10. Preparation for Death, the Passing, and the Burial

A year before his death, Father Seraphim felt extreme exhaustion of his spiritual—and still more of his physical—powers. He was now about seventy-two years old. The ordinary order of his life, established since the end of his seclusion, inevitably now began to change. The elder started going to his hermitage cell less often. He also found it burdensome to constantly receive visitors in the monastery. The people, accustomed to the idea of seeing Father Seraphim freely at any time, grieved that he had now begun to withdraw from their sight. Nevertheless, their devotion to him drove many to stay for no small time at the monastery guesthouse, in order to find an opportunity that would not be too burdensome for the aged elder—to see him and hear from his lips the desired word of instruction or comfort.

The elder Father Seraphim, as in former years, continued, though infrequently, to instruct people; through his prayers he granted healings to the sick and foretold future events. To this final year belong the following remarkable incidents from his dealings with those who visited him.

The rassophore monk of the Nizhny Novgorod Caves Monastery, Vasily, recounted the following circumstances of his meeting with the Sarov ascetic:

“In 1825, my father, a serf of Countess Yulia Samoylova from the village of Zyablitskoye Pogost, Muromsky district, Vladimir province, set out with his two young children—myself, six-year-old Vasily, and my brother Kirill—to the Sarov Hermitage to pray and receive the blessing of Father Seraphim. We arrived there on the eve of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy and Life-giving Cross of the Lord, and the following day, after the early Liturgy, we went to Father Seraphim. The God-pleasing elder, as he blessed us, told my father about me that I would not be his provider, and asked him to buy me a copy of the Gospel; and about my brother he said that he would live with his parents and help them. From that time on, my father and mother often reminded me of this prophecy.”

At the age of fourteen I wished to verify for myself the words of the clairvoyant elder, and with this purpose I asked my parents’ permission to visit Father Seraphim at the Sarov Hermitage—this was in 1832. When I came to the elder and wanted to ask him about my future life, he himself, anticipating my words, said to me: “My joy, you should enter a monastery.” When I replied that I was a lord’s man—a serf—he said: “Go; the Mother of God will help you, and the countess, your mistress, through the intercession of great people, will set you free.”

With this consoling prophecy and with Father Seraphim’s blessing, I set off for home.

Having reached the age of seventeen, I finally obtained my parents’ consent to enter monastic life, and while still a serf I entered the Sarov Hermitage. After two years, the Sarov abbot, Father Nifont, blessed me—having found me, through probation, capable of monastic obediences—to seek release from serfdom. This prompted me to travel to St. Petersburg, and there Divine Providence directed me to turn with my petition for obtaining the desired release to the superior of the Sergiyevskaya Hermitage, Father Archimandrite Ignaty. The kind superior immediately agreed to my request and soon did indeed secure that release for me. Upon presenting it to Father Nifont, I was admitted to the Sarov Hermitage as a novice, and from there transferred to the Nizhny Novgorod Pechersky Monastery. Thus was the prophecy of Father Seraphim fulfilled to the letter.

The noblewomen sisters, the maidens Ekaterina and Anna Vasilyevna Ladyzhensky, who were among the sisters of the Diveyevo community, related the following:

“In 1832, our own brother, O. V-ch Ladyzhensky, who later became chairman of the military commission in Orenburg, was sent to China to escort a spiritual mission. Since the road passed through Nizhny Novgorod, where we had our own grandmother—a reverend mother at the Krestovozdvizhensky Maiden’s Monastery—and wishing both to visit our venerable grandmother, respected by all who knew her and even by Father Seraphim himself, and also to see us, his sisters, who were then still living in Penza as laywomen, our brother summoned us to Nizhny Novgorod.”

He arrived there during Holy Week of Great Lent, right in the spring thaw season, and was obliged to wait there for better road conditions, all the more so because the bad roads had made him ill. During the last Turkish campaign he had been wounded in the left arm, and now the pain in the arm had returned, forcing him to take treatment and baths.

We four sisters, having the happiness of knowing Father Seraphim and cherishing a fervent faith in the prayers of the venerable Father Seraphim, took advantage of our brother’s involuntary delay and began urging him to make the journey with us to the Sarov Hermitage, so that he might be privileged to see and receive Father Seraphim’s blessing for such a long and dangerous journey.

After much effort he finally yielded to our request—not out of faith in the holiness of Father Seraphim’s life and his clairvoyance, for though he respected him he was far from sharing our feelings toward him, but solely to set our minds at rest, out of love for us, since we kept telling him ceaselessly that we would only be at peace about him once he had visited with reverence the elder whom we so deeply venerated.

On the eve of our departure we had a lengthy conversation and argument with our brother about holy icons. We called many icons miracle-working, while our brother challenged us, saying that to distinguish icons and to call some of them miracle-working was a matter of superstition, and that all icons were the same.

We set out for Sarov with the intention of spending a Sunday or some other feast day there; we wanted our brother to see Father Seraphim for the first time in church, when he would be receiving Holy Communion.

Upon arrival, we all went to the early Liturgy, at which Father Seraphim customarily received Communion; and when it ended, our brother went into the altar to receive Father Seraphim’s blessing there and to convey to him a few words from our grandmother the abbess, and from His Eminence Athanasius, who then governed the Nizhny Novgorod diocese and was later transferred to Tobolsk, where he died; while we returned to the guest cell we were occupying.

Our brother returned soon after, and we noticed a great change in him. His first words were a declaration that Father Seraphim had worked a miracle upon him. He told us: “While I was conveying to Father Seraphim what our grandmother and His Eminence had asked me to pass along, he took me by my ailing arm and squeezed it so firmly that only shame kept me from crying out; but now I feel absolutely no pain in the arm whatsoever.”

After the meal we all went into the forest to Father Seraphim’s hermitage; catching sight of him in the distance, sitting by his spring, we suggested that our brother go to him alone, while we remained at a distance to watch them. Our brother went, and was received by Father Seraphim, apparently with great kindness, for he blessed him and, seating him beside himself, conversed with him for about half an hour. At last Father Seraphim lifted his head and beckoned us with his hand to approach. By the time we drew near, he had already risen from his place, and we found him with a spade in his hands, digging in his garden beds. He was wearing a white smock and had a rag tied around his head; his shoulders were covered with a piece of leather. We received his blessing, and when our brother approached him as well, he said to him: “Wait, dear friend—I will come out to you in a moment.” With those words he went into his hermitage cell and immediately brought out half a prosphora, and handing it to our brother said to him with affection: “Take this—from my very soul.” Then he added, as if with sadness: “You and I will not see each other again.” Moved, our brother replied: “No, dear Father, I will come to you again tomorrow; give me your blessing.” But Father Seraphim repeated: “You and I will not see each other again.” Our brother objected once more: “Dear Father, I will stop in to see you on my way back as well”; but Father Seraphim said for the third time: “No, you and I will not see each other again.”

After taking leave of Father Seraphim we set off for the monastery; the sisters walked ahead, while I—sinful Ekaterina—walked a little behind them with our brother. Noticing the great change in him, I asked him simply what had caused it, and he answered me thus: “Now I am completely convinced of the holiness and clairvoyance of this wondrous man. Everything you have said about him is true, and you have not exaggerated anything at all.” Before this he had usually spoken of him in these terms: “I believe he leads a good life, but you all exaggerate everything far too much.”

I asked our brother to tell me everything in greater detail, and he related the following: “When I went to him for his blessing and explained that I was traveling to China, and had made a special stop at Sarov on that account, to receive his blessing and ask for his holy prayers for such a distant journey, Father Seraphim blessed me and, seating me beside him, said: ‘What is my sinful blessing worth, dear friend? Ask the help of the Queen of Heaven; here in our warm cathedral we have the icon of the Life-giving Spring—have a moleben served before it; it is miracle-working, it will help you!’ And then he continued with a smile: ‘Have you read, dear friend, the life of Ioannikios the Great? I recommend you read it. He was a military man, very good and kind, and in the beginning it was not that he was not a Christian; he believed in the Lord, but he erred regarding icons in just the same way as you.’ And with those words he pointed at me with his hand. I was greatly struck by those words.”

“Father Seraphim then continued to converse with me kindly and to give me instructions, especially that I myself should be merciful if I wished God to be merciful toward me. In conclusion he prophesied that I would fulfill the commission laid upon me and would return safely.”

From the hermitage we went straight to the warm cathedral, because our brother, inflamed with faith and love for Father Seraphim, wished to fulfill his counsel at once and have a moleben served to the Queen of Heaven. After the moleben he borrowed from the hieromonk Anastasy, whom we knew, the Chetyi-Minei, found there the life of Ioannikios the Great, and discovered that Ioannikios was indeed a military man, good and compassionate; that he had believed in the Lord but had erred regarding icons; and finally that he had found a reclusive elder similar to Father Seraphim, who had led him out of his error. Thus our brother departed from Sarov with full faith and love for Father Seraphim. He discarded all his medicines, for he had no further need of them: he felt himself healed both in soul and body, and wrote to us from the road that he had never felt himself so well.

Having fulfilled his commission exactly, by the grace of God and through the prayers of the righteous man, the commission given him by the August Monarch, he returned to his homeland and wished on his way back to visit Father Seraphim once more; but we informed him that the wondrous servant of God was no more. And thus was fulfilled the prophecy he had spoken to our brother at their parting: “You and I will not see each other again.”

We think it not superfluous to include here one further circumstance that occurred with our brother and which demonstrates the gracious gift of clairvoyance in Father Seraphim.

On departing from Sarov, our brother had entrusted the aforementioned Hieromonk Anastasy with the task of delivering to Father Seraphim from him, as a token of his devotion, some small gift of no great value. Father Seraphim, upon receiving it, was pleased to say of our brother that “he will be here again, but not alone; I,” said he, “have told him not to abandon his wife.” Father Anastasy conveyed this news to me—says Ekaterina Vasilyevna—when I arrived at Sarov several months after our brother’s departure; and I had no doubt whatever of the truth of the righteous man’s words, although our brother had said nothing to us about any intention to marry. On returning home I wrote to our brother about what I had heard, and he replied to us thus: “The wondrous Seraphim has not erred in this matter either: he penetrated the secret of my soul; I have chosen someone after my own heart and have firmly resolved to marry the one I have chosen.”

Ekaterina Vasilyevna recounts one further incident concerning Father Seraphim. “On one of our visits to the Sarov Hermitage, my sister donated her diamond earrings toward an icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God; and to conceal this act, she handed them, in my presence, to the hieromonk Damaskinos whom we knew, with a request to pass them on to the superior and to say nothing to anyone. This took place at the porch of Father Seraphim’s cell. We had barely followed him into the elder’s entrance hall when he greeted my sister, who had made the donation, with the most joyful expression and with these words: ‘The Mother of God will reward you for your sacrifice, both here and in the life to come.’ We had been left after our parents’ deaths entirely orphaned in every respect, and took comfort above all in the fact that the elder, among his other saving counsels, always told us ‘he would comfort us, that he would pray for us.’ And indeed we now consider ourselves fully comforted, for the Lord God and the Queen of Heaven, through the prayers of Father Seraphim, deemed us worthy—two sisters, Ekaterina and Anna—to enter among the sisters of the Diveyevo community and to offer at least the smallest mite of our devotion in the service of this holy monastery.”

Particularly remarkable in its content is the conversation of Elder Seraphim with Mr. Bogdanov. On Christmas Day 1832, he was privileged to see Father Seraphim at the Sarov Hermitage. “I,” said Mr. Bogdanov, “came to the infirmary church for the early Liturgy before the service had begun, and saw Father Seraphim sitting on the floor at the right choir. I went to him at once for his blessing, and he, having blessed me, quickly withdrew into the altar, answering my request to converse with him: ‘Later, later.’ After the Liturgy ended, when I again approached him, he greeted me with the words: ‘Through the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God, all will be well!’ I then ventured to ask him to set a time for me to hear saving counsel from him. To this the elder replied: ‘Two feast days. No time need be appointed. The holy Apostle James, the brother of the Lord, teaches us: If the Lord wills and we live, we will do this or that.’ I brought my daughter Vera to him, and he, blessing us both, gave us each some dried bread.”

“At last, having prepared in advance the questions I wished to put to the elder, I went to him in his cell. He met me in the entrance hall, received the candles and oil that I had brought on others’ behalf, and gave his blessing to converse with him.”

“I asked him: should I continue my service, or live in the country? Father Seraphim answered: ‘You are still young—serve.’ ‘But my service is not going well,’ I objected. ‘That is a matter of your own will,’ the elder replied. ‘Do good; the Lord’s way is the same everywhere! The enemy will be with you everywhere. Whoever receives Communion will be saved anywhere; but whoever does not receive Communion—I cannot say. Where the master is, there the servant will be. Humble yourself; keep the peace; be angry at no one for any reason.’”

“I asked further: will my matter come to a good end? The elder answered: ‘One must divide amicably with one’s relatives when there is something to divide. Two brothers had two lakes; one found everything multiplying, the other did not. That one wanted to seize by force what was not his. One man’s field needs twelve fathoms, another’s more. Do not covet.’”

“Then I asked: should one teach children languages and other sciences? And he answered: ‘What harm is there in knowing something?’ I, sinful man, then thought to myself—reasoning in worldly fashion—that he himself would need to be learned to answer this; and at once I heard from the clairvoyant elder a reproof: ‘How should I, a mere child, answer this against your wisdom? Ask someone wiser.’”

“In the evening, when I came to him, his first words were: ‘It is better to leave off conversation. For every idle word we shall give account to God.’ But I entreated him to continue the saving conversation and put to him the following question: is concealing deeds undertaken in the name of the Lord—when one knows one will receive mockery sooner than praise for them—anything like Peter’s denial; and what is one to do when faced with contradiction? To this the elder answered me thus: ‘The holy Apostle Paul in his epistle to Timothy says: drink wine instead of water; and immediately afterward: do not be drunk with wine. For this one needs discernment. Do not trumpet it abroad; but where it is necessary, do not stay silent.’”

“I asked further: what does he bid me read? And received the answer: ‘The Gospel—four lessons each day, one lesson from each Evangelist—and also the life of Job. Though his wife said to him: better to die; yet he endured everything and was saved. And do not forget to send gifts to those who have wronged you.’”

“To my questions about whether one ought to seek medical treatment in illness, and how to conduct one’s life in general, he answered: ‘Illness cleanses sins. Yet still it is your choice. Walk the middle path; do not take on more than your strength can bear—you will fall, and the enemy will mock you; if you are young, restrain yourself. Once the devil urged a righteous man to leap into a pit; the man was about to agree, but Gregory the Theologian held him back. Here is what to do: if you are reviled—do not revile in return; if you are persecuted—endure; if you are slandered—give praise; judge yourself, and God will not judge you; submit your will to the will of the Lord; never flatter; recognize in yourself both good and evil: blessed is the man who knows this; love your neighbor—your neighbor is your own flesh. If you live according to the flesh, you will destroy both soul and flesh; but if you live according to God, you will save both. These feats are greater than walking to Kiev, or even farther, wherever God may call one.’”

“The last words of Father Seraphim referred to my desire to set out on a pilgrimage to Kiev and beyond, if he would give his blessing. I had not yet disclosed this desire to him, however, and Father Seraphim knew of it solely through the gift of clairvoyance, which he possessed by the grace of God.”

“After that I asked the elder: is a man obligated, for the maintenance of his station, to involve himself in expenditures that exceed his means and are not considered a necessity among people? He answered: ‘Each as he is able; but better to be content with what God has sent. Bread and water are sufficient for a man. So it was before the flood.’”

“I also asked: should pleasing other people extend even to those cases that are not in accordance with God’s will—for example, spending time in idleness, and the like? To this Father Seraphim replied: ‘For this kind of love many have perished: if anyone does not do good, he sins. One must love everyone, but above all God.’”

“I asked him to pray for me; he answered: ‘I pray for everyone every day. Establish peace of soul so as to grieve no one and to be grieved by no one: then God will grant tears of repentance’—and he confirmed once more: ‘If you are reviled—do not revile in return,’ and so on…”

“To my question: how to preserve the morality of the people subject to me, and whether lawful punishments—seemingly justified—are displeasing to God? He answered: ‘By acts of mercy, by easing their labors, and not by blows. Give them drink, give them food, be just. The Lord is patient; God knows, perhaps he will be patient even longer still. Do thus: if God forgives, you too should forgive. Preserve peace of soul, so that in your household there is no quarreling over anything—then all will be well. Isaac, Abraham’s son, did not grow angry when his wells were filled in, and he withdrew; yet afterward they came to seek him out themselves, when the Lord God blessed him with a hundredfold yield of barley.’”

“I also asked Father Seraphim about the danger of present-day counselors and whether one can trust the teaching of others. He answered: ‘That is not for you who are not yet renewed’—and he smiled—‘One guardian angel, given to us at the holy font, is enough. If someone has wrath in him—do not listen to him; if someone preserves virginity—the Spirit of God accepts such people. Yet have your own discernment as well, and read the Gospel.’”

“I asked Father Seraphim to explain a dream to me: I had seen someone who commanded me to build a church. Father Seraphim said to me: ‘This is your own desire, and if God has chosen you for this and need demands it, then—with God! In your patience possess your souls, and you will be like God; otherwise I do not think that anyone can be saved.’”

“I asked the elder: is it necessary to pray to God for deliverance from dangerous situations? The elder answered: ‘In the Gospel it is said: When you pray, do not use vain repetitions, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: Our Father, and so on—therein is the grace of the Lord; and whatever the holy Church has received and embraced, all of it must be dear to the heart of a Christian. Do not forget the feast days: be temperate, go to church, except in times of illness; pray for everyone—by this you will do much good; bring candles, wine, and oil to the church: almsgiving will bring you much good.’”

“When I asked about fasting and marriage, the elder said: ‘The Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit; only one must not desire anything vain, for all that is of God is good: virginity is glorious, and fasting is needful for overcoming the enemies of body and soul. And marriage is blessed by God: and God blessed them, saying: be fruitful and multiply—only the enemy troubles everything.’”

“To my question about a spirit of mistrust and thoughts of blasphemy, he answered: ‘An unbeliever cannot be convinced by anything. This comes from within oneself. Buy a Psalter—everything is there; it costs three rubles.’”

I asked him whether it is permissible to eat meat during the fasts if someone is harmed by fasting foods and doctors order meat to be eaten. The elder answered: “Bread and water harm no one. How is it that people lived for a hundred years? ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ And what the Church has established in the seven Ecumenical Councils—fulfill it. Woe to the one who adds a single word to this, or takes one away. What do doctors say about the righteous, who healed festering wounds with a mere touch, and about the staff of Moses, with which God brought forth water from a rock? ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?’ The Lord calls to us: ‘Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; for My yoke is easy and My burden is light’—yet we ourselves do not want it.”

I asked him how to destroy pride and acquire humility. He answered: “By silence. God said to Isaiah: ‘On whom shall I look, but on the meek and silent one who trembles at My word.’” Regarding spiritual pride he added: “Ask God that He lengthen your years. This cannot be done without effort. Through silence, however, great sins are overcome.”

Throughout our entire conversation, Father Seraphim was extraordinarily cheerful. He stood leaning on the oak coffin he had prepared for himself, holding a lit wax candle in his hands. When beginning his replies he often greeted me with the words: “Your God-loving soul!” Concerning my daughter he said: “Her path will be a difficult one—she will marry a husband who will have no knowledge of God at all.”

On taking leave of me, he thanked me for visiting his humble dwelling, as he himself put it. In giving his blessing, he even wanted to kiss my hand, bowed to me all the way to the ground, and, bestowing dried bread crusts upon me, told me to share them with those in my charge. Finally, as he saw me off, he said: “Go with God! These crusts are fresh—just out of the oven.”

To give greater glory to the wondrous gift of clairvoyance in the grace-filled elder Father Seraphim, it must be explained that I had no opportunity to question him in such detail or to remember all of his answers. Moreover, he spoke exceedingly rapidly. For this reason I had written all my questions down on paper beforehand as a reminder. I had barely managed to read them aloud before the elder when I immediately received his answers to them.

Through his gift of clairvoyance, Father Seraphim greatly contributed to the happiness and well-being of the family lives of those around him.

An officer who had come from out of town arrived at the hermitage to receive a blessing before entering into marriage. Father Seraphim told him that his intended bride was here, in Sarov, at the inn. A short time later, a young woman came to Father Seraphim and likewise confided to him her desire to marry and her prospects concerning this matter in the future. The elder said: “No! Your bridegroom is here, in Sarov.” The two visitors had never known each other and had never met. A simple circumstance directed by Providence brought them together; the young people became acquainted, decided their fate with the involvement of their families, came together to Father Seraphim, and the elder blessed them for their wedding. Having entered into marriage, these two lived very happily.

This was no simple coincidence, but the work of God accomplished through the elder. The works of God are always wrought with remarkable simplicity—that is their distinctive mark. Disregard of the elder’s counsel in such cases was followed by the precise fulfillment of the consequences he had foretold. Thus, a landowner from Ryazan, while visiting Sarov, asked Father Seraphim’s prayers and blessing before entering into marriage. The elder pointed him toward his God-appointed bride—a young woman living on a neighboring estate near the petitioner’s own—and called her by name. The young man refused to follow his counsel, saying that he already had a fiancee living in the town where his regiment was stationed. Father Seraphim said: “She will not be a joy to you, but a grief and tears.” The young man nonetheless married according to his own will—but his wife did not survive even a year and died, and there were “grief and tears” for the husband. The widower visited Father Seraphim again, and following his renewed counsel, took the one the elder had designated from the beginning. After their marriage they lived happily.

Family members who were living apart from one another, Father Seraphim would reunite, fulfilling the Scripture: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” The husband and wife of the T—family, from Penza Province and from Taganrog, had quarreled and parted ways, even separating their children. The husband was living in Penza and the wife in Taganrog. Fortunately for both, Mr. T—was at Sarov. Father Seraphim had no sooner laid eyes on him than he began to rebuke him and warn him sternly, saying: “Why are you not living with your wife? Go to her, go!” The elder’s words brought the erring man to his senses. He set out from Sarov to Taganrog, took his wife back, traveled with her on pilgrimage to Kiev, and from that time on they lived together in their village near Taganrog, in peace and according to the law of God. “I have seen,” writes the God-loving Maria to the recluse George, “their letters written after news of the elder’s death: they are full of grief that their father and benefactor has died.”

A mother was greatly distressed over her son, whom she had completely lost track of. With a torn heart she fell at Father Seraphim’s feet and begged his prayers on behalf of one she considered lost. The elder replied to the mother that she should stay at the Sarov inn and wait for her son. She waited—one day, then two, then three—and finally, at a loss over Father Seraphim’s answer, came to him to receive his blessing with the intention of setting off for home. But what happened? At the very moment she went to the elder’s cell, her son was there receiving his blessing. Father Seraphim took the son by the hand, led him to his mother, and congratulated her on her son’s return to her.

Besides making predictions for others, the elder began to foretell his own death as well.

Thus, a sister of the Diveyevo community, Paraskeva Ivanovna, came to him once with other fellow sisters. The elder began speaking to them: “My strength is failing; live now on your own—I am leaving you.” The sorrowful talk of parting moved the listeners to tears, and they parted from the elder with those words. Yet they did not think, in light of this conversation, of his death—rather they thought that Father Seraphim, on account of his advanced years, wished to lay aside care for them and withdraw into seclusion.

On another occasion the elder was visited by Paraskeva Ivanovna alone. He was in the forest, at the near hermitage. Having given her his blessing, Father Seraphim sat down on a tree stump, while the sister knelt beside him. Father Seraphim entered into spiritual conversation and fell into an extraordinary rapture: he rose to his feet, lifted his hands on high, and turned his gaze toward heaven. A grace-filled light illumined his soul at the contemplation of the blessedness of the life to come. For the elder was speaking at this time especially about what eternal joy awaits a person in heaven in exchange for the brief sorrows of this temporal life. “What joy! What rapture!” he said, “take hold of a righteous person’s soul when, after its separation from the body, it is met by the Angels and presented before the face of God!” Unfolding this thought, the elder several times asked the sister whether she understood him. The sister listened without saying a word. She understood the elder’s discourse, but did not see that his words were tending toward his own departure. Then Father Seraphim began again to say what he had said before: “My strength is failing; live now on your own—I am leaving you.” The sister thought he wished again to withdraw into seclusion; but Father Seraphim, responding to her thought, said: “I sought a mother for you—a superior—I sought… and could not find one. After me, no one will replace me to you. I am leaving you to the Lord and to His Most Pure Mother.” Yet the sister still did not understand that the elder was speaking of his own falling asleep, and thought to herself that even though Father Seraphim was commending them to the Lord and the Mother of God, the community could hardly remain without a human spiritual guide to salvation as well. The elder replied: “A human guide, dear mother, you will not find even by searching with a candle in daylight. I am leaving you to the Lord and to His Most Pure Mother.” Here he expressed himself more directly about his death. Then the sister, falling at the elder’s feet, burst into such bitter weeping that she could neither speak herself nor hear his words. Father Seraphim began to recite from memory the Gospel of Matthew, lesson 11: “You are the light of the world,” and when he finished, he turned to the Gospel of John, reading chapter 14: “Let not your heart be troubled,” then chapter 15, and concluded with lesson 55 of chapter 16 with the words: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Here Father Seraphim paused and said: “Why, dear mother, do you keep weeping? In time you too will have a righteous mother over you!”

When other sisters of the Diveyevo community visited Father Seraphim in his cell shortly before his death, he would customarily point to the icon of the Mother of God “Tenderness” and say to them repeatedly by way of consolation: “I entrust and leave you to the care of this Queen of Heaven.” This is recounted to this day by the elder nuns of the Diveyevo community who were contemporaries of Father Seraphim.

Five months before his death, Father Seraphim was visited by Platonida, a nun of the Simbirsk Monastery of the Not-Made-by-Hands Savior. She was on her way to Arzamas to consult a well-known physician of that time about rheumatic pains in the head, face, and ear on one side of her body, but stopped first at Sarov to receive Father Seraphim’s blessing for the medical treatment. She spent five days in Sarov, and though she came to the elder’s cell four times each day, she was unable to see him. For the reasons explained above, the elder was receiving visitors less frequently. At last she was received by him at the hermitage, privately. Bowing to Father Seraphim at his feet, she asked his blessing to undergo treatment. The elder replied to her words: “No, do not seek treatment,” and, pointing his hand toward heaven, added: “It is He”—meaning God—“who will heal you.” He then told her to wash at the spring. She had not washed for the entire duration of her illness—about three years—reasonably fearing that contact with water might bring on a severe chill. But trusting in the words of the righteous elder, she washed without any hesitation, and from this she felt not only no relief but, on the contrary, the most dreadful pain. The elder then told her to drink some of this water, after which she suffered the most torturous pains in her face and teeth. Finally the elder, placing his right hand on her aching cheek, said: “Before the Dormition, God will give you peace; go in peace!” Platonida immediately felt the pain beginning to subside; it passed entirely and never returned. At her departure, as he blessed her with the cross he wore on his chest, Father Seraphim said: “Do not be distressed that you did not see me for so long—I was performing a memorial service for a nun who had died.” Platonida in turn asked whether she could hope to see him again someday. The elder, pointing his hand toward heaven, said: “There we shall see each other—there it is better, better, better.” And rightly so—she never saw him again.

In this same year Father Seraphim was visited by the blessed elder Timon, who had been living, as is known, in the Nadeyevsky Hermitage and had not seen his spiritual mentor and teacher for more than twenty years. In the spring he came on foot to the Sarov Hermitage and, making his way to Father Seraphim’s cell, awaited the sweet moment of seeing him. But Father Seraphim would not admit him. On this occasion he was receiving everyone; men and women entered to him without hindrance—only to Timon was entry barred, and he stood fruitlessly at the cell until evening itself. At last he too was permitted to enter the cell. “But I,” recounted elder Timon, “upon entering fell at his feet and wept greatly from joy, that after so many years I had been deemed worthy to see him still among the living, and I said to him: ‘Holy Father! Why have you been angered with me, a sinner, and kept me from you the whole day?’ He seated me and began to speak: ‘No, it is not so, Father Timon! I love you; but I did this because you are a monk, and moreover a hermit—and therefore you must have patience. Moreover, I was testing you, to see what you had learned from living so many years in the desert: had you come out of it empty? The other people are worldly folk, and sick besides—they must first be tended to and sent on their way, for as the Lord said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; with you, one must have more conversation at a free moment.’ And so we spent the entire night in conversation.”

Among other things, Father Seraphim gave Timon the following instruction: “Sow, Father Timon, sow—sow everywhere the wheat given to you. Sow on good soil, sow on sand, sow on rock, sow by the roadside, sow among thorns—somewhere it will all sprout and grow and bear fruit, if not quickly, then in time. And do not hide in the ground the talent given to you, lest you be called to account by your master; rather, give it to the merchants—let them trade with it. I will tell you one more thing, Father Timon: do not make friends with or enter into alliance with—first, the enemies of Christ’s Church, that is, heretics and schismatics; second, those who do not observe the holy fasts; and third, women, for they greatly harm us monks. And in your newly established community”—meaning the Nadeyevsky one—“establish and confirm the rule of strict communal life according to the rules and regulations of the holy Fathers, so that no one acts by his own will; permit no wine or tobacco to anyone; and restrain people as much as possible even from tea—gluttony is not a monastic pursuit.” “Having thus instructed me,” says elder Timon, “Father Seraphim blessed me for the journey. And I returned again to my hermitage and live in it, giving thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ and to His Most Pure Mother, the Sovereign Lady, the Theotokos and Virgin Mary” (Parfenius’s “Journey,” Part 1, pp. 196–197).

In this same year Father Seraphim had to endure a grievance, in which he saw a sign of his approaching departure from this present life. A runaway girl, seeking to conceal her vagrancy more effectively, had cut her hair in a round crop, put on novice’s clothing, and thus wandered about the world. The police authorities, having been forewarned of her escape, searched for her and at last found her. Under questioning she declared that Father Seraphim had supposedly blessed her to dress in that manner. But Father Seraphim had never given such a blessing, and through his gift of clairvoyance he could certainly not have blessed her to conceal, perhaps, her own misdeeds. The civil authorities, following their own procedures, wrote to Father Hegumen Nifont to investigate this matter as well. It turned out that the runaway had falsely accused the innocent elder of God, hoping that out of deference to Father Seraphim’s supposed directive she would be pardoned for hiding under a novice’s clothing. The circumstance nonetheless grieved the elder, and he did not leave his cell for a full day on this occasion, spending the time in prayer. Other valiant ascetics of Sarov—for example, Father Hilarion and Nikodim—grieved bitterly over the distress that Father Seraphim experienced in this matter.

In this same year the elder had to endure other griefs as well—all of them undeserved and unjust. And regarding all of them he once said the following words: “All these circumstances signify that I will not be living here much longer—that the end of my life is near.”

Sensing his approaching end and discerning in circumstances themselves its nearness, Father Seraphim was at this time preparing himself for departure. He now went out to the hermitage less often and received fewer visitors in his cell as well, so as to occupy himself without hindrance in his final preparation for eternity. During this time he was often seen in the vestibule: the elder would sit on his coffin and give himself over to reflection on the end of life, on the fate of the human soul beyond the grave, and on his own. These reflections were often accompanied by bitter weeping, and they began and ended with prolonged prayers.

Six months before his death, Father Seraphim, as he took leave of many people, said with finality: “We shall not see each other again.” Some asked his blessing to come to Sarov during Great Lent to make their confession and once more enjoy the sight of him and conversation with him. “By then my doors will be closed,” the elder replied; “you will not see me.” It became very evident that Father Seraphim’s life was fading away—only his spirit, as before and even more so, remained alert: “My life is being shortened,” he said to some of the brothers, “in spirit I am as though just now born, but in body I am utterly dead.”

Four months before his death—namely in August of 1832—His Grace Arseny, Bishop of Tambov, was making his first visitation of the diocese and visited the Sarov Hermitage as well. Elder Seraphim, despite being at the hermitage at the time, considered it his duty to come to the monastery solely in order to greet his new archpastor together with the brothers. When the reception was over, he returned to the hermitage. His Grace Arseny, having attentively and thoroughly examined all the churches, the brothers’ cells, and the agricultural outbuildings within the monastery, wished to see all the establishments and structures belonging to the monastery that lay outside its walls. Accompanied by the Sarov treasurer, Hieromonk Isaiah, and the key-bearer of the Tambov Cathedral, Nikifor Telyatinsky, he visited the Seraphim and Dorofei hermitage cells. Father Seraphim was occupied with laying stones along the bank of a small stream that flowed past his hermitage cell. But as soon as he saw the archpastor approaching his dwelling, he immediately left his work and, prostrating himself at the bishop’s feet, asked for and received his blessing.

“What is it that you are doing?” the gracious and attentive His Grace Arseny asked him.

“Why, holy master,” the elder replied, “I am laying stones along the bank so that the water does not wash away the bank and damage it.”

“A fine work, elder of God,” said the bishop. “Now, do show me your little hermitage cell in the midst of the wilderness.”

“Very well, father,” he replied, and with warm hospitality led the bishop into the cell.

According to the description of those present on this occasion, the cell contained nothing out of the ordinary—it was a simple wooden cabin with a small entry vestibule. Its furnishings consisted entirely of a plain linden-wood unpainted table and two matching chairs. In the front corner stood holy icons with a lamp burning before them. There were also two liturgical books. Upon entering the cell, Father Seraphim offered the bishop as gifts: a prayer rope, a bundle of wax candles wrapped in linen, a bottle of vegetable oil, and woolen stockings. The bishop accepted the gifts with fatherly warmth. He then asked Father Seraphim:

“And where is that other little place of yours in this hermitage—that even more secluded spot?”

Knowing from accounts where this place was located and without waiting for Father Seraphim’s answer, he himself walked in the direction of the stove. Father Seraphim, stopping him, said with simple candor:

“Do not go there, father—you will soil yourself.”

But the bishop, opening the door that closed off the empty space between the cell wall and the stove, saw there a small enclosure so cramped that barely one person could enter and remain there in a standing or kneeling position, but to sit or lean was quite impossible. And here, as in the main cell—in the corner between the wall and the door frame—stood a small icon with a burning lamp before it. Evidently the elder would withdraw there at times for vigil and prayer. From here the bishop set out to the Dorofei hermitage cell, intending on his return journey to stop by Father Seraphim’s again. The elder remained with the key-bearer Father Nikifor Telyatinsky, awaiting him there and passing the time in conversation. In the course of their talk, pointing toward the bishop, he said to the key-bearer:

“Many, many labors will fall to him—but God will help him.”

When the bishop returned, Father Seraphim took him by the hand and reverently addressed him with a question:

“You see, father, pilgrims come to me, humble Seraphim, and ask me to give them something by way of blessing; and I give them dried bread crusts of black or white bread and a spoonful of red church wine—is it permissible for me to do this?”

To this the bishop replied:

“It is permissible, permissible—but only separately, so that to whoever you give the crusts, you do not also give the red wine. For simple folk, as I have heard, in their simplicity think, and spread it among others, that you are giving them Holy Communion. And better yet,” the bishop added further, “do not give wine at all—give only the dried crusts.”

“Very well, father,” the elder replied to this. “That is how I will proceed.”

Afterward it was observed that Father Seraphim did indeed proceed in this way until the end of his life.

After this conversation the bishop took leave of Father Seraphim. On the blessed elder’s part, this parting took place in a rather extraordinary manner. Having received the bishop’s final blessing, he bowed to the ground; and although the bishop helped him up and asked him to rise to his feet, elder Seraphim, remaining on his knees, continued to bow to him until the bishop had completely disappeared from view.

The following night Father Seraphim, as if to demonstrate his obedience, himself brought a small vessel of church wine to the cell where His Grace Arseny had stayed, and giving the offering to the bishop’s cell-attendant, said:

“Give this to the father from sinful Seraphim.”

Upon comparing these circumstances with the events that followed, it became clear that all of this had been a foretelling of Elder Seraphim’s approaching end, and referred to his request for commemoration, which he had also conveyed to the bishop in words. Bishop Arseny, for his part, fulfilled Father Seraphim’s wish exactly: from his gifts—the candles, oil, and wine, which had been kept intact—were used at the bishop’s celebration of a requiem liturgy for the eternal repose of the blessed elder Seraphim. The prayer beads, stockings, and linen cloth the bishop kept for himself. The Sarov Hermitage preserves a letter from Bishop Arseny in which, twenty-three years later, he describes his visit to the elder in detail. Here is what he writes in that letter:

“In all conscience, the peaceable relations between Father Abbot Nifont and Father Seraphim cast not the slightest shadow on the life and character of either man; on the contrary, in the former they show how highly he understood and faithfully fulfilled the duties of superior of a desert monastery, and how dearly he valued and strictly upheld the purity of monastic life; while in the latter they reveal an evangelical simplicity and guilelessness, by virtue of which he could never have suspected that his ostensible or genuine disciples—male and female—sometimes abused his name to advance their own vain designs, not yet purged of vanity or willfulness. It would also be fitting to mention in Father Seraphim’s biography his first meeting with me: it was full of deep significance, and beyond any doubt reveals in him the gift of clairvoyance. His words and actions during my visit—accompanied by you (Father Isaiah accompanied him then in the capacity of Treasurer)—to his forest cell; his subsequent gifts to me of lamp oil, red wine, several candles, a piece of linen, and woolen stockings; and finally his repeated prostrations of farewell before me, which I could not stop despite many entreaties and from which I was compelled to depart hastily with you so as not to tire the elder further as he continued kneeling and bowing—all of this proved, as events later showed, to be expressive symbols depicting his fate and mine: he died shortly thereafter, while I, with God’s help, continue still to lay stone upon stone to guard the Church’s shore against the press of worldly waters.”

In that same year, on the thirteenth of September, three and a half months before Father Seraphim’s death, Ekaterina Yegorovna Izvolskaya came to him with her four-year-old daughter Anna, whose eyes were so inflamed that those close to her feared the child might go completely blind during the journey. The mother brought her to Father Seraphim. He placed in her hands a bottle of water and instructed her to sprinkle it on her daughter’s eyes, saying that “by the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God of the Life-Giving Spring she will be healed.” And indeed, by morning the child rose with healthy eyes. Father Seraphim instructed them to remain in Sarov, to attend the early and late liturgies on the fourteenth, and to have dinner there. But since she did not fulfill the last instruction and departed immediately after the late liturgy, she was punished for her disobedience by wandering lost on the road the entire day.

After these events, still several months before his death, Father Seraphim had letters sent to certain persons, summoning them to him at the monastery; and to those close friends who could not come to him, he entrusted messages to be delivered after his death—things needful and beneficial to their souls—adding by way of explanation: “They themselves will not see me.”

One of the brothers of the Sarov Hermitage came to him; the elder, having given him instruction, said: “Blow out the candle.” The brother blew—the candle went out. The elder said: “That is just how they will not see me.” To his cell attendant, Father Pavel, the elder also said that the end was near; but Pavel, in his simplicity, could not make out whether the elder was speaking of his own death or of the end of the age. Before the new year of 1833, Father Seraphim himself measured out his grave beside the altar of the Dormition Cathedral, at the very spot he had marked after coming out of his reclusion by placing a stone upon it.

Shortly before Father Seraphim’s death, one brother, seeing his truly ascetic life and wishing to edify himself, asked him: “Why, Father, do we not have such a strict life as the ancient ascetics of piety led?” — “Because,” answered the elder, “we have no resolve for it. If we had resolve, we would live as the fathers of old who shone forth in ascetic labors and piety; for the grace and help of God toward the faithful and those who seek the Lord with their whole heart is now the same as it was before: for, according to the word of God, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb. 13:8). This deep and holy truth, which Father Seraphim had come to know through the experience of his own life, was, so to speak, the final word of his lips and the seal of his labors.”

A week before his death, on the feast of the Nativity of Christ in 1832, Father Seraphim came, as was his custom, to the liturgy celebrated by Father Abbot Nifont. He received the Holy Gifts and after the liturgy conversed with the abbot. Among other things, he asked the abbot on behalf of many, especially the younger brothers; he did not fail to mention—and for this occasion for the last time—that when he died he should be placed in his coffin. Having taken leave of the abbot and the brothers, the elder returned to his cell and entrusted to one of the monks, namely Jakob—who later became a hieromonk of the Tolshev Monastery—an enamel icon of the Venerable Sergius depicting the visitation of the Mother of God, saying: “Place this icon upon me when I die, and bury me with it; this icon,” he continued, “was sent to me by the venerable Father Archimandrite Antony, deputy of the holy lavra, from the relics of the Venerable Sergius.” Toward Father Antony, Elder Seraphim, as we have seen before, felt a particular love.

On the first of January, 1833, a Sunday, Father Seraphim came for the last time to the hospital church in the name of the holy Zosima and Savvaty, placed candles before all the icons himself and venerated them—something that had not previously been observed of him—and then received the Holy Gifts as usual. After the liturgy he took leave of all the brothers who had prayed there, blessed them all, kissed them, and said in consolation: “Be saved, do not lose heart, be watchful: on this day crowns are being prepared for us.” Having taken leave of all, he kissed the Cross and the icon of the Mother of God; then, walking around the holy altar table, he made the customary bow and left the church through the north doors—as if to signify thereby that a person enters this world through one gate, the gate of birth, and departs from it through another, that is, through the gate of death. At that moment everyone noticed in him an extreme exhaustion of bodily strength, but in spirit the elder was vigorous, calm, and joyful.

After the liturgy a sister of the Diveyevo community, Irina Vasilyevna, visited him. The elder sent with her two hundred rubles in paper money for Paraskeva Ivanovna, entrusting the latter to buy bread with that money from the nearest village, for at that time all the provisions had run out and the sisters were in great need.

That same day, after the liturgy, Hieromonk Feoktist of the Vysokogorsky Arzamas Hermitage visited Father Seraphim. Father Seraphim, concluding his conversation with him, said in closing: “You will serve a service here.” But Feoktist, hastening home, declined to serve at Sarov. Then Father Seraphim said to him: “Well then, you will serve at Diveyevo.” Father Feoktist, naturally, did not understand this either, and having received the elder’s blessing, set out from Sarov that very day.

It should be noted that next to Elder Seraphim’s cell stood the cell of the monk Father Pavel. They were separated from each other by a blank wall, beside which was a stove. The entrances to each cell were separate. It had long been the rule in the Sarov Hermitage that monks live each apart, one to a cell. As Father Seraphim had no disciples with him, so he had no cell attendant either; but by virtue of their proximity, Brother Pavel sometimes discharged the duties of a cell attendant. The elder distinguished him with his trust and used to say: “Brother Pavel, for the simplicity of his heart, will enter the kingdom of God without difficulty: he never judges anyone and envies no one, but knows only his own sins and his own worthlessness.”

Elder Seraphim had the habit, when leaving the monastery for the wilderness hermitage, of leaving burning in his cell the candles he had lit in the morning before the icons. Brother Pavel, availing himself of the elder’s goodwill, would sometimes say to the elder that the burning candles might cause a fire; but Father Seraphim would always reply: “While I am alive there will be no fire; but when I die, my passing will be revealed by fire.” And so it came to pass.

On the first day of 1833, Brother Pavel observed that Father Seraphim went out three times during that day to the place he had designated for his burial, remaining there a rather long time and looking at the ground. In the evening, Father Pavel heard the elder singing Paschal hymns in his cell: “Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ…” “Shine, shine, O new Jerusalem…” “O great and most sacred Pascha, O Christ…” and several other triumphant spiritual hymns.

On the second of January, at around the sixth hour of the morning, Brother Pavel, leaving his cell to go to the early liturgy, noticed the smell of smoke in the entrance vestibule near Father Seraphim’s cell. Offering the customary prayer, he knocked at Father Seraphim’s door, but the door was latched from the inside and there was no answer to the prayer. He went out onto the porch, and noticing in the darkness some monks passing on their way to church, said to them: “Fathers and brothers! A strong smell of smoke is coming from here. Is something burning nearby? The elder has surely gone to the hermitage.” At that point one of those passing by, the novice Anikita, rushed to Father Seraphim’s cell and, finding it locked, tore it off the inner latch with a forceful thrust. Many Christians, out of devotion, used to bring various linen articles to Father Seraphim. These articles, along with books, were lying this time on a bench in disorder near the door. It was they that were smoldering, probably from the drippings of a candle or from a fallen candle, the candlestick of which stood right there. There was no flame, but the articles and some books were merely smoldering. It was dark outside, barely beginning to dawn; in Father Seraphim’s cell there was no light, and the elder himself was neither seen nor heard. It was thought that he was resting after his nighttime labors, and with this thought those who had come crowded at the cell. In the vestibule there was some slight commotion. Some of the brothers ran for snow and smothered the smoldering articles with heaps of it.

The early liturgy, meanwhile, continued without interruption at the hospital church. They were singing: “It is truly meet…” At that moment a boy—one of the novices—unexpectedly ran into the church and quietly told some of those present what had happened. The brothers hastened to Father Seraphim’s cell. Quite a number of monks had gathered. Brother Pavel and the novice Ioan, who had come from the church, wishing to determine whether the elder was resting, began in the darkness to feel their way through the small space of his cell, and found him. A lit candle was brought, and they saw that the elder, in his usual white work-tunic, stood in his customary place of prayer before the icon of the Mother of God of Tenderness, on his knees, with his head uncovered, with a copper crucifix on his chest, and with his hands folded crosswise on his breast. They thought he had fallen asleep; they began to wake him gently—but there was no answer: the elder had completed his ascetic life… His eyes were closed, his face animated by contemplation and prayer. The elder’s body was warm, as if his spirit had only just that moment departed from its dwelling. But no one could now rouse him to life… The monks, with the abbot’s blessing, lifted Elder Seraphim’s body in their arms and laid it in the neighboring cell of Hieromonk Evstafy. There they washed his brow and knees, clothed him according to the monastic rite, placed him in the well-known oak coffin, and carried him immediately to the cathedral church. Later, when the agitation and commotion had subsided and they began to sort through the belongings in the departed elder’s cell, they noticed that the book before which he had fallen into his unawakening sleep had also been partially burned.

News of Elder Seraphim’s death spread swiftly everywhere. The entire surrounding region of Sarov quickly gathered in the hermitage. All mourned and wept bitterly over the elder’s death; the parting was especially hard for the Diveyevo sisters, who in him were losing their spiritual guide and protector. Their grief was all the more inconsolable because Father Seraphim had found no one to whom he could entrust them in his place.

The Diveyevo sister Paraskeva Ivanovna, to whom Father Seraphim had given money before his death, had bought bread and was returning to Diveyevo when on the road she heard the sorrowful news, and without stopping at her own lodgings drove her horse straight to Sarov.

Hieromonk Feoktist, who had visited the day before, departed from Sarov at the same time and spent the night in the village of Vertyanov; the next morning he continued on his way. On the road, for no apparent reason, the harness fastening of his sleigh broke, the horse became unyoked, and he was obliged to stop at the Diveyevo community. There he found all the sisters in deep grief and tears, mourning Father Seraphim’s death. The Diveyevo priest was away on his duties as dean. The sisters earnestly besought Father Feoktist to serve a memorial service for the repose of Elder Seraphim’s soul in the blessed habitations. Their wish was fulfilled, and the elder’s words came true: “Well then, you will serve at Diveyevo.”

Father Seraphim’s body was placed in the coffin, according to his testament, with the enamel image of the Venerable Sergius received from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. The grave for the blessed elder was prepared at the very spot he had long designated for himself, and his body lay open in the Dormition Cathedral for eight days. Until the day of burial the Sarov Hermitage was filled with thousands of people gathered from the surrounding districts and provinces. Everyone vied to kiss the great elder. All with one accord mourned his loss and prayed for the repose of his soul, as he in his lifetime had prayed for the health and salvation of all. On the day of burial, during the liturgy, there were so many people in the cathedral that the local candles near the coffin were snuffed out by the heat.

Father Seraphim’s burial was conducted by Father Abbot Nifont. His body was committed to the earth on the right side of the cathedral altar, beside the grave of Mark the recluse. In later years, through the generosity of the Nizhny Novgorod merchant Ya. Syrev, a cast-iron memorial in the form of a tomb was erected over his grave.

No eulogies were delivered at Father Seraphim’s coffin: the remembrance of his life and deeds, the verbal accounts of them at the coffin of this remarkable ascetic, were themselves the finest edification, replacing any other word. But some poet unknown to us, in mournful inspiration by the elder’s death, then composed, in the form of an elegiac song, a tribute to his life, labors, and end. We will include the text of his verses here—not remarkable in form, but fitting here by virtue of their origin.

To Father Seraphim, hermit of Sarov

A short time after Father Seraphim’s death, an officer, a Mr. Karat-v, who was traveling to Kursk province to rejoin his regiment, stopped in at Sarov in order, as was always his custom, to receive Father Seraphim’s blessing. The young man was deeply grieved to find the blessed elder no longer among the living. “The news of his death,” he said, “shook my whole soul; I took it as a punishment for my sins; but after serving a memorial service at his grave, I suddenly felt such peace of soul that it seemed as though through the elder himself I had received forgiveness for my sins and heard his promise to pray for me before the throne of God.” Abbot Nifont commissioned Mr. K-v to stop in Kursk at Father Seraphim’s relatives, to bring them a prosphora and a blessing from him, and to tell them of the death of their blessed kinsman. Upon arriving in Kursk, Mr. K-v went at once to Father Seraphim’s relatives and found Aleksey, his brother, already dead: he had only just passed away. A few days before this, the brother had been in perfect health, only subject to a heavy melancholy, knowing nothing of his brother’s death and unaware of the cause of his despondency. This sorrowful state of spirit had inclined him to seek consolation in prayer: daily he went to church, finally kept a fast, made his confession, and received Holy Communion. At that time a letter arrived from Sarov about Father Seraphim’s death, along with his portrait. Then the brother began to prepare himself fully for death; he received the sacrament of holy unction, after which he died. We record this circumstance in Father Seraphim’s biography because, it is said, when he was once in Kursk, he foretold his brother his death in words that have come down to us: “Know that when I die, your own end will follow shortly thereafter.”

Soon after the burial, the thought arose of its own accord to preserve the memory of the most blessed elder Seraphim. People began to collect and keep the portraits of him that had previously been painted. It is known that Father Seraphim was reluctant to consent to having his portrait painted. Thus the mother of the Diveyevo sister Anastasia, having great devotion to Father Seraphim, once asked his blessing to have a portrait made of him. Father Seraphim replied: “Who am I, a poor man, that my likeness should be painted? The faces of God and of the Saints are depicted, but we are men—and sinful men at that.” He said the same in reply on a similar occasion to a Sarov monk, adding by way of explanation: “We must always and in all circumstances strive to cut off the occasions of vanity at the very outset.” But the mother of Sister Anastasia began to implore him insistently not to refuse her. Only then, out of respect for her devotion, did he yield to her wish and said: “It is in your power; let it be according to your devotion.” Thanks to such persuasion, two faithful likenesses of Elder Seraphim were painted. One was made when the elder was about fifty years of age. Father Seraphim is depicted with his head uncovered; his face is clear and fair; his eyes blue, his nose straight with a slight prominence; his hair light brown, thick, and streaked with gray; his mustache and beard thick and streaked with gray; one hand clasped with the other on his chest. The elder stands clothed in a monastic mantle with an epitrachelion. This portrait was painted by the academician artist Dmitry Evstafyev for Mrs. Annenkova and given by her to the Sarov Hermitage. The other portrait, which is in the cell of the Sarov abbot, was painted from life about five years before the elder’s death. Father Seraphim is depicted in mantle, epitrachelion, and cuffs, as he would approach to receive Holy Communion. From this portrait it is evident that years and monastic labors had left their mark on the elder’s outward appearance. Here the face is rendered pale and worn with toil; the hair, both on the head and on the beard, is thick but not long and entirely gray. The right hand rests on the epitrachelion at the chest. This portrait was painted by the artist Serebryakov, who later became a monk of the Sarov Hermitage and fell asleep there in the eternal sleep. An exact copy of this portrait is placed at the beginning of this book.

After Father Seraphim’s death, many persons came to the Sarov Monastery bearing witness to what benefaction the glorious ascetic had shown them, and who had received healing from him and in what manner. Records of such events were submitted either in the person’s own hand or, at the least, certified by their signature.

Those persons who possessed articles belonging to Father Seraphim began carefully to keep them, while others sought to acquire something from among his belongings as a keepsake. According to the long-established custom of the Sarov Hermitage, all the belongings of a brother after his death pass into the so-called store room and become the common property of the monastery. Each brother takes from the store room whatever he needs and, having worn out one item, exchanges it for another. The belongings of Father Seraphim that went into the same repository did not remain there; but at the earnest requests of those who venerated the elder, they were distributed to them by the senior brothers, Father Nifont and Father Isaiah. Thus the monk of the Sarov Hermitage Gavriil had a portrait of Father Seraphim. The fortunate owner valued it so dearly that he was unwilling to show it to anyone, and if he did show it to the nearest and dearest, he would under no circumstances let it out of his hands. The copper cross that Father Seraphim always wore over his clothing, by the blessing of Bishop Ieremiya, former Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod, is kept in Diveyevo in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord on the altar. The large iron cross that the elder wore under his clothing around his neck is in the Sarov Hermitage. The Teplov family, having heard of Elder Seraphim’s death, sent a messenger all the way from Taganrog to Sarov to receive something from his cell, and two pitchers were sent to them—the ones in which the ascetic used to carry water for himself; both pitchers were filled with water from Seraphim’s spring. With one of the sisters of the Diveyevo community, namely Paraskeva Ivanovna, there remained a small ax with which Father Seraphim had worked in the wilderness. The sister had cherished it, even during the elder’s lifetime, as an extraordinary treasure; she later agreed to pass it on to her abbess for safekeeping in Father Seraphim’s wilderness cell. Mrs. Maria Kolycheva, who had been in close spiritual communion with another recluse of that time, Georgy, wrote to him with delight that after Father Seraphim’s death she had received from his cell a white linen kerchief, a lampada, and a small cup—the last two decorated with star patterns. Two cassocks remaining after Father Seraphim’s death were given to the sisters of the Diveyevo community, of which one sister wore on her person, while the other was requested by Mrs. Kolycheva for herself. Father Seraphim’s hair, which fell out twice, in the form of matted felt, from his head after two of his bouts of serious illness, is preserved in Diveyevo and in Sarov. The stones upon which the elder, to mortify the temptations of the enemy, would mount to pray during a thousand days and nights, are also preserved. The one on which he used to stand during the day in his cell remains in its original form in the altar of the Transfiguration Church in Diveyevo. Of the other stone, on which Father Seraphim prayed at night under the open sky, only two fragments remain: for pious visitors to Sarov, on inspecting the places where Father Seraphim had labored, would continually break off pieces and carry them away. One fragment, measuring about an arshin in diameter, was transferred to Diveyevo soon after the elder’s death and placed in the Transfiguration Church; the other remains in Sarov in Elder Seraphim’s cell. The cell in which Father Seraphim labored in the nearer wilderness was also moved to the Diveyevo Monastery. In it the unceasing reading of the Psalter is now performed for the repose of members of the Imperial family who have fallen asleep in God, of pastors of the Church, of Father Seraphim, of the departed sisters of the monastery, and of other persons who were benefactors to it during their lifetime. Father Seraphim’s farther ascetic cell in Diveyevo was incorporated as the altar of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord. The icon of the Queen of Heaven of Tenderness, painted on canvas stretched over a cypress board, which stood in Father Seraphim’s monastery cell, is now in the church of the Diveyevo Monastery. Before it, on a fixed day of the week, an akathist to the Savior and the Mother of God is sung. Pious visitors feel a particular devotion to this icon and, by their faith, receive spiritual consolation from it. One article among those left after Father Seraphim became especially well known. Shortly before his death he blessed the abbess of the Diveyevo community, Ksenia Mikhailovna Kocheulov, with the half-mantle he himself wore. When Sister of the community Elizaveta Andreyevna Tatarinova set out for St. Petersburg to collect alms, she was given Father Seraphim’s mantle as a blessing for the journey. It is now in the hands of the protopriest of the Gatchina court church. This mantle became known in St. Petersburg through the gift of healing bestowed upon a child whom the skill of the capital’s foremost physicians had failed to help. Of the Gospels that Father Seraphim used to read in his cell, one is in Sarov and the other in the Diveyevo Monastery. The latter Gospel, in a leather binding, is the very one that Father Seraphim always carried with him in a shoulder bag. On examining it, we found that this binding contained gathered together: the Psalter, the Gospel, the Acts, and the Epistles of the Holy Apostles. In Diveyevo is also preserved a small portion of a volume of the Menaion—the first third—which was scorched in the fire that occurred at the time of Elder Seraphim’s death. From this catalogue of the belongings left after Elder Seraphim, it is evident that the greater part of them were yielded to the Diveyevo community, in which he had taken so great an interest.

But the venerable remains of Father Seraphim will forever constitute the sacred treasure of the Sarov Hermitage. Into it the elder entered to save his soul; in it he also completed his righteous life. During his lifetime he never thought of leaving it, as he used to say, not even in thought. And after his death, his body must remain forever in the Sarov Hermitage, as the sign of his indissoluble spiritual bond with that monastery.

After Father Seraphim’s death, apart from a few unopened letters, nothing remained. The elder lived and died “to the glory of God.”

His name is blessed to this day throughout all of Russia. Memorial services for his blessed repose are now served not only in the Sarov Hermitage or the Diveyevo Monastery, but in many other places of the native Church. We have had occasion to hear his name commemorated in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, and even in district towns and villages of distant parts of our homeland.

Ekaterina Vasilyevna Ladyzhenskaya was for fifteen years the superior of the Diveyevo community.

In earlier editions it was stated that the hands of the departed Father Seraphim rested on a small lectern, with his head upon them; here the unanimous account of contemporaries of the elder has been restored—those of the hieromonks Sergiy and Georgy (the author of the narrative published in the Mayak for 1844), and of Ioasaf and N. A. Motovilov (the latter in the Chronicle of the Diveyevo Monastery by Priest Chichagov, p. 449). In the same way, the first three of these sources call the novice who came to Father Seraphim’s cell with Father Pavel by the name Ioan.