8. The Elder Seraphim’s Influence on the Ardatov Convent and the Zelenaya Gora Community

In conversation with the abbess of the Ardatov convent, E. A., Father Seraphim once said that during the days of his life as a hermit the Mother of God had appeared to him together with the twelve Apostles, radiant with ineffable light and glory, and had entrusted him with the guidance and direction of three convents: the Diveyevo, the Ardatov, and the Zelenaya Gora. Events confirmed this account—both with regard to Diveyevo (as we have already seen) and with regard to the Ardatov convent and the Zelenaya Gora community.

The foundress and first abbess of the Ardatov community was a young woman from the townspeople class, Vassa Dmitrievna Polyukhova.

Out of love for her neighbors, she gave shelter in her parents’ cottage—standing outside the town of Ardatov, apart from the other buildings, on the right bank of the Lemetka River—to a few homeless maidens. For four years they spent their time there in physical labors and devout ascetic endeavors, especially in prayer. Being unable, owing to their distance from town, to attend church as often as they wished, the Ardatov maidens, around 1810, pooled their resources and purchased for themselves a small house in Temnikov Street in the town, not far from the cathedral, together with land of 243 square sazhens. Having moved there, they took on the black monastic habit and introduced a defined order concerning their labors, their cell prayers, and their church attendance. Their house became known by the name of an almshouse. The number of maidens grew over time. They added a new building that served as their refectory and the place for their morning and evening gatherings for prayer. Wishing to form themselves into a community, the establishment finally assumed the form and rules of a monastic common life, and recognized its foundress Vassa Dmitrievna as abbess on account of the strictness and purity of her life. When this abbess died (on the twenty-first of November, 1823), the Ardatov community already numbered about forty sisters. Even before her death, from the time the common life was introduced, the sisters had been under the moral influence of the Sarov elders, especially Father Seraphim and Ilarion.

After the death of Vassa Dmitrievna Polyukhova, the sisters found themselves in extreme uncertainty: they offered the leadership to one another, but none of the senior sisters dared to take upon herself the burden of that office in what was still a difficult time for the community. Wishing to resolve their disputes, the senior sisters went to Father Seraphim, hoping that he would, through his clairvoyance, indicate an abbess to them. They explained their sorrowful situation to the elder, asking his advice and support. Father Seraphim, without answering them directly, turned to one of those who had come, a woman named Evdokia Andreyevna, and began giving her rules concerning the duties of an abbess. It became clear to everyone that the Mother of God was entrusting to her the keeping of the convent; but Evdokia Andreyevna tried to decline this honor, insisting that she lacked the decisive character needed for the office of abbess, and that in the event of the shortages which a community often endures, she would not know how to provide for the sisters. But the elder closed her mouth with the words: “Pray to the Mother of God, stay at home—and God will send from all sides.” These rather inconclusive words were taken by everyone to mean that he was entrusting Evdokia Andreyevna only with temporary governance; and so a year passed without a proper abbess for the Ardatov sisters, while sister Evdokia was regarded among them merely as the senior sister and caretaker. Finally elder Ilarion came and definitively confirmed her in the office of abbess of the community.

Meanwhile Father Seraphim’s hope in Divine Providence for the Ardatov community was vindicated on more than one occasion. During a time of general famine, the community, by God’s dispensation and through the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God, suffered no lack of bread. It happened once that only enough bread and flour for two days remained in the community and there was nowhere to obtain more. Gathering the sisters together, the abbess announced with heartfelt sorrow their extreme want. In such circumstances the sisters had but one choice: either to endure hunger or to disperse. The grievous situation distressed everyone deeply. The sisters, having prayed to God with all their hearts, sent one of their number to Father Seraphim, asking the elder to speak a word of comfort to those who were suffering and to intercede for them before God with his prayers. The one they sent found him at work not far from the hermitage; with bitter tears she fell at the elder’s feet and told him of her needs. On this occasion the elder, departing from the rules of his customary compassion, did not listen to the sister’s words, with visible displeasure forbade her to be despondent and to complain, and even drove her away from himself, saying: “You bow without need, you bow without need!” The sister returned to the convent in even greater sorrow, reported the elder’s words, concealing neither how unwelcomingly she had been received by him. But on the third day, in the morning—when nothing remained to the sisters except their hope in God—they received from an unknown benefactor assistance in the form of flour, from which they strengthened themselves with food that very day, glorifying the Lord.

There were other occasions on which Father Seraphim, by way of warning against calamities, allegorically foretold to the abbess an impending famine, an epidemic among livestock, and similar misfortunes. Thus once, handing her a silver ruble, he said: “This is for you for clean bread”; and then, unfolding and handing over what was at that time a blue banknote, he said: “and this is for the extras” (meaning porridge). Thinking that these words referred to the impending events, Evdokia Andreyevna lowered her head, became slightly lost in thought, and paid no attention to the banknote. The elder, taking the note from her hands with the feeling of a father taking something from a child who does not know its value, unfolded it and tied it in her kerchief, saying that “the sisters should not now neglect money: for soon a need will arise and money will be required.” After this explanation there followed a conversation about the salvation of the soul and the virtues necessary for nuns. Comforted by the conversation and sent off with blessings, the abbess and the sisters returned safely to the convent; the banknote and its mysterious significance were nearly forgotten. But before long they heard that famine was setting in everywhere and that poor people, in order to make their small stores last longer, were mixing pigweed into their bread. “But we,” said the Ardatov sisters, “throughout all that hungry time, by God’s mercy and through the prayers of Father Seraphim, were nourished with clean bread” (without any admixture of pigweed).

Elder Seraphim also guided the sisters of the Ardatov community in all other matters. One of them, zealous for higher ascetic endeavors, asked Father Seraphim for his blessing to wear a hair shirt and to impose upon herself a fast beyond the days prescribed in the Orthodox Church. The elder most wisely did not approve of her intentions and said: “No hair shirt, no extra fasting is needed; live with the sisters as the sisters live, just that: only do not eat anything to satiety; leave room for the Holy Spirit.” Then, as if wishing to reassure her completely, he added that “the place where the convent stands (and the convent stood not far from a church of God) is full of grace, and therefore one can save one’s soul in it simply by following the prescriptions of the monastic rule and not taking upon oneself excessive endeavors beyond one’s strength.”

Father Seraphim took care that the sisters should not be left without counsel and guidance even in those cases when he himself, due to his occupations, was not in a position to give them his time. “When I am occupied,” he would say, “go to Father Ilarion: it is all the same whether it is I or he.” In general he advised them to seek the intercession and prayers of the ascetics of the Sarov Hermitage, perceiving with his spiritual eyes how powerful their prayer was before God. To the abbess Evdokia Andreyevna he often used to say: “Your enclosure is not of stone, but it is more reliable than stone; your neighbors are all as your own.” Despite this, he instructed that the sisters, for the sake of order and propriety, as well as for greater safety, should never abandon the all-night watch. Father Seraphim saw far into the future and years in advance determined the circumstances of the building of a church for the Ardatov community. At that time the sisters attended public worship at the parish church of the Holy Prophet Elijah, half a verst distant from their cells. Someone asked Father Seraphim for his blessing to move the sisters to that parish; but he did not give his blessing and said: “Prepare a rope; I will come myself, measure out the place for the church; the refectory will be below.” Later events explained that by the refectory he meant the spiritual one, that is, the altar, which indeed turned out to be on a lower level because the monastery church stands half underground. On another occasion he sent gilders to the community, saying to them: “Go to Evdokia, go to Evdokia: she will give you work; she needs an iconostasis gilded.” At that time the community did not yet have a church at all. The sisters were much surprised by this strange commission, assuming that these words did not refer to them.

Shortly before Father Seraphim’s death, the sisters of the Ardatov community visited him together with their abbess Evdokia Andreyevna. The elder gave the abbess various instructions concerning her duties and the guidance of the sisters, and finally, completely unexpectedly, began to say: “No, they must be taught, they must be taught.”

The sisters were already singing by themselves at that time, and the abbess, not understanding where the conversation was leading, said: “But we do sing.”

The elder replied to this: “They sing, they sing—but they don’t know the tones: the church will soon be here.”

Full of joy and bewilderment, the abbess asked: “Are we perhaps moving to the Prophet Elijah’s?”

“There will be famine there,” answered Father Seraphim.

“Well then, surely to the Field Church?” (In Ardatov, the cemetery church of the Theotokos of All Sorrows and All Saints was called the Field Church.)

“You will be buried in snow,” answered Father Seraphim. “But God’s will shall descend from above, and great persons will enter into your situation. If you begin—there will be obstacles from outside; but when the great persons step in—all will fall silent.”

All these prophecies of Father Seraphim concerning the building of the church and the gilding of the iconostasis have now been completely fulfilled: the Ardatov community now has its own church in honor of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God, with two side-chapels, built at the expense of benefactors. The main iconostasis in the church blazes with gold. The walls are painted with sacred images. The church has been enriched abundantly with sacred vessels, vestments, and all necessities.

In general, Father Seraphim was truly a good shepherd of the souls of the Ardatov community. The sisters sincerely loved him and obediently followed his experienced guidance in the matters of the spiritual life. He directed them on the path of salvation. He exhorted the older sisters to humble themselves, to be a model of meekness and guilelessness, to bear with the weaknesses and shortcomings of their neighbors, to attend above all to themselves and to care for their own salvation. He advised the abbess to read more often and reflect more deeply on the life of St. Sava the Sanctified. Father Seraphim maintained his care for the Ardatov community until the end of his life. His last act of guidance was the appointment of a new abbess for the Ardatov community. A few days before Father Seraphim’s death, a young woman named Evpraxia arrived at Diveyevo from a thousand versts away. The sisters of the Ardatov community, having learned of her qualities and disposition, earnestly asked Father Seraphim’s blessing to receive her as their abbess; but the elder would not hear of it and would not allow her into his presence. Evpraxia persistently requested to be admitted to him, to be allowed to fall on her knees before him, receive his blessing, and ask for his prayers; but Father Seraphim seemed angered by this and sent the petitioner away from his cell door. But when she, having lost hope and patience of seeing the elder, left him and disappeared from view, he called to himself the sisters of the Ardatov community who had come with her, and pointing with his hand toward the one who had left, said: “Here is your God-given Evpraxia. Love her, obey her in all things, and follow her example.” Concerning this circumstance, Maria Kar., who was then in Sarov, wrote to the recluse Georgy. In explanation of this circumstance her letter added: “And I can only think that Father Seraphim, through his clairvoyance, knew her from a distance and had been awaiting her for the Ardatov community.” Father Seraphim’s helper in the affairs of the Ardatov community was constantly another venerable elder of the Sarov Hermitage, Father Ilarion. In 1861 the Ardatov community was reformed into a women’s cenobitic monastery.

Concerning Father Seraphim’s involvement with the Zelenaya Gora convent, we unfortunately do not have such full and detailed information as it was our good fortune to gather regarding his influence on the Diveyevo and Ardatov convents. It is known only that the Zelenaya Gora convent from its very founding was the object of Father Seraphim’s fatherly care until his death.

While still young and in his early monastic obediences, Father Seraphim was sent nearly every year by the brotherhood to the Zelenaya Gora fair to acquire goods needed by the monastery. On these occasions he always walked around the place where the men’s monastery had formerly stood, reflecting with sorrow on its destruction. Once, during such a walk, he noticed that in a corner of the half-ruined monastery enclosure a small cell had appeared, in which some person had settled for the salvation of his soul. Father Seraphim rejoiced in spirit, perceiving in this event the beginning of the convent’s rebirth. From that time forward he never ceased to support the convent with his prayers, encouragement, advice, and various other forms of assistance until his blessed repose. And already during his lifetime there were not a few women there seeking salvation, and among them Lazarevna, the eldest of the sisters, was venerated as a saint. Today a women’s convent has been established there, with its own abbess.