7. Elder Seraphim’s Relationship to the Diveyevo Community

To the Sarov Hermitage, she stopped to rest in the village of Diveyevo, twelve versts away, and, in her simple manner, sat down on some logs not far from the wooden church of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker that stood there at the time. In the brief, sweet drowsiness of a traveler’s rest, she beheld the Mother of God, who urged her to remain in that place and charged her to erect a church in honor of the Kazan wonderworking icon. Rousing herself from her slumber and surveying the surroundings, she set out for the Sarov Hermitage. The community so captivated her heart that she would certainly have remained there to seek her salvation, had it been a convent for women. Returning from there to the village of Diveyevo, she became acquainted with the worthy local priest, Father Vasily Dertev—who later died as a hieromonk in the Sarov Hermitage under the name Varlaam—and took up permanent residence in the hamlet of Osinovka, a village belonging to the Diveyevo parish, in a small house built on a modest plot of land she had acquired from the Osinovka landowners. When her nine-year-old daughter died and her last tie to the world was severed, she sold her estate, moved to the home of Father Vasily of Diveyevo, built a separate cell in his yard, and labored there for twenty years. Her cell-based ascetic practices she kept secret before her heavenly Father, and they remain largely unknown to us today. By the blessing of the Sarov elders she read each day the appointed Gospel lesson and the lesson for the saint of the day. She also devoted considerable time to reading the Great Menaion Reader and works of spiritual asceticism—for example, John Climacus and Ephrem the Syrian. The Jesus Prayer never left her lips. Out of humility, forgetting her birth, rank, and wealth, she willingly took on every kind of domestic work in Father Vasily’s household. If any solitary peasant with many children had grain standing too long in the field, she would quietly go out, reap it, and bind it into sheaves. For poor young women entering into marriage, she would embroider headdresses (known as soroki) with her own hands and give them as gifts along with towels. On Sundays and feast days, after leaving church, she would stop to speak with the peasants and offer them various instructions. During her years at Father Vasily’s home, over the course of five years beginning in 1774 or 1775, she used her own funds to build, in place of the old wooden Church of Saint Nicholas, a stone church in honor of the Kazan Mother of God, with two side altars: one dedicated to Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker and the other to the first martyr and archdeacon Stephen. After all three altars were consecrated, Agafia Semyonovna, not long before her death, resolved to establish a community near the Kazan Church.

On the advice of the Sarov elders—whose abbots, Pakhomy and Isaiah, served as her spiritual fathers—and with the permission of the diocesan authorities in Vladimir, Agafia Semyonovna obtained from the Zhdanov family a plot of 1,300 square sazhens near the Kazan Church. On it she built a house with outbuildings and invited several women to live with her: from the village of Vertyanova in Ardatov district, the maiden Evdokia Martynova (who died around 1836); from the estate of Mr. Batashev, the peasant widow Anastasia Kirillova; from the village of Sarminskoye-Maydan, the peasant maiden Ulyana Grigoryeva; and from the hamlet of Osinovka, the peasant widow Fekla Kondratyeva. In this house she lived with them until her death, leading a spiritual life according to the spirit and rules of the Sarov Hermitage, governing these women—as the sisters were called—with gentleness, and supporting both herself and those living with her from her own means, with the help of the charitable hand of the Sarov builder Father Pakhomy. Such was the founding of the Diveyevo community, to which the name of the Sarov Hermitage—and in particular that of Elder Father Seraphim—is inseparably bound!

After the death of Agafia Semyonovna, her successor in leadership was Anastasia Kirillovna. Under her direction, up to twenty women of the merchant and peasant classes gathered from various places to live in community; she governed them according to the rules of the first foundress and received support from the Sarov brotherhood in exchange for sewing cassocks, knitting stockings, and spinning thread. After Kirillovna’s death, her place as head was taken by Ksenia Mikhailovna, widow of Prokofiy Kocheulov, a craftsman at the Tula Arms Factory—a woman of strict spiritual life whom the Sarov abbot Nifont called a spiritual rasp. Under her leadership the number of sisters living in God grew to forty by 1826. Some of them had been sent in the last five years by Elder Seraphim. The Sarov elders Pakhomy and Isaiah, whenever they left the hermitage, would always stop at Diveyevo and, while providing the community sisters with material support, chiefly strengthened them through their conversations and their moral influence in the spiritual life those sisters had chosen. Father Seraphim, after the deaths of builder Pakhomy and Isaiah, and in fulfillment of a promise made in the final moments of their lives, took an active part in the Diveyevo community, watching over and guiding the sisters toward salvation. In the last years of his own life he took the most energetic part of all.

From 1825 onward, the sisters began coming to Father Seraphim for his blessing, and before long the virtuous head of the Diveyevo community, Ksenia Mikhailovna, came as well. The Diveyevo priest Father Vasily also visited him, and Elder Seraphim held him in great affection and regard. In response to Father Vasily’s request that he not abandon the community, the elder replied: “How could we abandon those for whom the blessed Agafia Semyonovna herself entreated me, poor Seraphim? She was a great woman, a holy one. Her service was beyond reckoning, her tears unceasing, her prayer to God the purest, her love for all without pretense. She wore the simplest clothing—patched many times over—and girded herself with a sash tied in a knot. And yet, whenever she walked, great ladies would take her by the arms. Such was the esteem in which her life was held! How then could we spurn her request? I am now the last remaining of those elders she entreated not to forsake the community she founded. And so I ask you too, father: do what lies within your power—do not abandon them.”

That same year, Father Seraphim took decisive action in the affairs of the community. He divided it into two parts, saying that such was the will of the Lord and the Mother of God. The matter came about as follows. The growth of the Diveyevo community required that it expand; but the land it occupied was so cramped that there was no possibility of extending it in any direction. Moreover, he found the rule received from the Sarov brotherhood not easily observed by all persons of the weaker female sex. He had proposed to the head, Ksenia Mikhailovna, that this rule be replaced with a new one, but she did not agree. Beyond that, he was also troubled by the arrangement whereby maidens lived in community together with women who had been married. A woman who had spent several pleasant years in marriage might speak of it to the maidens, with a destructive effect on the peace of spirit so necessary for the faithful keeping of spiritual vows. Another might have been unhappy in marriage, and her accounts of its hardships would cast an unjust dark shadow over the institution of matrimony ordained by God for the human race. The elder also observed that in married life a woman often acquires such stubbornness of character that it becomes hard to cure afterward. This quality could, through mutual association, naturally be passed on to the maidens as well, setting them on a path contrary to the self-denial of one’s own will that was required at Diveyevo. “In a communal convent,” he would say, “it is easier to deal with seven maidens than with one widow.” For all these reasons he considered it more beneficial for the community to divide it into two halves, so that in one the formerly married would seek their salvation, and in the other the pure virgins, even if the governance and leadership over both remained one and the same. In this he had in mind the example of the Suzdal women’s Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery, established in the twelfth century. That monastery had indeed been arranged in two sections: in one lived virgins who had consecrated themselves to God, and in the other, separated from them by a fence, widows. Neither was permitted to enter into conversation with the other. “And nowhere was found”—notes the author of the Life of the venerable Euphrosyne—“such a monastery throughout all of great Russia for the ordering of good conduct and peace from labor for the nuns, nor such excellent and hardworking nuns who shone in fasting, as these diligent ones; for that is the foundation of the fasting life and a model for those who would take monastic vows.” With such foundations, Father Seraphim left the existing Diveyevo community in its former place and in its former state. He himself began earnestly to pray to the Lord and the Most Pure Mother that they would indicate a different, more spacious site for the new community; and the Queen of Heaven, hearkening to his prayer, herself chose for this purpose a site some hundred sazhens, or a little more, from the former community and the Kazan Church. In 1823, Mikhail Vasilyevich Mantorov, after being healed of illness by the prayers of Father Seraphim—a healing in which his own faith played its part—came to the Sarov Hermitage for the second time. The elder blessed him, gave him spiritual instruction, and as he sent him off, placed in his hands an oak stake, hewn from a block of wood, with the following command: “When you drive home, stop at Diveyevo, go up to the middle window of the altar of the Kazan Church, and look out into the field: you will see a boundary marker—follow its direction to the clearing at the far end of it. When you reach the clearing, find its center and drive this stake into the ground there, noting its location by some landmark you can remember.” When Mr. Mantorov came to Sarov the following year, Father Seraphim gave him four hewn stakes and told him to place them in the same clearing so that the original stake would stand in the middle. Mikhail Vasilyevich did as Father Seraphim directed, not understanding what was to come of it. But it is now clear that the elder, two full years before he took decisive action in the community, had already conceived the plan of building a mill and forming around it a separate branch of the Diveyevo community.

The land on which Father Seraphim had marked the site for the new community belonged to the heirs of Mr. Batashev. The Lord so ordered things that around this time one of the inheriting members of the family, Vera Andreyevna Postnikova, born Batasheva, visited Sarov and called on Father Seraphim. The elder asked her for this land, and Vera Andreyevna gladly ceded it, promising to take this parcel as her share of the estate. She simply forgot to register this with the central office that administered the land.

Having thus secured the land as well, Father Seraphim—after the well-known prayer he performed with the sisters in the distant hermitage—on December 9, 1825, the Feast of the Conception of the Most Holy Mother of God, received the resolve and was strengthened in spirit to proceed with the work. In the remaining days of 1825 and throughout nearly all of 1826, he himself prepared posts and timber for the mill, which he wished to establish for the Diveyevo community on the model of the Alekseyevsk community. Permission to use the Sarov forest for this purpose was granted by the Sarov abbot Father Nifont. The sisters of the Diveyevo community helped Father Seraphim in gathering the timber. Father Seraphim built a stove in the cell of his distant hermitage so that it would be warm there to rest after labors in winter. On the Feast of the Conception of the Mother of God, December 9, 1826—exactly one year after the prayerful beginning of the work—posts and logs were brought for the first time on Sarov horses to the place chosen for the new settlement of the Diveyevo sisters. After this, the sisters themselves were given the blessing to haul Sarov timber for the mill.

The neighboring landowner A. N. Prokudin, who had faith in and great respect for Father Seraphim, sent a millwright and twelve carpenters, by whom the mill was built in short order. Construction began in the spring of 1827, and by summer—on July 7, the eve of the Feast of the Kazan Mother of God—it was grinding. Since the mill was being built on land not yet formally transferred from its owners, the elder, in order to encourage the workers, urged them to fear no one, saying that the Queen of Heaven herself had given all this land to the community. The stewards appointed by the Batashev family to manage the land naturally found fault with the workers and hindered them; but the workers bore all the affronts patiently and continued their work, citing Father Seraphim’s instructions. When the mill, built with two grinding sets, was finished, Father Seraphim transferred six sisters from the Diveyevo community at the Kazan Church to live there: namely, Paraskeva Stepanovna, Paraskeva Ivanovna, Evdokia Yefremovna, Anna Alekseyevna, Darya Zinovyevna, and Ksenia Ilyinichna. He designated Paraskeva Stepanovna as senior among them. For their spiritual guidance he entrusted them all to the new Diveyevo priest, Father Vasily Sadovsky, whom he appointed to be their confessor as well, saying that this was the will of God and the Queen of Heaven and his own blessing. The chosen sisters were among those virgins whom the elder himself had earlier placed in the community of Agafia Semyonovna Melgunova. Having no cell yet, the sisters lived on the mill itself until late autumn and occupied themselves with various tasks. At the end of October they built their own cell, and all of them moved into that single dwelling. Before long Father Seraphim acquired a storehouse for them, which was set up across from the cell. After that he blessed them to build additional cells for newly arriving sisters. Father Seraphim directed that the buildings be arranged in two rows, with the mill at the center or set against the gap between them. For about a year after the mill community was established, the sisters went to take meals in the original community, and this daily journeying caused them no little grief. Then Father Seraphim blessed them to bake their own bread and brew their own kvass separately from the Diveyevo sisters, and he himself would sometimes taste their food when they brought it to him at his wish. Once, Sister Paraskeva Ivanovna, after laboring in the forest, shared a midday meal of dry bread and water with Father Seraphim. The elder remarked: “That, my dear, is our daily bread; but when I was in seclusion I ate weeds: I would pour hot water over goutweed and eat it that way. That is hermit’s food—and you should eat it too.” From that time onward, by the blessing of the elder, the community began preparing goutweed, boiling it in salted water. Moreover, whenever the sisters came to visit him, he would send them back after his spiritual consolation never without a load of dried bread crusts or oatmeal. One of the sisters, by name Maria Ivanovna, was assigned to prepare the communal meals. During the founding of the community, the sisters went more than once, at Father Seraphim’s instruction, to the Ilevsk factory to petition the Batashev estate steward for formal transfer of the land on which the mill stood; but for nearly three years no progress was made. The steward did not report the matter to the heirs. When it was finally reported, General Postnikova, recalling her verbal promise, said: “Yes, Father Seraphim asked me for land in Diveyevo, and I promised to give it to him. I will take this parcel as my own portion when the estate is divided.” Her instruction to donate this land was delivered to the community in writing. When Father Seraphim was informed of this, he was overcome with a rapture and joy that words cannot convey. Mr. Mantorov happened to be in Sarov at that time. Father Seraphim sent through him a small barrel of honey to the sisters in Diveyevo, and the sisters—having marked out together with the steward sent from the main office the boundary of their holdings—ate this honey with soft bread together with the head, Ksenia Mikhailovna, and the Diveyevo priest. Sister Elena Vasilyevna Mantorova wrote in sincere terms a letter of thanks to General Postnikova on behalf of the Diveyevo sisters and Father Seraphim; and the elder sent her his dried bread crusts as a blessing. This was in 1830.

The refectory sister Maria Ivanovna, in the course of her obedience, went down to the cellar one spring morning early, while the other sisters were still sleeping. On her way to the cellar she suddenly saw a burning candle stuck into the ground behind the cell. In fright the sister ran back to the cell and woke the sleeping sisters. All rushed with sinking hearts to the spot where the mysterious fire had burned. In indescribable joy they all leapt up to run there—but it was already gone. And this apparition had been nothing other than a vision. In the morning, when it grew light, the sisters found that the earth at that spot had been dug up. This occurred on the eve of the Feast of the Holy Trinity. From that time the elder blessed the sisters to dig a trench three arshins deep around the place of the vision, and they spent exactly three years at this work, encircling themselves on all sides with a ditch and within it an earthen bank on which, by his blessing, they planted gooseberry bushes.

Because of the hardships of life in the community, some of the sisters fell into faint-heartedness and wanted to move away somewhere else. One of them, Ksenia Ilyinichna, having this in mind, came to Father Seraphim to ask his blessing. The elder, without letting her voice her intentions, counseled her as a father for eight hours, and the sister, freed from her tempting thoughts, remained in the community for good. Another sister, Paraskeva Ivanovna, having decided to go back into the world, did not even want to tell Father Seraphim about it. Unexpectedly, the elder himself sent for her. The sister came to him in agitation. Father Seraphim began telling her about his own life in the monastery, and repeatedly returned to the following thought: “I, my dear, have lived the whole of monastic life and never—not even in thought—left the monastery.” With this conversation, wisely directed to the heart of the sister, he healed a spiritual ailment that had been grievously tormenting her, so that when the conversation ended she felt as though a sick limb had been removed—and she was at peace.

The elder Matrona Pleshcheyeva of the Diveyevo community related the following wonderful circumstance: “When I entered the Diveyevo community, I carried out, by the blessing of Father Seraphim, the obedience of preparing food for the sisters.”

Once, through weakness of health and the temptation of the enemy, I fell into such agitation and despondency that I resolved to leave the community entirely and quietly, without a blessing—so burdensome and unbearable had this obedience come to seem to me. Father Seraphim undoubtedly foresaw my temptation, for he suddenly sent me word to come to him.

Carrying out his summons, I set out for him on the third day of the Apostle Peter’s feast, after the midday meal, and wept the whole way. Arriving at his Sarov cell, I said the customary prayer, and the elder, saying “Amen,” received me as a loving father and, taking me by both hands, led me into the cell. Then he said: “There, my joy, I have been waiting for you all day.” I answered him through tears: “Father, you know what my obedience is—I could not come sooner; I had barely fed the sisters when I set out for you that very moment, and I wept the whole way.” Then Father Seraphim wiped my tears with his handkerchief, saying: “My dear, your tears do not fall to the floor in vain”—and then, leading me to the icon of the Queen of Heaven of Tenderness, he said: “Kiss it, my dear; the Queen of Heaven will console you.” I kissed the icon and felt such joy in my soul that I was utterly revived. After that, Father Seraphim said: “Well, my dear, now go to the guest quarters, and tomorrow come to the distant hermitage.” But I objected: “Father, I am afraid to go alone to that distant hermitage.” To this Father Seraphim replied: “You, my dear, walk to the hermitage and read aloud the whole way: Lord have mercy; and he himself sang it aloud several times: Lord have mercy. But do not go to Matins; rather, when you rise, make fifty prostrations and then set off.” I did exactly as Father Seraphim had blessed me: I rose, made fifty prostrations, and went, saying aloud the whole way: Lord have mercy. From this I felt not the slightest fear but on the contrary experienced the greatest joy in my heart, through the prayers of Father Seraphim.

Approaching the distant hermitage, I suddenly saw Father Seraphim sitting near his cell on a log, and beside him stood a bear of terrible size. I froze with fear and cried out at the top of my voice: “Father, it is my death!” — and fell down. Father Seraphim, hearing my voice, struck the bear and waved his hand at it. The bear, like a rational being, immediately went off in the direction Father Seraphim had waved, into the dense forest. I, seeing all this, trembled with terror, and even when Father Seraphim came up to me saying, “Do not be afraid, do not be frightened”—I continued to cry out as before: “Oh, it is my death!” To this the elder replied: “No, my dear, this is not death; death is far from you—this is joy.” And then he led me to that same log on which he had been sitting before, and on which, after praying, he seated me—and sat down himself! Scarcely had we sat down when the very same bear came out of the dense forest and, approaching Father Seraphim, lay down at his feet. I, being in close proximity to such a fearsome beast, was at first in the greatest terror and trembling; but then, seeing that Father Seraphim dealt with it without any fear whatsoever—as with a gentle lamb—and even fed it from his own hands with bread he had brought with him in a bag, I began little by little to be revived by faith. What struck me most wondrously at that moment was the face of my great father: it was bright as an angel’s, and full of joy.

At last, when I was completely calm and the elder had fed out nearly all the bread, he handed me what remained and told me to feed the bear myself. But I answered: “I am afraid, father—it will bite off my hand.” Father Seraphim looked at me, smiled, and said: “No, my dear, believe that it will not bite off your hand.” Then I took the bread he offered me and fed it all to the bear with such consolation that I could have wished to go on feeding it, for the beast was gentle and meek even toward sinful me, through the prayers of Father Seraphim.

Seeing me at peace, Father Seraphim said to me: “Do you remember, my dear, how at the venerable Gerasimus on the Jordan a lion served him—and at poor Seraphim’s side a bear serves? You see, even the wild animals obey us, and yet you, my dear, fall into despondency. What do we have to be despondent about? Why, if I had brought scissors with me, I would have given him a trim.”

Then I said simply: “Father, what if the sisters were to see this bear—they would die of fright.” But he answered: “No, my dear, the sisters will not see him.” “And what if someone were to kill him?” I asked. “I feel sorry for him.” The elder answered: “No, no one will kill him: no one but you will see him.” I was still thinking how to tell the sisters about this terrible wonder—but Father Seraphim, reading my thoughts, replied: “No, my dear, do not tell anyone of this until eleven years after my death; then the will of God will reveal to whom it should be told.”

In later years, Elder Matrona came for some reason to the cell where a peasant named Yefim Vasilyev—known for his faith and love for the elder—was engaged in icon painting by the blessing of Father Seraphim. Seeing that he was drawing Father Seraphim, she suddenly said to him: “It would be quite fitting here to paint Father Seraphim together with the bear.” Yefim Vasilyev asked her why she thought so, and she told him—as the first person to hear it—the account of this wondrous event. Exactly eleven years had passed, as the elder had appointed.

Although many others outside the community also knew of Father Seraphim and the bear, since these persons are unknown it is impossible to transmit their testimonies—save for one, related by the Sarov monk Pyotr.

By holding back the faint-hearted sisters, Father Seraphim continued to increase the population of the mill community with new members. In the very year after the mill was built, he began sending many new young women to live in this community, while women who had been widowed he directed to the original community, under the head Ksenia Mikhailovna.

A certain lady, E. M. Z., while her husband was still living and serving at the Zlatoust factories, asked Father Seraphim for a blessing to enter the Diveyevo community for the salvation of her soul. The elder answered her: “No, my dear, wait—first live out your time with your husband; and when he dies, labor for another ten years or so as a prosphora baker for your local churches—and in doing so you will deliver your husband from torment.” But she objected: “It is still unknown, father, which of us will die first—my husband or I.” “No, my dear,” the elder answered, “your husband will die in about three years.” The husband, who died three years later, left behind him a large debt, which she paid off entirely, thereby—one may suppose—delivering him from torment. After that she served as prosphora baker for two churches and at last resolved to ask Father Seraphim a second time for a blessing to enter the Diveyevo community. The elder would not give his blessing this time either, and told her to live in the world. When she said that she was obliged to live among young people, Father Seraphim touched her with his hand and said: “The Lord is merciful! Even though young people may try to tempt you, nothing improper will even enter your mind.” And so she remained a prosphora baker for about ten years, carried out this obedience diligently, and at the end of the ten-year term she did indeed enter the Diveyevo community.

Some dedicated their lives to God in the Diveyevo community out of gratitude for healings received through Father Seraphim. An eleven-year-old orphan girl, V. K., from the village of Pogibleva in Nizhny Novgorod province, was present at her own brother’s wedding when, completely unexpectedly and without any apparent cause, she fell down at the entrance gate of the yard and lay there in an unconscious state. A woman from the same village who happened to be there took the sick girl into her home out of compassion. The girl developed a severe internal pain with numbness and hardening of the abdomen. Over the course of two years the attacks of illness intensified and recurred frequently. One time, for the bright feast of Pascha, the sick V. K. was brought to Sarov to see Father Seraphim. When the elder, standing outside his cell, was giving blessings to the people, she came up to him in the crowd. Father Seraphim took her by the hand, led her into the cell, laid his hands on her head, and then anointed her with oil from the lamp—and from that time on she recovered her health. When she turned seventeen she entered the Diveyevo community.

Another woman, E. N., had suffered for two years without the free use of either her arms or her legs, and was finally brought to Father Seraphim for healing. The elder was laboring at that time with the sisters Praskovia Ivanova and Irina Vasilyeva at the haymaking, for the benefit of the community. Catching sight from a distance of the sick woman being led with difficulty by others, Father Seraphim began to beckon her toward him, urging her to walk faster; and when she drew near, the elder, without a word, put a rake in her hands and set her to gathering hay. The sick woman immediately felt a strengthening in her legs and arms and began to work as though she were well. The sisters who were there, not yet knowing that her health had returned, were distressed in their souls and reproached her: “Why had she, ill as she was, dragged herself out to work with them?” But the elder, perceiving their thoughts in spirit, said: “Receive her into Diveyevo, among yourselves—she will spin and weave for you.” Then Father Seraphim fed her dinner in reward for her labor and sent her home. Finding herself completely well at home, E. N. entered the Diveyevo community.

Some others Father Seraphim, in his gift of foresight, designated from childhood, and in the spirit of that calling guided them toward entering the Diveyevo community. Among these was Sister Anastasia Protasova. “The first time I visited Elder Seraphim”—she related afterward—“I was still a small child, together with my parents and with the head of the Diveyevo community, Ksenia Mikhailovna. My mother had long wished to see Father Seraphim, and we all went to him with complete faith. When we approached his cell, there was no one yet there, and we said the customary Jesus Prayer. The father immediately opened the door for us. He was dressed in a white cassock, and his face seemed extraordinarily bright. He said to us: ‘Come in here!’ and told us to venerate the icon of the Mother of God that stood on the table. Then we all bowed to the ground before him, and he, blessing us and giving us the cross to venerate—the crucifix that hung on his chest—said to us: ‘The Lord, who is everywhere present and fills all things, will not leave you either without his mercy. The prophet said: ”I have not seen the righteous man forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.“‘ After that he himself gave each of us a portion of antidoron with church wine, and placed a few dried bread crusts in mother’s kerchief. Finally he blessed us once more and said: ‘Go in peace.’”

“The second time I visited him I was seven years old, with my mother and the Diveyevo head Irina Prokopyevna.”

He likewise blessed us all and told us to venerate the icon of the Mother of God; and since I could not reach the icon standing on the table, he lifted me himself and let me kiss the Queen of Heaven. Then he took my hand, placed it in the hand of Irina Prokopyevna, and began speaking to my mother about the prophet Samuel and various other parables, and asked her: ‘Do you understand, my dear?’ She answered: ‘I cannot understand, father.’ Then he blessed us all and sent us home. My mother, returning to our lodgings, thought that all of this pointed to my imminent death, and she wept all night. In the morning she went again with me to Father Seraphim, unwilling to leave without taking leave of him. The moment he opened the door for us and we bowed to him, before even blessing us, he placed his hand over my mother’s lips and said: ‘Not that, not that, my dear—do not despair.’ And straightaway he let her venerate the Cross he wore. After that my mother was completely at peace.“”

“When I reached the age of twelve and we came again to Father Seraphim, he asked my mother, pointing to me: ‘How old is she?’ She answered: ‘Going on twelve, father.’ Then he said to her: ‘It is time for us, my dear, to betroth her to a bridegroom.’ My mother objected that she was still young; but Seraphim answered her: ‘You, my dear, seek out a widow and bow to her, asking her to take the girl for her son—and she will take her.’ Mother smiled and thought that he was speaking plainly to her about my future bridegroom. But he continued: ‘On the feast days of the Twelve, sew her new clothes, my dear—a little white dress and little red shoes; and at the midnight hour rise yourself to pray, and rouse your husband, but do not rouse her. When she grows and is strengthened in body and spirit, then she herself will be bold for ascetic labor.’ And from that time on, whenever we came to him, he always made mention of the widow.”

“When I had reached the age of sixteen, he plainly told my parents about me, that ‘her path is to Diveyevo, to my community, to the orphans’—and for two years running after that he sent Sister Anna Petrovna from the community to fetch me; and every time we visited him (which happened about three times a year), he kept telling me: ‘The Dormition is waiting for you, and you have no path, my dear, to live with your parents—the Mother of God chose you at age seven, and they are keeping you with them’—this he said about my parents. He also asked my father that we absolutely must build ourselves a cell on a stone foundation, and that no more than four of us should live in it; ‘and the roof’—he said, turning to me—‘you yourself, my dear, put on, and nail it down firmly.’ Once I told him that I was sorry to be parted from my sister; and he answered: ‘Then we will take her along here too.’ I then began to feel sorry for my parents, thinking that without the two of us they would be even more grieved. And so, when I visited him the next time, he said among other things: ‘Now, about the sister—what we discussed: it seems to me we had better leave her with your parents for now, so that she may live as a consolation to them’—and, handing me a prosphora to give to her, he added: ‘Tell her, my dear, that poor Seraphim sent her this.’ From that time we no longer grieved for each other as we once had. When my three-year-old brother Ivan was brought to him, he took the child from the arms of his nurse and, handing him to me, asked: ‘Do you have a garden?’ I answered: ‘We do.’ Then he said: ‘Walk him through the garden, my dear, and say continuously: Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy! He will grow up and become our treasured joy; and feed him yourself, from your own hands.’”

“Once, when I was with him at the hermitage, he sent me to the spring to drink and wash from it, saying that this spring heals illnesses. Then, pointing to the surrounding land in the direction of Diveyevo, he said: ‘This place was chosen for you by the Queen of Heaven herself, and no one can take it away from you. I will build you a little shelter, and you will walk around it, gather the hay, and rest here. And you will have much bread and potatoes, and your own churches, and the church rule will be as at Sarov, as the holy Fathers handed it down to us. The Queen of Heaven will help you in all things, and I, poor Seraphim, always bow my knees on your behalf, and for your parents and kinsmen.’”

“Finally, when he began earnestly asking my mother to build a cell for me quickly and send me to Diveyevo, my mother wept and said: ‘Now we will send her, father, with hope in you; but if you are no longer here, perhaps they will all scatter.’ To this he answered her: ‘No, my dear, before me there were Father Pakhomy and Father Isaiah, who cared for them; now I, poor one, care for them, and after me the Queen of Heaven will care for them.’”

“Sending me off to the community, he told me, among other things, the life of the venerable Macrina, and added: ‘There, my dear—she herself went into the monastery and urged her brother Basil as well. He was a pillar of the Church; but when he was in his studies and grew proud toward his sister Macrina, she brought him to humility through her chastity.’”

The sisters who had entered the community led a strict life, engaged in physical labor and spiritual exercises. For labors beyond a woman’s strength, a male worker-elder also lived at the mill. In the original community, from the time of the first foundress, the sisters observed the rule of the Sarov monks. Father Seraphim, finding this rule difficult for the female sex, gave them his own daily rule, which is ordered as follows:

Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen. O Heavenly King; Holy God (three times). Glory, both now and ever. O Most Holy Trinity. Lord have mercy (three times). Glory, both now and ever. Our Father. Lord have mercy, 12 times. Glory, both now and ever. O come, let us worship (three times). Psalm 50: Have mercy on me, O God. I believe in one God. Then 12 selected psalms, beginning: The Lord is my light. The Prayer of Remembrance: Remember, O Lord Jesus Christ our God. Then a brief daily reading from the Prologue; during Great Lent, read Ephrem the Syrian. During Holy Week—on the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, from various books. One hundred waist-deep prostrations with the prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. One hundred prostrations with the prayer: O my Lady, Most Holy Mother of God, save us sinners.

It is truly meet. Our Father (three times). Rejoice, O Virgin Mother of God (three times). I believe in one God (once). O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner (twice). O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners (once). O Lord Jesus Christ, through the Lady Virgin Mary the Mother of God, have mercy on me, a sinner (twice). O Lord Jesus Christ, through the Lady Virgin Mary the Mother of God, have mercy on us sinners, 12 prostrations; with the prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us, 12 prostrations; also with the prayer: O my Lady, Most Holy Mother of God, save us sinners, 12 prostrations. Then they pray and make remembrance for the health and repose of the community’s benefactors and for all Orthodox Christians. In all other circumstances the sisters of the Diveyevo community were likewise under the obedience of Father Seraphim; they began nothing without his blessing; and if any of them wished to be absent from the community for a time, she would present herself to the elder for his blessing before departing and again upon returning. The following account of the elder’s gift of foresight is known in connection with this practice, related by Sister Evdokia the Deaf.

“I had a married sister who lived in the village of Alamasovo. One day she fell ill and wished me to visit her in her sickness. I at once went to the head, Ksenia Mikhailovna, to ask her blessing for the journey; but the head told me that I should first go to Father Seraphim and do as he should bless.”

I set out, but on the way I became confused and for a long time debated with myself: should I go to Father Seraphim or not? What if he would not give his blessing? And in the end I decided it was better not to stop in on him but to go directly to my sister. To quiet somewhat the conscience that was tormenting me, I fell to the ground, kissed Father Seraphim’s hands and feet in my thoughts, and venerated the brass crucifix that he always wore on his chest. I imagined that he had, as was his custom, blessed me and given me dried bread for the road. Having thus calmed myself, I set out for my sister’s home in the village of Alamasovo.

After staying with her for a considerable time and leaving her in better condition, I returned to my community in a most troubled state of spirit, for I had left without a blessing, of my own will. But the moment I stepped through the convent gates, I was met by one of our sisters, Ekaterina Yegorovna, who told me that during my absence she had visited Father Seraphim twice, and that each time he had spoken to her about me. The first time he said: “Just now, before you arrived, Evdokia the Deaf was here with me; she asked permission to go to the village of Alamasovo to visit her sick sister, bowing to the ground before me, kissing my hands and feet, and venerating my brass cross; I blessed her to go and gave her dried bread for the road.” The second time he simply asked first: “Well, my dear, has Evdokia the Deaf returned from Alamasovo?” and then continued with the same account he had given the first time: “She came to me on such-and-such a day and hour, and so forth, and I blessed her to go.” Hearing this account, I could not help but weep—both from awareness of my guilt and from joy at having found in Father Seraphim such warm good will toward me, a sinner, and such a gift of foresight.

Until 1829, the sisters living at the mill attended services at the Church of the Kazan Mother of God, built by the nun Alexandra. Materials for the construction of a separate church for the mill sisters were being gathered by the blessing of Father Seraphim from as early as 1827. The builders of the new church were Mikhail Vasilyevich Mantorov and his sister Elena Vasilyevna, who, by Father Seraphim’s blessing, served as head of the newly founded community at the mill. Mr. Mantorov, as noted above, had been healed of an incurable illness through Father Seraphim’s prayers, and in token of gratitude resolved to sell his small estate in the village of Nucha, twenty-five versts from Diveyevo, in order to build a church for the community with the proceeds. Two circumstances prompted the building of the new church: the growth in the number of sisters, and the crowdedness of the Kazan Church, which was a parish church in Diveyevo. By the blessing of His Grace Afanasy, Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod, obtained for Father Seraphim through the intercession of others, construction began in 1828 and was fully completed the following year, according to a plan approved in advance by the building committee. This church was erected in connection with the bell tower of the Kazan Church on its western side, built of stone, and had two floors. On August 6, 1829, the altar in the upper church was consecrated in the name of the Nativity of Christ, and on September 8, 1830, the altar in the lower church was consecrated in honor of the Nativity of the Mother of God. The archimandrite Ioakim of the Annunciation Monastery of Nizhny Novgorod, who consecrated both churches, on the last occasion made a detour to Sarov and visited Father Seraphim in his hermit’s cell. By that time, in the front corner of the cell, a raspberry bush had grown up through the floor and on it three berries had ripened. With these Father Seraphim treated Archimandrite Ioakim, thanking him for his labors in consecrating the church. This church exists to this day; early liturgies are celebrated in it and the Psalter is read day and night. Before the local icon of Christ the Savior a vigil lamp burns without ceasing, and before the icon of the Nativity of the Mother of God an oil lamp burns without ceasing, by the testament of Father Seraphim. Father Seraphim sent someone especially to the Nizhny Novgorod fair for the bells for this church, and to Moscow for the sacred vessels, for which he gave his own money. Another set he gave from his own hands to the church warden Ksenia Vasilyevna; a third was sent from Moscow by Princess Golitsyna before the consecration of the church. Certain items belonging to the priestly vestments Father Seraphim transmitted to the community church through the priest Father Vasily Sadovsky. Having thus established the church, Father Seraphim furnished it as well with all that was necessary for divine services. Beyond this, at various times he sent the following icons to the community as blessings: 1) a small icon of the Kazan Mother of God; 2) a medium-sized icon of the venerable Sergius of Radonezh the Wonderworker; 3) an icon of the venerable Cyril and Maria; and 4) a triptych in a silver setting depicting the Savior, the Mother of God, Saint John the Baptist, and certain other saints of God. All these icons are preserved in the community to this day.

After the consecration of the Church of the Nativity of Christ, Father Seraphim blessed the parish priests Father Vasily Sadovsky and Father Ioann Dertev to serve in it every day for a period of six weeks, in alternation. Since the community sisters were women who had dedicated themselves to the service of God, and since they also observed the monastic rule, they performed the non-liturgical services themselves, as is customary in monasteries, without engaging the readers of the Kazan Church—by the instruction of Father Seraphim. The pious church-builder Elena Vasilyevna Mantorova and her novices Ksenia Vasilyevna and Paraskeva Ivanovna carried out the functions of altar server. The choir sisters, who could read and sing, at first sang by ear, then were taught simple congregational chant by the priest Father Vasily Sadovsky; and finally the Sarov fathers Nazary and Kornily taught them to sing the eight tones according to the Sarov melody. To sheet music they also sang the Paraklesisto the Most Holy Mother of God.

Father Seraphim bequeathed, through Father Vasily Sadovsky, the following rules for the mill community: 1) in the chapels dedicated to the Nativity of Christ and the Nativity of the Mother of God, services were to be held without fail on all Sundays and the twelve great feasts; on Saturdays and other days as need required, at the wish of benefactors, or on the occasion of commemorating deceased sisters; 2) on Sundays before the Liturgy, the Paraklesis to the Mother of God and the canon were to be sung without fail, the entire canon chanted: “for this,” he added, “no misfortune will befall you; but if you cease to observe it, you will bring trouble upon trouble”; 3) twelve sisters were to read the Psalter daily in the church, taking turns every two hours, and to read aloud without fail, as it is written: “you will give joy and gladness to my hearing”; “even the angels rejoice,” he would add, “when they hear the reading of the Psalter”; the reading of the Psalter was to continue throughout the year, except during Pascha; during the day-and-night reading of the Psalter, he instructed them to commemorate for health the reigning Imperial House and benefactors, and for the repose of the departed Orthodox tsars and benefactors; 4) all the Diveyevo sisters were to fast, confess, and receive Holy Communion without fail during all four fasting seasons, and some, as they wished, on all the twelve great feasts; 5) the sisters were to chant and read on the kliros; 6) the vestry was to be maintained and all church property kept in order, while the duties of sacristan were to be performed by the church sisters—that is, by chosen devout sisters; 7) before the holy icon of the Savior a lamp was to burn without ceasing, and before the image of the Mother of God—an oil lamp.

In prescribing occupations beyond mill work, the elder bequeathed labors and handicrafts most suited to simple people. Drawing, gold embroidery, and other work requiring deep concentration of the mind and belonging to the arts he did not wish to permit. Ever faithful to his principle, he grounded this injunction on the rules of St. Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian, who urged that in a monastery one should occupy oneself only with those things that serve the monastery’s needs. But in all occupations Father Seraphim counseled strict adherence to the rule: “work in your hands, and prayer on your lips.”

All these rules and injunctions of Father Seraphim were faithfully observed by the abbesses and sisters of the Diveyevo community. Departures from them brought very unpleasant consequences upon the convent. We already know of Father Seraphim’s injunction that in the church of the Nativity of Christ which he had founded, the Psalter should always be read—after the custom of the convent of the Unsleeping Ones—that before the icon of the Savior an unquenchable candle should burn, and before the image of the Mother of God an oil lamp, and that if all this were observed exactly, the community would suffer neither want nor trouble, and the oil for this purpose would never run out. And indeed, the Angel of Peace guarded the convent as long as this injunction was kept—given as it was with special force and as a condition. But one day the church sister Ksenia Vasilyevna, who was under the obedience of Elena Vasilyevna Mantorova, poured out the last of the oil into the lamp, and there was no way to obtain more. This occurred during a church service. When everyone had left the church, she approached the icon and saw that all the oil had burned away and the lamp had gone out. With a heavy heart she stepped back from the lamp and, involuntarily recalling Father Seraphim’s injunction, thought to herself: “if Father Seraphim’s words have proved untrue—for there is now neither oil nor money for the lamp—then perhaps his other predictions, whose fulfillment we have awaited with certainty, will also fail to come to pass.” Thousands of doubts troubled the sister’s soul, and her faith in the elder’s clairvoyance began to leave her. In this distressing state of mind, Ksenia Vasilyevna covered her face with her hands and stepped back several paces from the icon of the Savior. Suddenly she heard a crackling sound. Raising her head, she saw that the lamp had lit; she drew nearer and noticed that the lamp’s glass was full of oil, and on its surface floated two small banknotes. Shaken in spirit, she locked the church and hurried to tell her elder Elena Vasilyevna of the wondrous sight. On the way she was met by a sister who was accompanied by a peasant who had been looking for the church sister and wished to give her something. This peasant, upon seeing Ksenia Vasilyevna, asked:

“Are you, dear mother, the church sister here?”

“I am,” answered sister Ksenia. “And what do you need?”

“Well, Father Seraphim left you instructions about the unquenchable lamp, so I have brought you 300 rubles in banknotes for oil for the lamp, so that it may burn for the repose of my parents.”

With these words he named his departed parents and handed over the money.

The sister’s doubts about the elder’s clairvoyance and the truth of his injunction were immediately dispelled: she was ashamed of them and grieved over her unbelief.

Later, when a new wooden church was built at Diveyevo, Father Seraphim’s church was locked up, the Psalter was removed from it, and the candle and lamp ceased to burn. After this the convent suffered many trials, and among its ascetics there exists a conviction that the Lord permitted this as a consequence of the failure to observe Father Seraphim’s rules. This departure from them was the result of outside interference in the governance of the Diveyevo community.

At the present time, by God’s help and through the prayers of Father Seraphim, his rules have been restored: in the church, as before, the candle and lamp burn without ceasing.

Not content with the injunctions he had given, and looking far into the future, Father Seraphim during his lifetime prepared a site for the construction of a cathedral. He foretold to the sisters the building of it and various other circumstances of the convent. Once there came to him the Diveyevo elder Matrona, who visited Seraphim’s hermitage perhaps more often than any of the other sisters. Instead of the clothing worn by the inhabitants of the convent, she had dressed herself in the poor rags of a wanderer, to avoid reproach and reproof for the sisters’ frequent visits to the elder. Father Seraphim, as if not recognizing her, first asked: “Who are you, dear mother, and where are you from?” When she named herself as Diveyevo Matrona, the elder disowned her, as though he had never seen her and was hearing for the first time that she was from Diveyevo. Distressed by her mistake in coming in unfamiliar clothing, the elder fell at Father Seraphim’s feet and wept bitterly—from repentance, and also at the thought that she had no reason now to go on living if Father Seraphim was rejecting her. The elder, like the most tender of fathers, raised her up, saying: “Rise, my joy, rise: I know who has come to me.” Then, after a pause, he asked: “Which of the three is better: consolation, prayer, or conversation?” Still weeping without ceasing, the elder replied: “Prayer, dear father, is the most beneficial of all”; and he said to this: “You, dear mother, have answered wisely.” He then began to speak to her in consolation, urging her on no account to leave the convent, even when he was no longer in this world. “For us, dear mother, the Queen of Heaven herself has granted the land on which you live. The Mother of God obtained it from the Lord as a gift, and I, poor Seraphim, asked for it from the Queen of Heaven—so no one shall take it from us.”

“We shall have our own cathedral, dear mother. On our own land we shall have our own flocks—sheep and wool. Why should we be downcast, dear mother? We shall have everything of our own. The sisters will plow and sow grain; and you, as the full mistress of the household, cut yourself as much bread as you like, salt it, and eat it to your health. Both widows and maidens will come to us, bringing young girls with them. But we, dear mother, have particular feelings about widows. They judge us quite contrarily. A maiden is gladdened only by the most sweet Jesus. She contemplates Him in His sufferings and, wholly free in spirit, devotes herself to the service of God; but a widow—her mind is all on worldly memories: ”How fine our dear departed was!“ they say. ”What a good man he was!“” The elder Matrona, consoled and having received his blessing, returned home.

Meanwhile Father Seraphim, thinking about the construction of the cathedral, found a convenient location for it not far from the Kazan church, midway between the old and new convents, on land belonging to the landowner E. I. Zhdanov. This gentleman, after the death of his parents, remained the eldest in his family, and single-handedly managed all affairs—which were in a very disordered state. Out of deep respect for Father Seraphim, he sincerely wished to donate the plot of land belonging to him and his family for the construction of the cathedral at no charge. But Father Seraphim would not agree to this. He gave the Diveyevo sister Elena Vasilyevna Mantorova money for the purchase of this site, and, sending her together with the elder Ulyana Grigoryevna to E. I. Zhdanov, he said: “The holy king and prophet David, when he desired to build a temple to the Lord on Mount Moriah, did not accept the threshing floor of Ornan without payment, but paid its price. So here too it is pleasing to the Queen of Heaven that the site for the temple should be acquired by purchase and not received without cost. People offered to give me the land for nothing, but this is not pleasing to her.” After the deed of purchase was completed, he instructed sister Elena Mantorova to copy it by hand in a semi-uncial script and bring it to him. And when this sister had departed to the Lord, Father Seraphim summoned the original deed of purchase to himself. Handing it to the deceased’s brother, Mikhail Vasilyevich Mantorov, who had been away in Simbirsk Province and had just arrived in Sarov, he earnestly entreated him to keep it as safely as possible, and when the time came to build the cathedral, to ensure it was erected on this precise plot and not on any other ground. In June 1848, the late Bishop Yakov of Nizhny Novgorod, acting on the direction of Mr. Mantorov, in whose hands the deed of purchase was held, on this very site laid with his own hands the first stone for the construction of the cathedral church. But the enemy of mankind, who had persecuted the blessed elder Seraphim during his lifetime, after his repose raised up obstacles to the completion of this holy undertaking already begun, so that the church was consecrated only twenty-seven years later, in 1875. Meanwhile, Mr. Zhdanov, after receiving money from Father Seraphim for the land under the cathedral, began—without himself understanding how—to prosper, and brought his affairs into excellent order. He later became the marshal of nobility of the district, had ten children, and enjoyed abundance.

In this way Father Seraphim formed the distinct community known as the Seraphim-Diveyevo community, separate from the convent of Agathia Semyonovna Melgunova.

The subsequent fate of both these communities after Father Seraphim’s death no longer belongs to the story of his life. We note only that they remained in the order established by Father Seraphim until 1842. In that year both branches were united into a single convent, which was named the Seraphim-Diveyevo community and was placed under the protection of ecclesiastical and civil authority. In 1861 the community was converted into a third-class convent for women, and it now numbers about nine hundred souls seeking salvation.

Let us now explain, for the sake of completeness, how Father Seraphim viewed his community and how he related to its members. In spirit he did not separate the mill community from the Diveyevo community, and he regarded the nun Alexandra as the foundress of both; he himself held her in reverence and impressed the same upon the sisters. Thus, in conversation one day with the sister Yustinia Ivanovna, he said: “If you only knew, dear mother, what a servant of God it was who founded this place and rests among you in the convent. Her clothing was much mended, her headscarf threadbare, and her eyes never dried from tears. I myself even now kiss her footsteps. Go every day, dear mother, go to her grave. And at the grave, having bowed down, say these words: ‘Our lady and mother, forgive me and bless me, and pray for me, that as you have been forgiven by the Lord, so may He forgive me also, and remember me before the throne of God.’” These thoughts and this reverence, which he himself was the first to practice, Father Seraphim instilled in all the sisters of the community. He looked upon himself as the spiritual founder of the new community. “I will tell you, my joy,” he said to sister Evdokia Yefremovna, “I have spiritually begotten you, and in all your bodily needs I will not abandon you. I now choose you as sisters to myself, and those who come after my time will be my daughters.” He regarded the newly founded community as pleasing to God and recognized the Mother of God as its patroness. “Know this, dear mother”—he said to sister Paraskeva Stepanovna—“know that the Queen of Heaven herself chose this place for the glorification of her name: she will be your wall and your protection.” Looking into the future, Father Seraphim grieved that there would be no one to whom to entrust the convent after his death, and he often said: after me, poor Seraphim, you will have no father. There is Father Ilarion—a starets (a hieromonk of the Sarov Hermitage)—but he cannot take responsibility for you; likewise Father Isaiah will not take it on; and Father Savvaty could take responsibility for you and be a father to you after me, but he does not wish to (also a monk of Sarov; he later took the great schema under the name Stephen). So I tell you that after me you will have no father.“ As a result he always commended the sisters to the Lord and to the Mother of God. A week before his death, he said to sister Paraskeva Stepanovna: ”Now you and all of you lack nothing; but after my death much sorrow will come upon you. Well, what is to be done? Bear it patiently—that is just the path appointed for you. This is only the beginning now. It was not I who chose you, but the Queen of Heaven herself chose you and gave you to me, simple girls; and afterward people of all ranks and stations will come to you, and after my death, poor Seraphim, great persons will seek you out. They will ask questions—tell them everything then, all that you have heard from me; do not be afraid. But for now, until the time has come, be silent.“ These words of Father Seraphim were fully vindicated by the history of the community. And it is to his injunction to conceal nothing after his death that we owe our ability to describe in detail, from the words of those who conversed with him, his relationship to the community.”