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Unfortunately our unbelievers, instead of responding to this finger of God—which points them to the true path of life—by crying out, as the Apostle Thomas did: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), point to the opening of the holy relics of Saint Seraphim and, like the king of Judah Ahaz who refused the heavenly sign of the truthfulness of the Prophet Isaiah’s prediction that was offered to him, say with feigned or genuine humility: “What is the point of this willful, without clear signs from the Lord, exhumation of the grave of the reposed elder and the opening of his ‘little coffin’ hidden within it, when one could have gotten along without this?” But these people either forget, or through their general ignorance of spiritual literature do not know at all, that such a divine voice pointing to the glorification of God’s holy one precisely through the opening of his holy relics has not always taken the form of either visions of the saint or some other unintended by men and seemingly accidental remarkable circumstances; sometimes the voice of the people—which not without reason is called the voice of God—was also recognized as such an indicator of God’s will, and sometimes too the devout wishes of sovereigns, “whose hearts are in God’s hands.” In the “History of the Canonization of Saints in the Russian Church” by Professor E. E. Golubinsky, not a few examples of this kind are cited. The well-known Russian pilgrim to holy places, Barsky, relates that on Mount Athos the bones of deceased brothers are dug up three or four years after burial and placed in the ossuary, “until such time as, if God wills to glorify someone of virtuous life, he manifests upon them some fragrance—which has come to pass with many.” According to the words of a writer on Athos in his letters, this custom exists there to this day…

It is astonishing how resourceful is the spirit of contradiction against truth and resistance to the Church. While some, with expressions of reverent horror, recoiled before what they called the “fearless” presumption of the Holy Synod in charging the examination of the venerable remains of the ever-memorable elder of Sarov, Hieromonk Father Seraphim, others—after this examination had already been completed—armed themselves against the devout temporary protection of the shrine from idle curiosity, and with incomprehensible boldness in openly and widely circulated leaflets declared that “in fulfillment of their duty before truth and the Russian people they had taken upon themselves the investigation of the affair concerning the relics of Seraphim of Sarov and would not hesitate, if necessary, to proceed even to the opening of the contents of the coffin”—naturally by arbitrary, forcible, and premature means. In all probability these persons, blinded by malice, these “fighters against Orthodoxy,” had by some roundabout means heard a rumor that those who had conducted the examination of “the little coffin of Elder Seraphim” had not found therein his incorrupt body, and with their impudent outburst were counting on dealing a decisive blow to Orthodoxy, imagining that the relics of saints must always and necessarily be completely incorrupt, that the people were expecting precisely such incorrupt relics of Saint Seraphim to be opened, and that the Holy Synod intended to pass off the relics to be opened as exactly the same; and that it was for this reason that the Synod was delaying the matter of the opening and covering it with secrecy. The calculation was evidently this: the Holy Synod, fearing the exposure of its deception, would continue to maintain silence, while they in the meantime would themselves “open the contents of the coffin” and the deception would be unmasked by the act itself; and it would be no better for Orthodoxy if they were not allowed to carry out such an opening, since that too could be explained as a fear of revealing the truth.

Vain expectations and mistaken calculations! How they recall by their craftiness the tempting questions of the Herodians and Pharisees about tribute to Caesar, and of the Sadducees about the resurrection of the dead, addressed to the Lord and by him so simply and clearly unmasked in their dishonest emptiness! Does this not suggest that such must have been and was the end of the senseless scheme of the contemporary enemies of Christ’s truth as well?

Soon after these leaflets appeared, His Eminence Anthony, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, who had been entrusted with performing the opening of the holy relics of Saint Seraphim on July 19, published a “necessary clarification” on the matter, and the Holy Synod, in its official publication Church Gazette, promulgated the act of examination of the relics, drawn up on January 11 of the current year by another first hierarch who had conducted the examination, His Eminence Vladimir, Metropolitan of Moscow, together with several other ecclesiastical and civil personages, with all their own signatures. In this act, which we have already quoted in full (in Book VI), the following is written concerning the holy relics themselves: “In the coffin those present clearly saw the distinctly defined skeletal remains of the departed, covered with the remnants of his decayed monastic garments. The body of the ever-memorable elder, Father Seraphim, had undergone decomposition, but his bones, being entirely preserved, were found to be properly arranged, though easily separable from one another. The hair of the head and beard, of a grayish-reddish color, was preserved, though it had separated from its places.” Metropolitan Anthony, in his “clarification,” having cited the aforementioned words of the “act,” goes on to say, among other things: “Such is the content of the coffin. But here begins, for many, a stumbling block. ‘There are among us people,’ as Professor E. E. Golubinsky rightly observes, ‘who have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge, who assert that the relics of saints are always and without exception completely incorrupt, that is, entirely whole, in no way decomposed or damaged.’ Yet such an assertion is wholly incorrect and does not accord with the universal consciousness of the Church, according to which the incorruption of relics is by no means considered a universal and obligatory criterion for the glorification of holy saints. The proof of the holiness of the saints consists in the miracles performed at their tombs or through their relics, whether these are whole bodies or only bones alone. The incorruption of relics, when it exists, is a miracle, but only a supplementary one to those miracles that are wrought through their mediation.” And the holiness of Elder Seraphim was determined not by the condition of his remains, but by the faith of the people and by the numerous miracles which, upon being duly investigated, presented no shadow of doubt as to their authenticity, being in their nature events that manifested the miraculous power of God through the intercession and mediation of Father Seraphim before God. And only after such confirmation of the holiness and prayerful boldness of Father Seraphim before God was it decreed that his most venerable remains should be an object of reverent veneration by all who come to his prayerful intercession. (Act of the Holy Synod, January 9, 1903.) For “one does not place a lamp under a bushel. It would be painful to the believing heart to hide these remains of the Saint under the ground. In a holy person, everything is holy and wonder-working, even the shadow, even the garment, not only the body or the bones. Thus the shadow of the Apostle Peter, the head-coverings of the Apostle Paul, healed the sick of their illnesses. By the touch of the bones of the Prophet Elisha, a dead man was raised to life. Even the dust upon which the feet of a holy person walked acquires healing power. So it is that after the holy elder Seraphim, the earth from his grave, the stone upon which he prayed, the water from the spring he dug, are venerated as holy objects and are taken in portions and carried home by believers as wonder-working, granting healing in various infirmities. His bodily remains, his bones, are for the believer a precious shrine, a true treasure, through which healing help is granted to those who honor him”…

Thus did falsehood lie against itself.

Professor E. E. Golubinsky, in that same book of his which we have cited, from which Metropolitan Anthony quotes his words, speaks further of these people who have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge: “they assert this for the same reason that people like them asserted it in the fifteenth century, namely, out of their imagined concern for human unbelief, out of their opinion of simple people, as if ‘any saint who does not lie whole in his body is, in their view (the view of simple people), not holy.’ But they slander simple people, who in reality approach relics with equal reverence and devotion, whether the relics consist of whole bodies or merely bones and small remnants and fragments of bones. A decisive and vivid proof of this is furnished by those occasions when relics of saints were brought to us from the East in the form of small remnants of their bones: our people flocked to render them veneration with the same faith with which they also venerate whole bodies.”

And now, do we not see the very same thing in the attitude of the common people toward the relics of Saint Seraphim? And if for some the pilgrimages of these millions to the holy remains of Saint Seraphim are not convincing, for such persons, as proof of the equal honor accorded to all manner of holy remains, we can point to the specially venerated relics of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon in Moscow, to the particles of holy relics in the Kremlin Cathedrals, and many others. How many cities or monasteries in Russia are there where there are no specially venerated holy icons and reliquaries containing particles of the holy relics of both Russian and ancient Greek saints? Everyone knows that in the holy antimension of every church, holy relics are placed in memory of the fact that in ancient times, during the persecutions, the Liturgy was celebrated over the tombs of the martyrs. The relics of the greater part of the saints in Greece and in the East, as well as in the West, are bones, not whole bodies. Beyond the examples mentioned above in the excerpts from Metropolitan Anthony’s clarification and from Golubinsky’s work, the latter contains a lengthy list of other similar examples from both the ancient and the modern history of the Church, with precise references to the primary sources from which these examples are drawn.

That the relics of saints are not always whole bodies, but are sometimes and in most cases bones or even fragments of bones, is attested by many of the holy fathers and teachers of both the ancient Greek and the Russian Church; among the ancients, Saints John Chrysostom and Basil the Great, and among the Russian, Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk, Saint Dimitri of Rostov, and among more recent teachers, Metropolitans Platon and Filaret of Moscow and many others, whose words are cited in that same book of Professor Golubinsky. He also proves, on the basis of numerous expressions in ancient manuscripts and philological data, that the word “moshchi” (relics) was used to denote not the whole body, but only parts of it, chiefly bones, and that this word signifies not something whole, but only a part of some sacred or non-sacred object, so that to take apart some object into “moshchi” meant to take it apart into pieces. The word “moshchi” is Slavonic and derives from the word “moshch,” meaning strength, firmness, power; consequently, literally, this word must denote the firm parts of the body, that is, the bones. Miklosich and Sreznevsky in their dictionaries of the Old Slavonic language translate the word “moshti,” “moshchi” with the Greek leipsana and the Latin reliquiae. Thus, translated into our common usage, “moshchi” denotes a dead body, the mortal remains of a person. In our contemporary prayer book, in the order of burial, the body of the deceased, in whatever condition it may be, is generally called “moshchi.”

“If,” Professor Golubinsky continues in his book, “the Church had accepted the teaching that the incorruption of relics is itself the proof of the holiness of saints, then many saints whose relics remained and remain undisclosed would not have been canonized, many saints would not have been canonized before the discovery of their relics, and many saints would not have been canonized until after a considerable interval of time following the discovery of the relics. If this were so, then all the departed whose bodies proved to be incorrupt would have been numbered among the saints. Yet this is not the case.” Of the departed whose bodies proved to be incorrupt but who remain unnumbered among the saints, the professor cites Joasaph Gorlenkov, Bishop of Belgorod, whose incorrupt body rests openly in the Belgorod Trinity Monastery, Metropolitan Paul of Tobolsk, resting in the Kiev Caves Lavra, and others.

Indeed, the very nature of the matter does not require the absolutely incorrupt wholeness of the entire body, such as we behold in certain holy relics. Of course all of us—both those whose bodies have undergone decomposition and those whose bodies remain incorrupt in their full composition even after death—will rise bodily; but one cannot suppose that the incorrupt bodies of the saints of God will remain after the resurrection just as they are now preserved. However miraculous the properties of these bodies, they are still essentially different from the body of the risen Lord, according to the likeness of which our bodies must be after the universal resurrection (1Cor 15:20,23,42-51). And this transformation of bodies at the resurrection, into the likeness of the body of the risen Lord, must be so essential that we cannot even conceive of the spiritual properties of those bodies, just as we cannot conceive of the properties of the body of the risen Lord himself. Consequently, the purpose of the incorruption of holy relics, if one may so express it, is not in preserving them in their present state for all eternity, but in the manifestation through them of divine grace, as a particular divine power in which the departed person partook through his God-pleasing life, and by which he can, according to God’s will, act upon us through the miracles and signs that are wrought in answer to prayers addressed to him. The relics of the saints are thus sacred and holy remains of certain saints, granted to us in order to sustain in us the most vivid remembrance of those heavenly intercessors on our behalf, which we must honor as such, and are those earthly means (in the expression of the Larger Catechism of Metropolitan Filaret) through which the Lord most fully manifests his wonder-working power.“”

“By human reckoning,” says Father Archpriest Smirnov, “one could say something quite opposite to what is thought and said by those zealots of the faith without understanding, as pointed out by Professor E. E. Golubinsky—namely: the more fierce the assault of the enemy, the more glorious the victory over him; the more he has plundered, the more precious what has been saved from him. But such human calculations must be set aside where the mind and power of God are at work: ‘where God wills, the order of nature is overcome.’”

The design of this reliquary, set between two pillars on the right side of the Dormition Cathedral of the monastery, is distinguished by a majestic simplicity. The reliquary itself, in which the holy relics of the Saint rest, was made, in memory of his prayerful feat upon the rock, of Russian “Vazelemsky” marble of a yellowish-white color; it is composed of four massive slabs set upon a platform with three steps of the same marble, and measures 1 arshin in height, 2 arshins 12 vershoks in length, and 1 arshin 2 vershoks in width. The entire reliquary is adorned all around with carved work alone, without polishing or gilding. On the western head panel, on a round shield, is carved a patterned four-pointed equilateral cross of Byzantine form, and on either side of it the words: The righteous shall live forever, and their reward is with the Lord, and their care is with the Most High (Wisd. 5:15) and The Lord preserves all their bones; not one of them shall be broken (Ps. 33:20). On the right and left panels are carved exact likenesses of the eight-pointed copper cross that the Saint wore on his chest, and on their sides—a chronicle of the principal events of the Saint’s life; on the foot panel of the tomb, in a round convex shield under the Cap of Monomakh—the initial letters of the names of Their Imperial Majesties, and on the sides of the shield, a prayer of Saint Seraphim, written by him in his own hand in one of the liturgical books remaining after him: Save, O Lord, and have mercy upon Your servant (name), and enlighten his mind with the light of the knowledge of Your Holy Gospel, and guide him upon the path of Your commandments, and teach him, O Savior, to do Your will, for You are our God. The lid of the reliquary is of silver, weighing approximately 3.5 puds, and represents a wide sloping frame, in which is set under glass, painted on zinc, an image of Saint Seraphim lying in his coffin. At the corners of the lid are chased images of six-winged seraphim, and between them, on all four sides, in Slavonic script, is written the troparion common to all saints in the monastic order. On the inner board of the lid is engraved that this reliquary was created by the command and pious zeal of Their Imperial Majesties, with the indication of the time of its making.—Into this stone reliquary is fitted an oak coffin—an artistic reproduction of the oak log in which for 70 years the body of the Saint rested in the earth; this coffin-log (2 arshins 8.5 vershoks in length) is bound with three iron hoops and ten hanging clasps for carrying the coffin by hand. Into this coffin-log is fitted a cypress coffin containing the holy relics.—Around the tomb is a bronze chased-work grating with images of double-headed eagles at the corners and seraphim at the sides.—Four bases with columns of Kiev labradorite support the canopy which, rising above the tomb to a height of 12 arshins, has the form of a chapel over a well with a pointed roof in the old Vladimir-Suzdal style. Made of gilded bronze with fine chased work, the canopy is crowned with 5 onion-shaped domes. In the arches and kokoshniks of the central cupola of the canopy are images: on the western side—the Savior Not Made by Hands, with the inscription along the frieze: Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today, and forever; on the northern side—the nocturnal prayer of Saint Seraphim on the rock, with the inscription along the frieze of the prayer of the Publican; on the southern side—the appearance to Saint Seraphim of the Mother of God with twelve crowned virgins, and the inscription: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, through the prayers of the Mother of God, have mercy on us sinners; and on the eastern side—the blessed repose of the Saint, with the inscription: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. In the arches of the central cupola are icons of the saints with whom Saint Seraphim was in spiritual communion and whose works he loved both to read himself and to use for the edification of others, namely: the three Ecumenical Teachers, Isaac the Syrian, Macarius of Egypt, John Climacus, Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves, Sergius of Radonezh, and others. At the corners of the architrave are 8 icon-painted images of seraphim, and between them and the kokoshniks—icons of Saints Isidore, Agatha, Prokhoros, and those whose feast falls on July 19 and January 2.—Above the column capitals are icons of the saints whose names are borne by the August promoters of the glorification of Saint Seraphim.—The total cost of the reliquary with the canopy is approximately 35,000 rubles. The design belongs to Prince Putyatin; all materials of the reliquary are exclusively Russian.—Around the reliquary in the arches of the canopy runs a row of lamps, and on the eastern platform—large candle stands. There are 36 lamps in all, of which 5 are gifts of the Most August Persons. The lamp of Their Majesties is of round form, golden, and adorned with precious stones from Siberian mountain deposits. The next lamp is a gift of the August children of Their Majesties, then of the Grand Dukes—Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife, Peter Nikolaevich with his wife, and Nicholas Nikolaevich. All five of these lamps were executed after the design of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich, the well-known connoisseur of ancient Christian and Byzantine style.—Before the reliquary of the Saint is spread a carpet-runner, the borders of which are embroidered with ribbons by the work of Her Imperial Majesty herself.

“Against Those Who Deny the Veneration of the Saints. A Sermon by His Eminence Vladimir, Metropolitan of Moscow, on the Day of the 250th Anniversary of the Opening of the Relics of the God-Fearing Prince Daniel, Delivered at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow.” See Faith and Church, 1902, vol. 2, p. 350.

L. Bagrecov, in the article: “The Interrelationship between the Earthly and the Heavenly Church.” Journal Faith and Reason, 1903, no. 14, pp. 73-75.

See N. Maltsev, The Psychology of the Moral Influence of One Person upon Another. Kazan, 1902, pp. 7 ff.

See his Supernatural Revelation and Natural Knowledge of God, p. 387.

See Maltsev, op. cit., pp. 100, 131, 171, 191, and elsewhere.

See Bagrecov, p. 83.

Vol. II, pt. 2, sec. 1, p. 254 and chapter. Cited from the above-mentioned article by Mr. Bagrecov, which we also used in our preceding discussions.

Sermons and Addresses of Metropolitan Filaret, vol. 3, p. 211.

See his Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, 4th ed. St. Petersburg, 1896, p. 236. The prayer in question, according to the order of the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, is read as follows: “We also offer You this rational worship for those who have fallen asleep in the faith: forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics, and every righteous spirit made perfect in faith. Especially for our most holy, most pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary; for the holy prophet, forerunner, and baptizer John; for the holy, glorious, and all-praised apostles; and for all Your saints, through whose supplications, O God, visit us.” Somewhat different in wording, but wholly in accord with this prayer in the spirit of its content, is the prayer after the consecration of the Holy Gifts in the order of the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great.

See the cited work of Fr. Smirnov, pp. 48-44.

In this connection, it is worthy of note that according to the ecclesiastical typikon the aforementioned prayer of the celebrant is recited in secret, and during its recitation the faithful sing the magnification of the Most Holy Mother of God.

The central, so to speak, act of canonization, according to the rite of the Latin Church, consists in the solemn proclamation of the Pope from his throne: “We decree and define that the Blessed N. is a saint and we inscribe him in the catalog of saints” (Beatum N. sanctum esse decernimus et definimus ipsumque sanctorum catalogo adscribimus).

The distinction between Orthodox canonization and Roman Catholic canonization that we have noted above pertains not to the substance of the act, nor to what it produces, but to its form and method: quite apart from the theatricality of the Latin act of canonization, which is foreign to Orthodoxy, it excessively emphasizes the person of the one performing the canonization, which is likewise absent from our own practice, just as this is noticeably true in the administration of the sacraments (among us the priest says: “is baptized,” “receives communion,” while among Roman Catholics: “I baptize,” “I give communion”).

The History of the Canonization of Saints in the Russian Church, by E. Golubinsky. 2nd ed., Moscow, 1903, p. 11.

See History of the Canonization of Saints, by Prof. Golubinsky, p. 29.

Miklosich. Lexicon Palaeoslov. Vindob. 1862-65, p. 382. Sreznevsky, Materials for a Dictionary of the Old Russian Language, vol. II, fasc. 1. St. Petersburg, 1895, p. 183.

See citation on p. 301.

Golubinsky, p. 302.

P. 67.