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

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

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