11. The Manifestation of the Gracious Help of Father Seraphim After His Death

Healing from demonic possession of V. K.—From fever of N. K.—From demonic possession of F.—From an eye ailment of F. V.—Deliverance from robbers of K-v. Healings from illness of the legs;—from cholera;—from demonic possession;—from blindness.—The punishment of one who failed to keep the elder’s commandment.—The account of a pilgrim from the Holy Mountain.—Healing from fever.—Healing of a sick child.—Relief from headache.—Healing from a contusion;—from demonic possession.—The restoration of sight.—The punishment of one who was inattentive to the elder’s portrait.—Help granted to a woman in childbirth.

The righteous man lives forever, and the righteous elder Seraphim, even after his repose, continues through his mighty intercession before the throne of God to manifest his protection to those who call upon him for help with faith and fervor. Many who were afflicted with grave illnesses, who found themselves in difficult circumstances of life, and who were burdened with sorrows and temptations openly testify that they received swift help when they besought the intercession of Elder Seraphim before the Lord. Such cases are very numerous; but we shall here recount only some of them.

Not half a year had passed after the repose of Elder Seraphim when one of the sisters of the Diveyevo community, V. K., was seized, for no known reason, with fits of demonic possession. In this state, losing her reason, she would beat herself against the ground, in her frenzy tear her hair, and with incredible strength struggle to run away from people with no definite purpose. One night she saw herself in the Diveyevo church dedicated to the Nativity of Christ; there was the sister D. F. and Elder Seraphim. The elder, taking her hand, placed it in his own, and bade the sister D. F. take hold of the other arm; and leading the sick woman into the altar, he walked with her around the holy table: she suddenly felt light and well. Waking up, she made the sign of the cross, looked about her on all sides, felt her closely shorn head, understood everything clearly, and arose of herself in complete health. From that time she was no longer subject to her former fits.

In June 1833, Madame Kolycheva wrote to Georgy, recluse of Zadonsk, from Sarov: a novice of the Sarov Hermitage named Theodore, a native of the town of Kozlov in Tambov province, had in the world been subject to demonic possession and suffered greatly. Having tried various means of treatment in vain, he presented himself to the abbot of the Sarov Hermitage, Father Niphon, and with tears begged to be received into the community for a life of repentance, acknowledging that the Lord had permitted him to bear this terrible temptation from the devil on account of his sins. Moved by his earnest entreaty, the abbot received him into the community. The newly tonsured monk fulfilled with complete diligence the obediences laid upon him, and the few free hours of rest he devoted to prayer, leaving only the briefest time for sleep. One day, after tearful prayer to God, hardly had he fallen into a doze when in a light sleep he beheld before him Elder Seraphim in the clothing the elder customarily wore in his final years. The apparition counseled him to have a moleben served to the Mother of God and a memorial service for the departed Seraphim the humble, and upon the fulfillment of this promised him recovery. With firm faith in the efficacy of the prayers of Father Seraphim who had reposed in God, the young monk immediately carried out what the elder had commanded. After the moleben to the Most Holy Theotokos was completed, the memorial service was served. When the deacon began to intone: “Grant eternal rest in blessed repose, O Lord, to Your departed servant, the hieromonk Seraphim,” Theodore fell to the ground, and a fit came upon him, during which, in terrible convulsions, smoke issued from his mouth, observed by all who were present. Thereafter he lay for about half an hour in an unconscious state, and from that time, by the prayers of Elder Seraphim, he was freed forever from demonic possession.

Two years after the repose of Father Seraphim, a sister of the Diveyevo community, N. K., fell ill with fever and was already at death’s door, so that, all means of treatment being despaired of, she was anointed with holy oil. During her illness she lost all use of her arm, and had to be moved in her bed with a cloth placed underneath it. One day she saw Father Seraphim in a dream.

He said to her: “Why do you not come to me at the spring, little mother?”

She answered: I am ill; my arm has given out.

“Which one?” the elder asked.

The right one.

The elder, taking her by her afflicted arm, lifted it, repeating: “Come to me at the spring.”

Waking up, she found her arm healed and was able to use it as a sound one. But being weak from the fever she had suffered, she could not make the journey to Sarov on foot: that very day she was taken there, doused with water from Father Seraphim’s spring—and she received complete recovery and a renewal of strength. (As recounted by the sister herself, on the 20th of July, 1862.)

A sister of the Diveyevo community, F. V., fell ill with her eyes. On the eve of the New Year 1835 she had a dream in which she found herself in the church of the Tikhvin Mother of God. Father Seraphim came out from the royal doors in a white vestment, held out the aer, and bade her wipe her eyes with it, while he himself stood behind her. She asked him: “Is it you, dear Father?” Seraphim replied: “How unbelieving you are, my joy! You yourself asked me, yet you do not believe—for I serve the Liturgy among you.” After this Seraphim became invisible. From that time the sister’s eye ailment passed. (As recounted by the healed one herself.)

I. Yakov. Karat-v recounted of himself that in 1833, while returning to his regiment from home leave, he was saved from robbers who attacked him on the road, through the prayers of Elder Seraphim, upon whom he had called in his moment of danger.

Captain Afrikan Vasilyevich Teplov, who had always held Father Seraphim in particular esteem and was himself beloved by him, came to Sarov in 1834 with his family, in which there was a three-year-old daughter who suffered from an illness of the legs and could scarcely stand. Having had a memorial service served at the grave of the departed elder, they carried the child to the spring of Father Seraphim, firmly believing that the Lord would have mercy on the sick one through the elder’s prayers. Having given the child water from this spring to drink and washed her legs, they took some of this water to the monastery with the intention of having a moleben with the blessing of water served over it. Upon entering the monastery the child suddenly asked to be put down from the nurse’s arms, showing a desire to walk on her own. The nurse, after long resistance, finally decided to set her down and, taking her by the hands, led the child; but the little girl pulled away her hand and ran forward on her own, like a healthy child. The overjoyed relatives of the healed one hastened to the grave of Father Seraphim and with tears gave thanks to him for his merciful intercession on their behalf.

In 1846 the second son of Captain A. V. Teplov dislocated his leg and suffered from the pain for about two years. Meanwhile the time came for him to enter service. Trusting firmly in the intercession and help of Father Seraphim, who had shown so many benefactions to his family, A. V. T. set out for the Sarov Hermitage. Having had a memorial service served for Elder Seraphim, despite the cold (this was on the 21st of December, 1848), he set out to Father Seraphim’s spring with his two sons, and the sick one washed his leg with water from the spring. A few hours later both brothers went again to the spring. The ailing one doused himself with water from head to foot, and then on his knees before the icons fixed to a special post in the chapel by the spring, he prayed at length together with his brother, asking God to have mercy on him through the prayers of Father Seraphim. Returning home, the sick one declared that he no longer felt any pain in his leg, and being in perfect health he served in the cavalry regiment.

The schema-monk of the Sarov Hermitage, Father Cyprian, wrote in 1840: “After the death of Father Seraphim, his cap made of black homespun cloth, which he customarily wore on his head, came to me. I had long been subject to severe and prolonged headache, from which I would lie in bed for several days at a time. Upon receiving the cap, I began to put it on when the ailment appeared, and mentally asked for the prayers of Father Seraphim for my deliverance from the suffering. Upon placing the cap on my head, the pain would pass each time. The same effect against toothache I had occasion to experience repeatedly from a fragment of the stone upon which the blessed Father Seraphim labored in his desert skete, when I placed this fragment on the aching teeth.”

A state peasant, G. D. S., of the village of Bolshoye-Cherevatovo, Ardatov district, Nizhny Novgorod province, in 1848 felt symptoms of cholera while on the road to the village of Okil. By his faith in Elder Seraphim he made haste to Father Seraphim’s spring: he washed his face, doused himself, and drank from the spring—and from this felt such relief as if he had never been ill.

Once a woman possessed by a demon was brought to Father Seraphim’s spring: the wretched woman was tearing her own hair, rending her clothing, and screaming terribly. They began to pour water from the spring over her, and she cried out: “Let me go, let me go—the monk is tormenting me!” Notwithstanding this, they continued to pour water over her until she came to a calm state and lost consciousness. Coming to herself after some time, she was completely well, made the sign of the cross over herself, drank of her own accord from the spring—and from that time her former fits did not return to her.

A landowner of Nizhny Novgorod province, D. A. A., a benefactor of the Diveyevo community, for the repose of whose soul the Psalter is read daily according to the rules of that convent, in his old age lost his sight, so that he could see nothing at all. With this loss he was also deprived of the other enjoyment he had felt in reading books of Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. This occupation had been the sole consolation of his old age. Weighed down with sorrow, he sent a messenger to his cousin, Ye. A. B., with word of his grief and a request that she come to visit him. The sister, upon hearing from the messenger of her brother’s misfortune, immediately sent him water from Father Seraphim’s spring, which she always kept at her house. This gift greatly consoled the old man, and he immediately set about following the instructions conveyed to him by his sister as to how to use this water. “I ordered”—he said—“a clean towel to be brought to me; I moistened it with the water from Seraphim’s spring, and then applied it to my sick eyes with the prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, by the prayers of Your servant Seraphim, heal me. I repeated this three times. And now, when after several minutes I removed the towel from my eyes for the first time, I saw everything around me as through a kind of mist, or as if through a very fine sieve. The second time I began already to distinguish objects, and finally, after the third time, I was even able to read; my illness had completely passed. Astonished at this sudden and so miraculous healing, through the prayers of God’s saint Seraphim, I made haste first of all to the Sarov Hermitage, to have there a thanksgiving moleben to the Lord God and His Most Pure Mother and a memorial service for Father Seraphim; and then I laid it upon myself as a rule to set aside each year a portion of my income for the Diveyevo women’s community, knowing what fatherly care the beneficent Elder Seraphim had for it.”

About a year and a half before the repose of Father Seraphim, N. M. K., having visited Sarov with his wife and conversed with the elder, received from him a certain injunction, in the nature of a commandment, for their married life. Father Seraphim said with an angelic smile: “If you do not fulfil this, you and she will soon die.” While Father Seraphim was alive, they observed the elder’s commandment with God’s help; but afterwards, little by little, they began to forget it and transgressed it several times. After this, N. M. K. suddenly fell ill with a general weakening of all his members and something resembling a severe fever, so that two weeks after he took to his bed, he lost his voice, his lips grew numb, and he was beyond all hope. On that very day when death was already ready to take its victim, in the morning his attending physician, D. A. V., came to him and told those gathered around the sick man of a dream he had had: it seemed to him that he was on his way to K.’s house, and suddenly he encountered an old gray-haired man, in bast shoes and rags, who stopped him and said: “You are going to cure him? You will not cure him, and he must die; but tell him to make some vow before God—and then he will remain alive.” The sick man heard this account of the physician, and after his departure began to reflect on what he had heard. He immediately understood that this old man was none other than Father Seraphim, though already departed, and that his present illness was the consequence of his breaking of the commandment. Then K. began bitterly to repent of his conduct and made a vow before God that if he remained alive he would take under his care one of his female relatives, the orphan Nadezhda. Scarcely had he made this vow in his soul than he felt an instantaneous relief from the illness: within a few minutes he sat up in bed on his own, and then began to call to his wife in the ordinary voice of a healthy man, and together with her poured forth before the Lord tears of joy over the wondrous, gracious healing granted him by Father Seraphim. On the very next day the sick man began to walk about the rooms and soon recovered completely.

The Russian ascetic of Mount Athos known and revered by all under the name of the Svyatogorts, the hieromonk Seraphim, in schema Sergius, conveys the following circumstance in his private notebooks. “In 1849, on my departure from Vyatka, I fell ill. My illness was devastating: I did not think I would remain alive, for the enemy attacked me fiercely. No ordinary means could restore me and return my strength and health. I despaired. Only on the first evening of 1850 it was as if someone quietly said to me: ‘Tomorrow is the anniversary of the repose of Father Seraphim of Sarov, the elder; serve a memorial Liturgy for him and a memorial service—and he will heal you.’ This greatly comforted me. Now it must be said that although I had not personally known Father Seraphim, in 1838, being in Sarov, I had visited his desert skete, and from that time conceived faith and love toward him. This heartfelt attachment and faith were further strengthened in me when in 1839 I dreamed that I was serving a moleben to Father Seraphim, from my whole soul and loudly singing: ‘Venerable Father Seraphim, pray to God for us!’ Only at the sixth ode it was necessary for me to read the Gospel, and I was troubled by the thought: which Gospel should I read—that of a venerable father, such-and-such or another? Suddenly someone said to me: read from Mt 36 the pericope. At these words of the mysterious voice I awoke. From that time to this day I sincerely believe that Father Seraphim is a great saint of God. But let me return to what I had begun. At the secret prompting that urged me to commemorate Father Seraphim, I asked—not being strong enough myself—for a Liturgy and a memorial service to be served for him, and no sooner was this done than my illness passed and I felt extraordinary peace, freed from the oppression of the adversary. And from that time to this day I have been well, by the grace of God. (From the Works and Letters of the Svyatogorts. St. Petersburg, 1858, p. 209.)”

Ye. P. M. recounted the following incident concerning her aunt. In 1854 the aunt came to the Diveyevo community to pray, and after the All-Night Vigil, having perspired, she drank two glasses of water, from which a violent fever developed in her. For three weeks the sick woman neither drank, nor ate, nor slept; in the fourth week of illness she fell into a faint. There was no hope of recovery; the sick woman was administered the last rites in preparation for death. But a nun from Smolensk who was her fellow traveler, and who had come to collect donations for her convent, prostrated herself before the icon of the Mother of God and besought Father Seraphim to obtain from the Queen of Heaven the prolongation of the sick woman’s life.

One morning she approached the sick woman and said: I have had such a dream about you.

The sick woman said with a tremor: “Surely about my death?”

No, you will be alive and well—Father Seraphim told me so.

The sick woman, who until then had not lifted her head from the pillow, rose and sat up, saying: “Well then, tell me quickly!”

She recounted that Father Seraphim, reassuring her, had said to her: “Be at peace: the handmaid of God Eudokia will live. I have prayed to the Lord and to His Most Pure Mother.”

She also saw in the dream that he took the sick woman, led her along the canal, walked her around the cathedral, and brought her to the icon of the Tenderness of the Mother of God set into the wall of the cathedral.

Having heard this account, the sick woman felt herself completely well. On the following day, wishing to breathe fresh air, she told the coachman to take her wherever he wished, naming no particular direction. He drove her along the canal, then around the cathedral and to the icon of the Tenderness of the Mother of God. Thus were fulfilled the words of Elder Seraphim, spoken in the dream to the Smolensk nun. (This healing was recorded in the sick woman’s own hand beneath the icon standing at the spring.)

In 1856 the only son of the vice-governor of Kostroma province, Actual State Councillor A. A. Borz-ko, being eight years old, began to suffer from stomach spasms. This illness, at first fairly mild, soon turned severe with fits. After some time the spasms ceased, replaced by a melancholy, so that the child, quite cheerful and healthy one moment, would suddenly become gloomy. The melancholy intensified continuously, and the fit ended in tears, and not infrequently in the appearance of foam at the mouth. Finally spasms of the windpipe appeared. The fits of illness would occur five times a day, while at night the child slept peacefully; only in the final period of the illness did the fits begin to appear at night as well. Medical assistance was of little help, and the parents feared losing their son, and only their hope in God’s mercy kept in them some remaining expectation. At this time a riasophore nun of the Kostroma women’s monastery, S. D. Dav-va, later abbess of that convent, Maria, who was well acquainted with this family and was setting out to visit certain Russian monasteries, gave the mother of the sick child a description of the life and labors of Father Seraphim of Sarov. The parents read this book together frequently, marveling at the elder’s labors and the workings of God’s grace that had been revealed in him. It was the middle of September, and the child’s illness, which had begun in July, continued still. One night the child saw in a dream the Savior in red raiment, surrounded by angels, who said to him: “You will be well if you fulfill that which the elder who will come to you shall command you.” When this vision ended, an elder appeared and, calling himself Seraphim, said to the child: “If you wish to be well, take water from the spring in the Sarov forest called the Seraphim spring, and for three days morning and evening wash yourself with this water on the head, chest, hands, and feet, and drink it.” This dream the child recounted to his nurse, who told his parents, before whom he himself repeated his account. Thanking God for His mercy, the parents were at a loss as to how to obtain the water and committed themselves to the will of God, hoping that the Lord would show them the means to do so. In the morning the sick child recounted another dream. The Mother of God had appeared to him, surrounded by angels, and lovingly commanded him to fulfill without fail that which Father Seraphim had advised. This second vision further confirmed the parents’ trust in the intercession of Father Seraphim and the mercy of God toward the sick one. While they were deliberating how to obtain the water, a note arrived from S. D. Dav-va, informing the mother of the sick child of her return from her journey. The parents’ first thought was to ask D-va how to obtain water from Father Seraphim’s spring in Sarov. In response to this request she sent a bottle of water drawn from Father Seraphim’s spring. Seeing in this a special mercy of God, and having given thanks to God, they began to use the water according to the instructions given in the dream. The child, gradually recovering, became completely well. Then the parents, if not for themselves, at least on behalf of their son, made a vow to go without fail to Sarov and pray at the grave of Father Seraphim. Circumstances of service and family life only in 1860, on the 14th of July, made it possible for Mr. B-ko to go to Sarov together with his son and fulfill his promise. At that time he personally delivered a written statement to the abbot of the Sarov community reporting the healing of his son through the intercession of the blessed Elder Seraphim.

A landowner of Tambov province, Shatsk district, Colonel V. A. Pan-v, suffered continuously from headache. In 1857 he came to Sarov by the 15th of August, for the very feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God. Having stood through the early Liturgy in the hospital church, he wished, before the late Liturgy, to go to Father Seraphim’s spring. But the thought that his wife would be waiting for him at the guest-house with tea troubled him, and he had already turned his steps toward the guest-house, when suddenly, without knowing how, he found himself on the path to the spring. Arriving there, he was afraid to pour the water over his aching head, feeling in it a buzzing and a throbbing, and the morning was cold, damp, and a light rain was falling. Here an invisible hand of God arranged his healing in a wondrous manner. Unexpectedly his feet slipped on the wet clay, and he fell at the spring with his head directly under the trough: involuntarily he was drenched all over with the healing water. No longer fearing a chill, the sick man, rising to his feet, himself poured water over his head several more times and felt not the slightest pain.

When Colonel P-v was returning to the monastery, he was met by a peasant, who in his turn recounted the following concerning his own healing: “Just now Father Seraphim has healed me! My arm was aching, swollen, stiffened, and could not be raised; and I came to Sarov with this ailment. Today I moistened it twice with water from the spring, and my arm became completely sound.” Arriving at the guest-house, the colonel recounted to all the story of these two healings.

In 1858, a sister of the Diveyevo community, Eudokia, on a Wednesday in the fifth week of Great Lent, was together with other sisters packing a great communal ice-cellar, three fathoms deep, with ice. Slipping accidentally off the plank laid over the timber frame, she fell to the very bottom of the ice-cellar, where some ice had been thrown in sharp chunks. The unfortunate woman, from the force of the blow, did not utter the slightest groan. The other sisters at that time were all outside the cellar, busy around their sledges. When the elder sister noticed that one of them was missing, she asked: “Where is Eudokia?” No one knew what to say. Entering the cellar, they saw her at the bottom, in the darkness, in her clothing. Horror seized them all; they supposed she was already dead. Two men, with the help of the sisters, with the greatest difficulty drew her up out of the pit. Seeing that she was still alive, they thanked the Lord, carried her to the nearest cell, sent for the spiritual father, and, with the blessing of the abbess, dispatched to the village of Vertyanov for a physician. After some hours the sufferer came to her senses, made her confession and received Holy Communion; she complained of a mortal pain in her side and in her head, on which many lumps had appeared. The physician who arrived performed the necessary bloodletting, but said the injury was very dangerous. The entire side had swollen up; it was impossible to determine whether any ribs were broken, and the mere touching of them would plunge the sick woman into a prolonged faint. Four days later she was transferred to the infirmary, but there too the sufferer would cry out and moan when four people could barely lift her to place her on her pillows; she lay entirely on her right side. Two weeks after the injury, during which time she had scarcely slept for the pain, at midnight before Holy Thursday she fell into a light sleep and saw that Father Seraphim, entering the cell where the sick woman lay, said: “I have come to visit my poor ones; I have not been here for a long time,” and saying this, drew near to the sick woman’s bed. She said to him with bitter tears: “Dear Father, how my side aches!” The elder, folding the three fingers of his right hand, made the sign of the cross over her injured place, saying: “I am applying to you a plaster and a bandage.” Having repeated this three times, he became invisible. Eudokia opened her eyes—in the cell was complete emptiness and silence. She fell asleep again shortly. Waking at five o’clock in the morning, she found herself lying on her injured side, feeling no pain at all. Recalling the apparition of Father Seraphim to her, she said that “I long felt as if a plaster lay on the injured place.” That same day the sick woman, alone and without any assistance, rose from her bed, walked several times across the cell, and told everyone of her miraculous healing; she made her confession and received Holy Communion, being strengthened in spirit and body through the prayers of Elder Seraphim.

A young peasant woman of Ryazan province and district, Olga I., was seized with fits of a grievous illness accompanied by hiccupping, yawning, dimming of the vision, and frenzy. She would torment herself, scream, display unnatural strength, and tear her clothing to shreds. Her sufferings lasted eight years. In 1858, together with three pilgrim women, she set out for Sarov and Diveyevo; along the way she sometimes felt fits, but was still able to walk. As she drew nearer to Sarov the fits intensified, and upon seeing it she lay down in the road and flatly refused to go any further. With great effort the sufferer was brought to Sarov. After a moleben to the Queen of Heaven and a memorial service for Father Seraphim, she set out with her companions to his spring. Here the fit was uncommonly strong; she cried out: “What are you doing, choking me! I am strong—why do you bind me? I will go out, I will go out!” She was struck to the ground several times as if dead, for about two hours she was blind and mute. At last the evil spirit cried out: “Three have gone out, one remains.” A day later she received Holy Communion in Sarov and set out for Diveyevo. But about half a verst before the monastery she fell to the ground. Several times on the road she was rolled over like a wheel; with great effort she was brought by evening to the guest-house; all night the sick woman was restless and would have fled had she not been held. In the morning, without telling her where they were going, they led her to the church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, where Father Seraphim’s desert cell had been converted into a holy altar and all his clothing was kept. Unnatural strength resisted the strength of several people when they dragged her into the church. The evil spirit cried out: “I will go out, I will go out, I will be silent.” With arms, legs, and neck outstretched and the abdomen swollen, she was dragged to Father Seraphim’s stone. Placing the sick woman upon it, they covered her with a mantle and laid upon her the elder’s epitrachelion: the sick woman cried out loudly, and after his mittens were placed on her hands, she became as if dead. Little by little the neck, the abdomen, and all the members began to return to their natural position; having lain without consciousness for about an hour and a half, the sick woman came fully to herself, prayed with tears, thanked the Lord and His saint for her healing, but was weak and could not speak much, and everything the companions recounted about her she confirmed—she confirmed also that never had she felt so light and peaceful as now. The abbess of the community blessed her for the journey with a portrait of Father Seraphim and a piece from his stone. On the following day, having stood through the Liturgy, the moleben, and the memorial service, she departed for Moscow.

Eudokia Ochkina, the wife of a townsman of the city of Penza, recounted the following: “In 1843 I was walking in the garden with my three-year-old daughter Elizabeth; I do not know how a bur became attached to the fringe of my dress. When I pulled it off, a bit of fluff probably flew off and got into the child’s eyes. My Elizabeth suddenly cried out and, closing both eyes, began to weep, shedding streams of tears. I called old women to examine her; they searched for the speck with their tongues, turned the eyes back on a ring, but my daughter finally lost her sight entirely. A year passed; a doctor came to Penza from St. Petersburg: I carried my blind child to him, but he too could not examine her eye—no means availed to open the tightly shut and as it were grown-together eyelids. The doctor declined to offer help. Another year later, my blind daughter was sitting beside me on the floor; I had laid toys on her lap: she felt them over with her hands. I wept, looking at her, and said in my thoughts: ‘Father Seraphim! Pray to the Lord that the eyes of my blind daughter may open; I will come to you in Sarov on foot.’ At that very moment she jumped up and ran about the room. From that time she began to see as before; but having lived about two years, she died; and I, sinful wretch, entirely forgot the promise I had made about the journey to Sarov, and for this I was punished a second time. My other daughter, Maria, being also three years old, fell gravely ill with her eyes; fomentations and medicines gave her no relief; then I remembered my promise to go to Sarov. Without any delay I set out on the journey, and that very same day that I served a memorial service for Father Seraphim, my little girl was healed. Only on one eye there remained a mark—not quite a cataract, but a small spot, which, however, does not hinder her from seeing—as if in remembrance that by her mother’s forgetfulness of a promise the woman had offended the man of God. In 1858 she was in Diveyevo with her fifteen-year-old daughter Maria, and herself recounted everything that is written above.”

In 1859 the wife of the postmaster of the town of Temnikov, having received from Sarov a portrait of Elder Seraphim painted on a fragment of the stone on which the elder had stood and prayed, wished to send it as a gift to her benefactor in Tambov. With this thought in mind, she fell into a doze and saw Elder Seraphim, who, looking upon her sternly, said: “Why do you not wish to keep my portrait yourself?” and with these words struck her on the shoulder. Waking from this, she felt a trembling throughout her whole body; the shoulder on which the blow had fallen, and her arm, became completely numb, as if struck by paralysis. She immediately set out for Sarov, had a memorial service served, prayed fervently at the grave of Father Seraphim, and received complete healing from her ailment on the spot.

Madame Al-va, being with child, was greatly afraid as the time of delivery drew near, since her labors had always been especially difficult and dangerous for her. At this time a pilgrim came to our house who carried with him a description of the life of Elder Seraphim. Having read this book, Madame A., after prayer to the Lord God, placed her hope in the blessed Elder Seraphim and asked for his help. After this she felt considerably better; all fear had already passed, and there was something joyous in her soul. The time of delivery came. Without any assistance from people, calling only upon the Most Holy Mother of God and Elder Seraphim for help, A-va gave birth without her former sufferings to a son, whom she named Seraphim. (A letter in her own hand from Madame Alt-va to the abbot of the Sarov community.)

All the accounts set forth here concerning miraculous healings through the prayers of Elder Seraphim of Sarov are taken from the fourth edition of the book: The Life of Elder Seraphim. Property of the Sarov Hermitage. Murom. 1893.