has always been drawn, toward which he strives both in moments of bright joys and in days of heavy trials.

The great Orthodox shrine that is the Sarov hermitage has without doubt shed and continues to shed much religious and moral light, much life, love, and consolation, upon the native soil of holy Russia. Many, without doubt, Sarov has reconciled with life and gifted with peace of soul; upon all and always, it has produced and will produce an irresistibly deep and most beneficent impression. It is truly a kingdom apart, not of this world—a kingdom of different structure, different order, different life; here one feels oneself in a special moral atmosphere, here the spirit naturally and freely lives by pure aspirations, rises toward that native heavenly realm from which it came and to which, sooner or later, it will assuredly return. The whole setting of Sarov—solitary, industrious, majestically austere—stirs in the Christian unearthly feelings, touches every chord of his soul, filling it with a holy fullness of grace. When one is present, for example, at the morning service in Sarov, in the half-light of the majestic church, listening to the majestically moving and profoundly tender hymnody of the Sarov monks, it seems as though people here draw near to God and God condescends to men… And one involuntarily experiences wondrous moments when prayer becomes especially both necessary and sweet; only in such moments does one truly understand how much tranquil power lies hidden in Christian prayer, and how much moral strength it gives to a person. It seems that whatever grief may oppress the soul, however hard and cold the heart may be, prayer in such a conducive setting is always able to warm and hallow the holy of holies of the human soul with a warm, consoling feeling. Here everything that makes life bitter is forgotten, everything that exhausts the heart and parches the mind; and as if illumined from above, the soul is transported to the heavenly world and finds rest in the presence of the all-good and all-merciful God. Everything bitter in the heart, everything sick and impure with which a person has come here—all of it remains outside the holy threshold, and the person crosses it with a heart already purified, full of ardent faith, open to love, ready for good. Neither falsehood, nor malice, nor envy, nor anything vain, earthly, or worldly, touches the Christian in this holy place; he is entirely permeated with purity and love. Here he may discern in his own nature that he is not yet wholly saturated with the bitterness of evil, that the holy aspirations within him have not yet died entirely, that the pure wellspring of good has not yet dried up in him completely. And the revived heart beats tremulously in the long-stilled breast, and it becomes unutterably good and bright for the awakened soul of the pilgrim in this holy place, where all breathes peace, love, and Christian blessedness.

I had occasion to spend only two days in Sarov, but even that was sufficient that I should never forget it. So much was lived and felt during those two days that the solitary, laboring, praying Sarov will forever remain in my imagination a bright and consoling point, a radiant star of the native land, an abode of holiness, a place of true monasticism, holy labor, and inspired prayer.

A Description of the Sarov Hermitage, compiled from various records and decrees. 3rd ed. Murom. 1889, p. 7. Being situated on the site of an ancient town, precisely at the confluence of the rivers Satis and Sarovka, the hermitage is to this day more precisely named the Satis-Town-Sarov hermitage.

Description of the Sarov Hermitage, p. 8.

The occasion for the grievous trouble that poisoned the last days of Ioann was the incautious admission into the monastery, as a novice, of a court servant suspected of a political offense.

Description of the Sarov Hermitage, p. 101.

Description of the Sarov Hermitage, p. 103.

Colophon

The Sarov Hermitage, Past and Present
by St Seraphim of Sarov.

This edition was produced by
Royal Archives.

The text is set in Palatino and Georgia.

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

Table of Contents

- Title Page
- Copyright
- Introduction
- The Sarov Hermitage, Past and Present
- Colophon