Saint Seraphim of Sarov
A common misconception that we have is that the monument of a man kneeling down, in the church of Korenaya Pustyn, Svoboda of Kursk. To bust the myth, it isn’t Jesus Christ, but it is dedicated to a Saint who is from Kursk, and he was Saint Seraphim of Sarov. Throughout his timeline, we will find a series of events that are truly bizzare and out of this world.
19 July 1754, Saint Seraphim was born to a family of the merchant Isidore and Agathia Moshnin. His real name when he was baptized was Prokhor, in honour of the Apostle Prokhor. Isidor Moshnin was involved in the construction work of Sergievsko-Kazansky Cathedral (Gorkovo,27) but passed away before the work was completed. Prokhor was about 3 years old when it happened. His mother took over to continue the construction. Ever since, she brought young Prokhor to the church, encouraged him to pray to God and learn by heart some prayers.
When the boy was 7 years old, he was on the bell tower when he slipped and fell. The frightened mother who was at the bell tower with him hurried to him thinking of the fate of her son. But to everyone’s disbelief, she found him completely fine and without a sign of injury. She believed her son was under the special protection of God.
When he was 10 years old, Prokhor was gravely ill. One night he had a vision of Virgin Mary who promised to cure him. During the annual Procession of the famous ‘Kursk Root Icon’ (also known as Our Lady of Kursk), there was mud on the streets that disrupted their path. So they decided to pass through the yard of the Moshnin family (beginning of Mojayevskaya street). Prokhor’s mother took this opportunity to ask him to pray to Icon and again he made miraculous recovery.
Even in his youth, Prokhor made the decision to devote his life entirely to God and entered a monastery. The pious mother did not prevent this and blessed him on the monastic path with a Cross, which the monk carried on his chest all his life. At age of 17, Prokhor and some pilgrims went on foot from Kursk to Kiev Pechersk Lavra to worship and became a novice of the Sarov monastery. Shortly afterwards, he got heavily sick again for 3 years but rejected the treatment offered by the brotherhood. He said to father Pachomius: “I have offered myself, to the true doctor of souls and bodies — our Lord Jesus Christ and his most pure Mother.”
When he felt grave, he saw in his dreams Virgin Mary with apostles John and Paul. “He came from us”, she said and put her hands on Prokhor’s head. When the vision faded away, he felt relief and got cured. Soon a church hospital was built on the site of the apperance of the mother of God. Prokhor himself went to nearby places to collect money for its construction.
At the age of 35, Seraphim decided to leave the monastery and settled as a hermit in a modest wooden house on the Bank of the Sarovka river in the middle of the forest. His house consisted of one room with one small window, a porch, an Icon, a stove, a stump of wood for a table, a jug for breadcrumbs, as well as a garden, fence, and bee-house. The Saint’s clothing in winter and summer was the same: a kamilavka, a white linen robe on his shoulders, leather mittens, leather shoe covers, and bast shoes.
On the eve of Sundays and holidays, he came to the monastery. He listened to the service and prayers, and isolated himself in silence unless a brethren came for advice or guidance. The monk took bread with him, whenever he returns to his wooden house. From that small quantity of bread, he gave a significant part of it to the animals and birds. Even a legend of a huge bear that took bread from his hand exists, even in paintings. Saint Seraphim harvested potatoes, beets, and onions from the garden.
Life as a hermit was difficult and fraught with many dangers. On September 12, 1804, three peasants from the village demanded money from the monk. He threw down the axe, folded his arms crosswise on his chest, and said: “Do what you need to do.” The robbers began to beat the monk, broke several ribs, then, having tied him up. They wanted to throw him into the river, but first they searched the house for money. Having destroyed everything and found nothing in it, but an icon and a few potatoes, they were ashamed of their misdeed and left. The monk, having regained consciousness, crawled to the cell and suffered all night. In the morning, with great difficulty, he reached the monastery.
The brethren were horrified when they saw the wounded ascetic. The monk lay for eight days, suffering from wounds. Doctors were called, who were surprised that Seraphim was still alive after such beatings. But the monk denied their treatment, because again the vision of Virgin Mary appeared to him. the monk was in ecstatic joy, and then got out of bed, began to walk, ate, and recovered, but required a walking stick. Five months later, the monk again returned to the wilderness. Seraphim forgave the robbers and asked them not to be punished. Throughout his life, Virgin Mary appeared to him 12 times in his life, which is the most compared to other saints.
Seraphim refused to be an Abbot(head of the monastery). Then he tried to imitate “Saint Simeon Stylites the Elder” by chosing a granite stone as the place of his feat, and on it, he kneeled for 1000 days and nights, with hands raised, and cried out: “God, be merciful, as I am sinner.” Since then his legs did not heal till his death.
The elder monks asked him to come back to the monastery. When he finally got back, he accepted vow of silence and decided to confine himself. Once a week he took bread and cabbage from the monastery. It lasted for 10 years. On 25th of November 1825, he experienced a new vison, where the Virgin Mary let him leave his vow and help pilgrims and other visitors for help and forgiveness. He cured many aching people. Somedays over 2000 people visited him in a day. They looked up to him and considered as the most important living figure in Russia. In any day of the year, he greeted people with the words “Christ is risen!”.
A year and nine months before his death, FR. Seraphim was granted a visit to the mother of God. Father Seraphim was no longer on his knees, but on his feet before the most Holy mother of God, and She spoke as graciously as if to a loved one. The vision ended with the Virgin Mary saying to Saint Seraphim: “Soon, my beloved, you will be with us” — and blessed him.
In the last period of his earthly life, the monk Seraphim took special care of his favorite child — the Diveyevo women’s monastery. The monk Seraphim became noticeably weaker and he spoke much about his approaching end. At that time, he was often seen at the oak coffin, which stood in the entrance of his cell and prepared for him. Seraphim himself measured out the side of the altar of the assumption Cathedral grave.
1st January 1833, Saint Seraphim came to the church hospital for the last time and took communion, after which he blessed the brethren and said goodbye, saying: “Save yourselves, do not be discouraged, watch, today our crowns are being prepared.” On January 2, the monk’s cell-Keeper, father Paul, left his cell at six o’clock in the morning on his way to Church smelled something burning coming from the Saint’s room.
There were always candles burning in the Saint’s room, and he once claimed: “As long as I live, there will be no fire, and when I die, my end will be revealed by fire.” When the doors were opened, it turned out that books and other things were burning, and the Saint himself was kneeling before the Icon with his hands folded crosswise, with a copper Cross, lifeless.
Wishing to give the worshippers an opportunity to say goodbye to the monk, who was already lying in the coffin, they left the deceased unburied for eight days. He laid in the Cathedral, and at this time thousands of residents from the surrounding areas and neighboring provinces flocked to his coffin. In 1891, a chapel was built over the tomb of the monk. Numerous signs and healings were performed with his Holy relics. His remains are in the Saint Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery.
Following the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet authorities severely persecuted religious groups. As part of their persecution of Christians, they confiscated many relics of saints, including St. Seraphim. Only in 1991, St. Seraphim’s relics were rediscovered after being hidden in a Soviet anti-religious museum for seventy years. This caused a sensation in post-Soviet Russia and throughout the Orthodox world. A crucession (religious procession) escorted the relics, on foot, all the way from Moscow to Diveyevo Convent, where they remain to this day.
The only portrait of him to ever exist, which is in Novo-Diveyevo Convent in Nanuet, New York. On 19 October 2016, relics of Seraphim were launched into space aboard the Soyuz MS-02.
REFERENCE
1. old-kursk.ru/people/sersar.html
2. old-kursk.ru/people/sersar2.html
