St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833)
KONSTANTIN GAVRILKIN
St. Seraphim belongs to that tradition of monastic spirituality which was brought to Ancient Rus from Mount Athos in the early 11th century and revived in the late 18th to 19th centuries by Paisy Velichovsky and his followers, among whom one should note St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, St. Feofan (Theophan) the Recluse, and the Optina elders.
Prokhor Moshnin (Seraphim’s name prior to his monastic tonsure) was born into a pious merchant family in Kursk. In 1776 he visited the Kiev Caves Monastery, where the elder Dosifei advised him to practice the Jesus Prayer continuously and to enter the Sarov monastery (in Nizhnii Novgorod province). He arrived there in 1778, took monastic vows in 1786, and received the name Seraphim. From his disciples and early biographers, who relied both on his personal testimony and eyewitness accounts, we know that he had multiple mystical experiences, including revelations of Christ and many visitations by the Virgin Mary who guided him throughout his 55-year monastic life and healed him on a number ofoccasions from severe illnesses and injuries. Between 1794 and 1810 Seraphim lived a reclusive life in the forest outside the monastery, spending his time in the practice of the Jesus Prayer, reading Scripture and patristic literature, and engaging in manual labor. One day he was savagely beaten by robbers who left him crippled for the rest of his life; when the attackers were later arrested, he persuaded the authorities to let them go. He returned to the monastery in 1810, but remained in seclusion until 1825, when, at the command of the Virgin Mary, he began to receive people seeking his guidance and healing, and became one of the most renowned startsi of Russia.
Seraphim’s extraordinary asceticism and mystical life were witnessed by several of the inhabitants of the Sarov monastery and by visitors whose lives were dramatically changed by their encounter with the saint. In his later years some of the nuns of the Diveyevo Convent of the Holy Trinity, which was under his personal supervision, also witnessed his spiritual gifts and power of prayer. The most famous description of the latter is found in the recollections of N. A. Motovilov (1809–79), a lay disciple who was particularly close to Seraphim and left autobiographical notes, a fragment from which was published in 1903 (Nilus 1903), the year St. Seraphim was canonized at the initiative of Nicholas II. It contained Seraphim’s conversation with Motovilov on the meaning of Christian life, defined by the saint as the “Acquisition of the Holy Spirit” (hence the known title of the fragment). During Seraphim’s explanation of what it meant “To be in the Spirit,” both he and Motovilov went through a number of mystical experiences of illumination similar to those described by St. Symeon the New Theologian and mystical writers of other periods, giving the most striking demonstration of what the concept of theosis means within the Eastern Orthodox tradition.
Plate 67 St. Seraphim of Sarov. RIA Novosti/Topfot
SEE ALSO: Jesus Prayer; Monasticism; Russia, Patriarchal Orthodox Church of; St
Paisy Velichovsky (1722–1794); St. Theophan (Govorov) the Recluse (1815–1894)
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Arkhimandrit Sergii (1851) Skazanie o zhizni i podvigakh blazhennyia pamiati ottsa Serafima, Sarovskoi pustyni ieromonakha i zatvornika, s prisovokupleniem dukhovnykh ego nastavlenii, 3rd edn. Moscow: A. Semena.
Nilus, S. (1903) Dukh Bozhii, iavno pochivshii na ottse Serafime Sarovskom v besede ego “O tseli khtistianskoi zhizni.” Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia.
Veniamin (Fedchenkov) (1996) Vsemirnyi svetil’nik prepodobnyi Serafim Sarovskii. Moscow: Palomnik.
Zander, V. (1997) St. Seraphim of Sarov. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press
St. Sergius of Radonezh (1314–1392)
KONSTANTIN GAVRILKIN
Founder of the Trinity Monastery, now known as Troitse-Sergieva Lavra (Sergiev Posad, north of Moscow), St. Sergius of Radonezh is considered the most influential saint of the Russian Orthodox Church. Together with his great contemporary Alexii, Metropolitan of Moscow in 1354–78, he is credited with the spiritual revival of Ancient Rus at the time of the Mongol invasion and, ultimately, with liberation from that oppression. Sergii, known before monasticism as Bartholomew, was born to a noble family near Rostov, but in the late 1320s the impoverished family moved to the Moscow region and settled in the town of Radonezh (10 miles from Sergiev Posad). His parents eventually became monastics in a local monastery, and after their death the youth Bartholomew himself began an ascetic life, joined by his widowed brother Stefan. In 1335, on a site occupied by today’s Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, he built a wooden church with the same name. When his brother left for a Moscow monastery, he invited another monk, Igumen Mitrofan, to join him as a replacement companion. Mitrofan tonsured Bartholomew with the name Sergius. Within a few years, other ascetics, attracted by Sergius’ strict ascetic life, discipline of prayer, humility, and wisdom, came to join him, and in 1345 they officially established the Holy Trinity Monastery. Although Sergius demanded that all monks sustain the monastery by their manual labor, with time the community grew and among those who joined it were people of different ranks and means – from peasants to princes – who often donated their wealth to the monastery. Patriarch of Constantinople Philotheus (1300–79) advised Sergius to introduce the coenobitic rule. With the blessing of Metropolitan Alexii of Moscow, he followed the advice; within a few decades his disciples founded many monasteries of the same style in various Russian principalities. In his late years, Alexii of Moscow urged Sergius to became his successor, but the latter would not abandon his monastery for the metropolitan throne. Sergius is credited with playing a peacemaking role in the disputes among Russian princes whose dynastic quarrels divided and weakened Rus at the time of the Mongol oppression, and encouraging their union with the Moscow principality and its ruler Dmitrii Ioannovich (1350–89), who in 1380 led the united Russian forces to victory against the Golden Horde in the Battle of Kulikovo.
Plate 68 Icon of St. Sergius of Radonezh, founder of the Sergiev Posad monastery, and one of the most important saints of Russian Church history. Photo by John McGuckin
Epifanius the Wise (d. ca. 1420), the disciple of the saint, wrote the first biography (Zhitie) of Sergius, which was later revised by the famous hagiographer Pachomius the Serb. Prior to the mid-16th century the Russian Church did not have a formal process of canonization, but according to the available sources Sergius of Radonezh was venerated as saint already in the 15th century for his spiritual wisdom, his asceticism, and the power of his healing prayer.
SEE ALSO: Monasticism; Russia, Patriarchal Orthodox Church of
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Golubinskii, E. E. (1892) Prepodobnyi Sergii Radonezhskii i sozdannaia im Troitskaia Lavra. Sergievskii Posad: A. I. Snegireva.
Kloss, B. M. (1998) Izbrannye trudy. T 1: Zhitie Sergiia Radonezhskogo. Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury.
Kovalevsky, P. (1976) Saint Sergius and Russian Spirituality, trans. W. Elias Jones. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Tsurikov, V. (ed.) (2004) The Trinity: Sergius Lavra in Russian History and Culture. Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Seminary Press.
St. Silouan of Athos (1866–1938)
JULIA KONSTANTINOVSKY
St. Silouan of Athos, also known as Silvanus, was born Simeon Ivanovich Antonov of Russian peasant origin, and became a schema-monk of the St. Panteleimon monastery on Mount Athos. He was a revered mystic and spiritual director (starets) of monastics and laypeople alike. St. Silouan was the spiritual father of Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), who, on Starets Silouan’s request, edited and published his handwritten notes on the spiritual life and salvation. Archimandrite Sophrony likewise prepared an introduction to St. Silouan’s writings, expounding the teachings from the perspective of the Orthodox ascetic tradition (Saint Silouan the Athonite, first published in Paris, 1948). Largely because of the testimony of this spiritual biography, which elucidates the inner progress of Silouan’s life, St. Silouan was canonized as a holy Orthodox ascetic (hosios, pre- podobny) in 1987 by the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on September 24, the day of his repose. Through his prayer, life, and writings, St. Silouan delivered a potent message about the boundlessness of God’s love, forgiveness, and healing, which has been widely received as strikingly modern, pertinent to the contemporary social predicament. Silouan, therefore, became acknowledged as “the saint for the present day» Although possessed of little secular learning and never ordained as a priest, through years of monastic training St. Silouan became a spiritual giant, achieving a full measure of “passionlessness” (apatheia).
While standing firmly within the continuity of the patristic tradition, he also possesses striking originality. His contribution to Orthodox theology and soteriology encompasses the chief following ideas: unbounded love; prayer for the whole world; the prioritization of the love of “enemies”; stress on the power of repentance; and Christ-like humility.
St. Silouan’s teaching on the love of all humanity and the love of “enemies” is the guiding tenet of his thought, proceeding from his understanding of the fundamental requirement of Christian charity towards all people in general, good or bad. To him, this was the essence of the human being’s likeness to God and perfect discipleship of Christ. St. Silouan, strikingly, asserts that if one fails to love one’s enemies, one’s salvation is not assured. Having received in his youth a mystical vision of the merciful Christ, Silouan viewed the attainment of “the humility of Christ” as the highest degree of Christian perfection, that which in patristic tradition was frequently termed “deification.” However, having had this vision of the glory of the humble Lord, Silouan likewise experientially knew that the greatest misfortune a human being can suffer is to lose touch with Christ through wrongful actions and even mere evil thoughts (pomysly), pride being the deepest root of sin. He thus saw pride as the origin of all evil and suffering in the world, what he called “the seed of death and despair.” For this reason Silouan concentrated all his powers upon striving relentlessly, through the gospel commandments, to overcome pride in himself and to obtain “Christ-like humility.” St. Silouan stands as the icon of Christ’s saint: the one who presents to the world the Lord’s own depths of humility and love to all humankind.
SEE ALSO: Asceticism; Elder (Starets); Monasticism; Sophrony, Archimandrite (1896–1993)
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Larchet, J. C. (2001) Saint Silouane de I’Athos. Paris: Editions du Cerf.
Sophrony, Archimandrite (Sakharov) (1985) We Shall See Him as He Is. Maldon, UK: Monastery of St. John.
Sophrony, Archimandrite (Sakharov) (1999) Saint Silouan the Athonite. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
St. Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022)
JOHN A. MCGUCKIN
St. Symeon is a major mystic, a precursor of the hesychasts, emphasizing the themes of illumination by the Spirit, the role of the spiritual father, the importance of the gift of tears, and the necessity of personal experience of God. He was a controversial figure in his time. His Discourses re-present much of the classical Studite monastic teaching but with a deeply personal charismatic spirit. Symeon’s aristocratic father brought him to Constantinople in 960, and his uncle (killed in the Phocas riots of 963) advanced his career until the young man assumed senatorial rank. In 969 he first encountered the monk Symeon Eulabes who became a father-confessor. In the time of the Tzimisces revolt, he was sheltered by Symeon Eulabes, who ever after appeared to him as a mediator of Christ’s salvation. He tells how, once when he was overwhelmed by a consciousness of his sinfulness, he saw during his evening prayer a brilliantly shining light, and behind that an even greater radiance. He interpreted the vision as his spiritual father interceding for him with Christ.
In 976 another palace coup brought Basil II to power and marked the end of Symeon’s political life. He took refuge with his confessor and once again experienced a vision of the light of Christ, which became for him a definitive moment of conversion. He entered the monastic state. In a short time (979) he became the higumen of the St. Mamas monastery in Constantinople and refurbished it. The traditional morning Catecheses to the monks have survived as a central body of his work. Some time between 995 and 998 the growing opposition to his discipline broke out as a revolt by a section of his community. Patriarch Sisinnios II (995–8) heard charges against him and found in his favor; but Patriarch Sergios II (999–1019) opened new legal proceedings against him (instigated by the court). In 1003 an attempt was made to entangle him in a public theological dispute (it produced as his response the Theological Chapters). His answer took the form of an excoriation of the synod’s chief theologian and confidant to the Emperor, Stephen of Alexina, for attempting to theologize without first having experienced the divine light. In 1005 he was subjected to house arrest and exile followed in 1009.
Symeon regarded the casus belli as his claim that the present generation had the same charismatic right to live in the freedom of the ancient saints. In exile he bought the oratory of St. Marina at Chrysopolis and wrote some of his most famous works, including the Hymns of Divine Love, a classic of mysticism. He died aged 73 in 1022. His relics were not admitted back into the capital until 1054, when Niketas Stethatos composed a Vita for the occasion. Symeon was revered as a great master of the inner life by the Hagiorites. In recent decades he has attracted much scholarly attention. His teaching is important both for the light it throws on a dark period of Byzantine affairs, but more so for the spiritual themes it treats with such vigor. He is a major advocate of the power of repentance: a force that is not simply for “beginners” in the ascetical life, but which makes the human soul into the “friend of Christ.” His descriptions of visions of the divine light inspired generations after him, as did his devotion to the Eucharist. The practice of the Jesus Prayer, however, does not make much of an appearance. Symeon is also important for the doctrine of Spiritual Fatherhood which had a marked impact on Orthodox spiritual praxis in the time of the 18th- century Philokalic revival.
SEE ALSO: Hesychasm; Jesus Prayer; Philokalia; Stethatos, Niketas (ca. 1005–1085)
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
de Catanzaro, C. J. (trans.) (1980) Symeon the New Theologian: The Discourses [Catecheses]. New York: Paulist Press.
Golitzin, A. (1995–7) St. Symeon the New Theologian [trans. of “The Ethical Discourses’’], 3 vols. New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Hausherr, I. (1928) “Un grand mystique byzantin: Vie de S. Symeon le Nouveau Theologien [par Nicetas Stethatos],” Orientalia Christiana 12, 45.
Holl, K. (1898) Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim greichischen Monchtum, eine Studie zu Symeon dem Neuen Theologen. Leipzig.
Krivocheine, B. (1987) In the Light of Christ. New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
McGuckin, J. A. (1996a) “St. Symeon the New Theologian and Byzantine Monasticism,” in A. Bryer (ed.) Mount Athos and Byzantine Monasti- cism. London: Variorum Press, pp. 17–35.
McGuckin, J. A. (1996b) “St. Symeon the New Theologian (d. 1022): Byzantine
Theological Renewal in Search of a Precedent.” In R. N. Swanson (ed.) The Church Retrospective: Studies in Church History, vol. 33. Oxford: Boydell Press.
McGuckin, J. A. (1996c) “The Notion of Luminous Vision in 11th C Byzantium: Interpreting the Biblical and Theological Paradigms of St. Symeon
the New Theologian.” In Acts of the Belfast Byzantine Colloquium – Portaferry 1995 (The Evergetis Project). Belfast: Queen’s University Press.
McGuckin, P. (1994) Symeon the New Theologian: Chapters and Discourses. Kalamazoo:
Cistercian Publications.
Maloney, G. (1975) The Hymns of Divine Love.
New Jersey: Dimension Press.
Maloney, G. (1975) The Mystic of Fire and Light.
Denville, NJ: Denville Books.
Palmer, G., Sherrard, P., and Ware, K. (1995) Philokalia, vol. 4. London: Faber and Faber, pp. 11–75.
Turner, H. J. M. (1990) St. Symeon the New Theologian and Spiritual Fatherhood. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
St. Theodore the Studite (759–826)
JOHN A. MCGUCKIN
Theodore was the aristocratic abbot (higumen) first of the Sakkudion Monastery (founded with his uncle Platon on family estates in Bithynia) and then, in 798, of the large and important Stoudium Monastery at Constantinople (by the patronage of Empress Irene). His monastic reforms (refining and systematizing the ascetic corpus of St. Basil the Great) led to his Studite Typikon becoming a “standard” model for the majority of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in the Byzantine era. He encouraged the many hundreds of monks of his cenobitic establishment to engage in literary, as well as liturgical, activities; and scholars have surmized that it was in the scriptoria of the Stoudium that the minuscule script was invented. He was a vigorous defender of the rights of the monastics against both the imperial and patriarchal throne when he felt canonical limits had been transgressed; and was particularly noted as a strong advocate of the Iconodule cause in the second phase of the Iconoclastic crisis, beginning in 814. After the Triumph of Orthodoxy, in 843, his memory was elevated along with that of St. John of Damascus as among the chief of the Iconodule saints, and his treatise On the Holy Images has been an influential text.
SEE ALSO: Iconoclasm; Icons; Monasticism
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Roth, C. P. (trans.) (1981) St. Theodore the Studite: On the Holy Icons. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
St. Theophan (Govorov) the Recluse (1815–1894)
KONSTANTIN GAVRILKIN
Born into the family of a rural priest, after the seminary Georgii V. Govorov continued his studies at Kiev Theological Academy, where, under the influence of the Kievan Cave Monastery, he decided to become a monk. Prior to his graduation in 1841, he was tonsured (with the name Theophan) and ordained deacon and priest shortly afterwards. For a few years he served as instructor and administrator at a number of ecclesiastical schools, but in 1847 he resigned from St. Peterbsurg Theological Academy in order to join the Russian Mission in Jerusalem, where he studied Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and French. He also traveled throughout the Middle East and visited many holy places in Syria, Egypt, and Palestine. In 1854, because of the Crimean War, the Mission was closed, and upon his return to Russia he was appointed again to St. Petersburg Academy, and then, five months later, to the Olonetskaia Seminary (Petrozavodsk).
Less than a year later he was sent to the Russian Embassy Church in Constantinople. In the summer of 1857 he was made dean of St. Petersburg Theological Academy, only to be consecrated bishop of Tambov in 1859 and moved again in 1863 to the see of Vladimir. In 1866, tired of his endless transfers and busy administrative life, he petitioned the synod to allow him to resign and live as a “simple monk” in a monastery of his choice in order to dedicate his life to the study of Scripture, prayer, and writing. The synod (after launching an inquiry into his “unusual” request) accepted his resignation, and Theophan moved to Vyshenskaia Pustyn’ (Tambov province).
For six years he followed the monastery’s regular life, but in 1872 withdrew from direct contact with all people, both inside and outside the monastery, except for the abbot, his father-confessor, and the keleinik, a monk assigned to assist him. His life in seclusion followed a classic monastic model: prayer, study, manual labor. For the first ten years he served liturgy on Saturdays and Sundays, and for the last twelve he did so every day. He sent out between twenty and forty letters a day in response to people seeking his spiritual advice. His ever-expanding library contained several encyclopedias in various languages, Migne’s Patrologia, Russian editions of the fathers of the church, books of the liturgical cycle, many theological journals, commentaries on Scripture, and such like. He wrote continuously, authoring more than fifty books by the end of his life: commentaries on Scripture, manuals on Christian life and prayer in particular, meditations on various subjects, theological treatises, and collections of letters of spiritual direction. In addition, he translated two volumes of Symeon the New Theologian, the Unseen Warfare in the version of Nicodemus the Hagiorite, as well as texts of the major ascetic writers, included in his five-volume Philokalia, which was supplemented by a volume including the monastic rules of Pachomius, Basil of Caesarea, John Cassian, and Benedict of Nursia. In the last years of his life, Theophan suffered from a number of ailments, including blindness in one eye. He died on the Feast of Theophany, January 6, 1894. Having become one of the most popular and influential spiritual writers of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 19th and 20th centuries, he was canonized in 1988.
SEE ALSO: Monasticism; Russia, Patriarchal Orthodox Church of
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Amis, R. (ed.) (1991) The Heart of
Salvation: The Life and Teachings of Russia’s Saint Theophan the Recluse, trans. E. Williams. Newbury, MA: Robertsbridge.
Theophan the Recluse (1997) The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation, trans. S. Rose. Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.