Sarov Pascha

The great celebration of Orthodoxy in Holy Russia—long desired, long awaited—has come to pass. Once again the spiritual heavens opened, as it were, over the earth, and the earthly Church beheld with reverence a new intercessor and advocate before God on behalf of his earthly brothers, standing in heavenly glory before the throne of God. Henceforth all the Orthodox will cry out to him with one heart and one voice: “O our venerable father Seraphim, pray to God for us!”

There is no need to describe all the details of this celebration for the readers of Soul-Profiting Reading: without doubt, they have eagerly hastened to acquaint themselves with those details through the newspapers. The writer of these lines would like to share the personal impressions he carried away from the Sarov monastery during those unforgettable days.

And what marvelous days they were! Some rightly said that we seemed, for that time, to have returned to the days of the Gospels—as if the Lord, in the humble form of His great servant Seraphim, walked among us. And was it only among us?.. From every corner of Russia came news of the same joyfully grace-filled character: the Venerable one was performing great miracles…

From Arzamas itself, over a stretch of sixty-two versts, long before the celebration (we traveled exactly a week before it), pilgrims stretched in an almost unbroken procession: some went in groups, singing sacred hymns; others walked alone, bent under the weight of their bags, visibly wearied by the long road, leaning on their walking staffs; then one would come upon carts in which the sick were being carried—all of them bound for Sarov, for a spring of healings had opened there, accessible to all, running dry for no one. Old women who could barely drag their feet clung to the backs of the carts… And so it went all the way to Sarov.

Around Sarov, in its forest thickets, along the banks of the rivers Sarov and Satis, stretching some five versts to the west and as many to the east, the crowd of people was dense… And this was still a week before the celebration, before the nearest neighboring residents had even arrived. What, then, was it like on the day of the feast itself? A week in advance, the count already came to roughly 35,000 people; how many had gathered by July 19? They say the number of pilgrims reached three hundred thousand…

I was given a cell in the monastery itself. The windows looked out beyond the monastery walls. And so, in the night hours, through the open window one could delight in a wondrous sight: everywhere little lights were visible—pilgrims who had no room in the barracks built for them five versts from the monastery were lighting their campfires. Spiritual singing could be heard, and on the very eve of the feast they even sang Paschal hymns… The word of the great elder, the Venerable Seraphim, had been fulfilled: “There will come a time when we shall sing the Pascha in the middle of summer…”

The spirit of the people was reverent. Not only in the churches, not only at the holy sites of Father Seraphim’s ascetic labors, but everywhere the people conducted themselves as if in the presence of God’s saint. Although the troops and police were by necessity holding the crowds back even from the monastery walls, although thousands of people had to stand for whole days in the hope of at least entering the monastery’s walls—and wait in vain—not a murmur was heard, not a word of faint-hearted reproach toward the authorities… In the crowd the only talk was of the new and ever-new miracles of the Venerable Seraphim.

To meet in some measure the people’s thirst for spiritual edification, a preaching circle was formed from the clergy who had come to the celebration. Its members included the well-known Archpriest F. N. Ornatsky; Priest A. V. Rozhdestvensky, editor of The Christian’s Rest; Archimandrite Andrei, rector of the missionary courses in Kazan; Archimandrite Sergius, rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary; and the writer of these lines, editor of the Trinity Leaflets. Sermons were delivered at almost all the early and late liturgies. It goes without saying that their entire foundation was the life and ascetic labors of the Venerable Seraphim. Touching incidents occurred in the course of this. When, for instance, Father Ornatsky in his sermon quoted those unforgettable words of God’s saint—breathing love and fatherly tenderness—“And you, when I am gone, when grief comes upon you, come to my grave, and tell me everything just as you would a living man, and I will hear you, and all your sorrow will pass” and so forth—sobs were heard throughout the church; the preacher himself could barely speak for emotion and tears… After the sermons one could often hear the whole congregation cry out: “Thank you, Father, we thank you!” On one occasion I was preaching in the church of St. John the Forerunner, outside the monastery gates. Seeing before me, both in the open air and inside the church, innumerable crowds of people who had been unable to enter the monastery, I chose as my theme the consolation of those who had not been able to achieve the wish of their hearts—to venerate the relics of God’s saint. I had only just said in the sermon, “Many of you, perhaps, have not yet been able to venerate the Venerable Seraphim,” when from the whole congregation there arose a kind of mournful sigh: “Oh, not yet, Father!” I was deeply moved by that heartfelt sigh and said among other things to my listeners: “Do not grieve, my brothers, that you have not yet received what you desire. Know that if you do not see God’s saint, he sees you—he sees your zeal, your heartfelt longing, and blesses you… Look—his miracles are being performed among you, not only in the monastery but at the spring, and indeed everywhere; you hear the news coming from Moscow and from every corner of the Russian land about how close the Venerable Seraphim is to us, the Orthodox.” And one had to see with what gratitude the people received this word of consolation.

But to see the full height of religious feeling in the people—all the strength of the faith by which they have lived for a second millennium—one had to go to the spring of the Venerable Seraphim. It lies three versts from the monastery, near where the great elder’s closer hermitage had been. A spring of cold water strikes in a strong stream from the hillside. Over the spring a chapel has been built, from which the water is channeled into two bathing pools—one for men and one for women. From the pools the water flows into the little river Sarovka.

It is difficult to describe what took place there. For that one would need the brush of a great painter, the words of a brilliant poet. How many sick people were there, and what sufferers! Here truly was a house of mercy, of which the Holy Gospel speaks. Truly there lay a great multitude of sick—blind, withered, lame—waiting for healing. There were those bent double and those paralyzed, those with horribly contorted arms and legs, with disfigured faces; there were lepers, the very sight of whom inspired dread; and finally, those deprived of reason—in a word, here one could observe every form of human suffering, and it was impossible to look upon these unfortunate souls with indifference.

And it seemed as if God’s angel invisibly comforted all these sufferers—as if God’s saint were there, with them, invisibly walking among them, blessing them and, according to their faith, healing their infirmities. The entire road from the monastery to the spring was covered in a solid mass of people; everywhere one heard: “A blind woman has just received her sight, the Venerable one has just healed a lame man, a bent boy has just been cured…” Now a crowd surrounds an eighteen-year-old girl: she had been blind from birth; yesterday she bathed and began to distinguish the sun in the sky as a red spot; today she bathed again and already could tell apart shadows, could see the light, and even noticed the gleam of the golden cross on the breast of one of us—and one could not help recalling the words of the healed blind man in the Gospel: I see men as trees, walking. Afterward we heard that on the third day she began to see everything clearly.

We came to the spring at the very moment when a bent boy received healing there. He had been carried in on someone’s arms, but the moment they held him under the grace-filled stream of Seraphim’s spring, he felt himself well, straightened up—and one had to see his joy, his bliss, as his mother helped him dress. I will never forget that bright, joyful little face, that unearthly, angelic smile! Only the brilliant brush of our great artist V. M. Vasnetsov knows how to depict such faces on cherubim and seraphim.

That same evening the boy was brought on his own feet by his mother to Bishop Innocent for a blessing.

It was touching to see how a man who had been deaf-mute—having just received hearing and the gift of speech—was learning to speak, repeating after others the words: “I am glad, I thank God.”

One scene struck us especially. Standing in a large crowd of people was a woman not yet old, about forty-three, from the city of Verny in the Semirechensk region. She was recounting with tears of compunction the story of her healing from blindness, which she had suffered for nineteen years. “The doctors kept on and on cutting at my little eyes, but it did no good at all,” she said. And indeed, in her eyes there were no visible eyelids or eyelashes. “But now I can see everything clearly, I can see all of you, and look, I am counting money”—she spoke, showing in her hands the coins being given to her for a thanksgiving molieben.

At that moment a young woman pressed through the crowd. Reaching the healed woman, she stared intently at her face and suddenly exclaimed: “My dear! Is it really you?.. But you were blind! Do you remember, you spent the night at my house in Krasnovodsk?” The guide who was with the healed woman confirmed that she did indeed recognize the young woman’s face. And so this Krasnovodsk hostess now threw herself weeping on the neck of the healed woman, tears of joy streaming, congratulating her on God’s mercy. The healed woman, responding to her greeting, said to her: “I remember, dear, that you too complained about your little eyes. Go then, go quickly to the spring, and do not be afraid of anything, my dear—just put your little eyes right under the stream—and you will be well. I have not yet seen my little orphaned children; what joy it will be for them! Our Old Believers said to me: if you come back with your sight, we will believe in your Seraphim… it will be a sin for them if they do not believe now.”

Such were the works of God performed at the holy spring of Seraphim. Near the chapel a great many crutches were to be seen, thrown away by the lame and the paralyzed as things no longer needed. Afterward the people burned those crutches—as if wishing to say: O sickness, where is your power? O infirmities, where is your strength?

From Wednesday the 16th, memorial services for the departed began. The Holy Church prayed for the repose of the parents of the Venerable Seraphim, of the abbots under whom he had labored in the monastery, and of himself—for the last time. How moving those prayers were! One could not help thinking: are we sinners worthy to pray for you, O saint of God? But you were so humble in life that you were ready to ask everyone for prayers for yourself; and now our mother, the Holy Church, prays for you, rejoicing at your glorification by God, and ready tomorrow to sing songs of praise to you… And when the Church prays, the very Head of the Church prays with her—Christ the Savior, as the great mediator between God and men, as the head of the humanity He renewed. Can such a prayer fail to reach God the Heavenly Father? Not only will it reach Him, but it will return a hundredfold into the hearts of those who pray!

On Thursday the monastery received with joyful trembling the Crowned Pilgrim—the Orthodox Russian Tsar, who had come with his wife, his mother, and many members of his royal household to take part in the great celebration of his Orthodox people, to share with that people their joy, their prayers, to bow down to the very dust of the earth before the new intercessor for the Russian land—the humble “Hieromonk Seraphim,” who during his lifetime called himself nothing but “poor,” who kissed the hands of those who came to him, bowed down before them to their feet, and greeted all so lovingly, so tenderly and with fatherly warmth: “my joy, Christ is risen!” Oh, with what heartfelt, thunderous “hurrahs” did the people greet their God-crowned Tsar! The people made the sign of the cross over themselves, crossing their “dear father” and his “dear mother” from a distance, while the Church of God received him with befitting solemnity at the holy gates of the monastery and in the Dormition Cathedral. Directly from that cathedral the Sovereign and all his distinguished companions proceeded to the Zosima-Savvatiev Church, where the holy relics of God’s saint rested temporarily before their official opening, and there he venerated the one who was the cause of this good and radiant celebration. Late that evening, after the All-Night Vigil, the Sovereign and the Empress made their confessions in the cell of the Venerable Seraphim before the hieroschemamonk of the hermitage, Father Simeon, and the next morning, at the early liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral, they received Holy Communion. How edifying was this royal fast observed alongside the other Orthodox faithful, of whom there were many that day!

It is worth mentioning, for the edification of the Orthodox, that our dear Tsar had on the previous day traveled sixty-two versts over country roads, stood through the All-Night Vigil, made his confession at nearly eleven o’clock at night, and yet still rose for Holy Communion at the early liturgy, which begins at five in the morning. And his God-crowned wife shared this effort with him. Then they walked on foot to the farther hermitage—eight versts each way. Is this not edifying?

At noon on July 18, a solemn final memorial service was celebrated for the repose of “the ever-remembered servant of God, Hieromonk Seraphim.” For the last time, to the singing of “Eternal Memory,” the Tsar and after him the whole Church—the whole Russian people in the persons of their finest representatives gathered for the celebration—knelt in humble prayer for the one who earnestly prays for all…

At six o’clock in the evening, a wondrous bell rang out, calling to the All-Night Vigil. It was celebrated, in the presence of the royal family, by a metropolitan, three bishops, twelve archimandrites, and twelve archpriests and hieromonks in the monastery’s Dormition Cathedral.

Around eight o’clock in the evening a procession with the cross came out from the cathedral to the litia, heading for the Zosima-Savvatiev Church—the church so beloved by God’s saint during his lifetime, for whose construction he had once collected donations, in which he had been vouchsafed to behold the Lord Himself during the liturgy, in which he had often received Holy Communion, and in which his holy relics now rested temporarily.

A wondrous spectacle unfolded. Amid a crowd of many thousands, troops stood in two rows guarding the path of the procession. Dozens of processional banners of every kind and form swayed gently, stirred, and gleamed in the still air. Masses of people stood holding lighted candles. And those candles did not go out—as if signifying that the quiet and meek elder, who in his lifetime “did not quench the smoldering flax,” now gives heed to every sigh, every tear of those who had gathered here to him from every corner of the Russian land… And who among them, at those solemn moments, did not have tears? They rose unbidden to the throat, they streamed down the cheeks of all… And then from the Zosima-Savvatiev Church there appeared a procession: the precious coffin containing the sacred remains was carried out on hands. Twelve archimandrites carried the coffin; when it was placed on the bier, the Sovereign himself carried it at the front… We lifted those sacred bearings high, very high, so that they were visible to all the people who filled the entire monastery… The procession moved slowly; it was directed past the cathedral of the Life-Giving Spring and around the Dormition Cathedral, pausing at each of its four sides. People’s devotion cast upon the path money, and linen cloth, and various towels… For the first time, in the litia, in the prayer “O most merciful Master…,” there resounded among the choir of God’s chosen ones the name of our venerable and God-bearing father Seraphim, miracle-worker of Sarov… When the litia was concluded, the coffin was carried into the cathedral and placed in the center of the church.

The All-Night Vigil proceeded in its usual order until the magnification. The reading of the kathismata ended. The hierarchs and all the clergy came out to the center and arranged themselves around the coffin. They sang “Praise the name of the Lord…” The metropolitan unlocked the coffin with a key and opened its lid, which two archimandrites immediately carried into the altar. Suddenly there arose wondrous singing from all the clergy standing around the coffin: “We magnify you, O venerable father Seraphim…” Tears of compunction again appeared in everyone’s eyes… The singing was followed by a prostration before the coffin—the first bow to the Venerable Seraphim as to one glorified by God. It was, as it were, the greeting bow of the earthly Church to its newly glorified intercessor for us sinners…

Unforgettable moments, solemn and tender moments!..

After the reading of the Gospel, prostrations began again and the people came forward to venerate the holy relics—first the hierarchs, then their majesties and the royal family, then the clergy, and after them the people, whose reverent veneration of God’s saint continued throughout the entire night.

The morning of July 19 arrived. After the early liturgies, at which there were great numbers of communicants, at eight o’clock the bells rang for the late liturgy. It was celebrated by the same persons as the All-Night Vigil. There is no need to say that the Tsar and all his companions took part in the common prayer. Especially touching was the moment when the holy relics, during the Little Entrance, were brought into the altar and carried around the altar table to the singing of: “Save us, O Son of God, who art wondrous in Thy saints, as we sing to Thee: alleluia.” When they were brought out again to the center of the church and were being lowered into the oak coffin beneath the canopy of the magnificent reliquary, a woman quickly thrust her hand between those of us who were carrying the coffin, wiped the bottom of the shrine in which we were carrying the holy relics with a white kerchief, and immediately wiped the face of her little daughter with the same kerchief… The girl then and there began to speak: she had been mute… One can imagine the mother’s joy!.. The most pious Sovereign himself was a witness of this miracle; the next day, after the farewell molieben before his departure, he had the little girl and her mother called to him and personally conversed with them about the healing. The celebration concluded after the liturgy with a procession around the Dormition Cathedral, during which the holy relics were carried in the same order as on the day before.

The next day the monastery saw off the august pilgrims with befitting honor, as they departed for Diveevo. This royal pilgrimage will remain forever as a bright memory for the monastery, just as this feast itself will remain forever memorable in the history of the Russian Church and the Russian people. And as those radiant and joyful days were being lived through, the mind sometimes involuntarily turned to the unfortunate schismatics of our people who had removed themselves from their native Church: ah, why are they not here with us! How beneficial it would have been for them to witness all that was happening here! It is hard to believe that their hearts could have hardened to such a degree as not to be moved by all the power of the grace that breathed here so palpably… But alas, they were not here; they did not want to come, all those seekers of new paths who do not know the ancient eternal paths opened by God in the Holy Church—they did not want to come here in their pride… What is to be done with such hardness of heart? How is this arrogance to be humbled—this arrogance that imagines itself to be wisdom?.. If they honestly seek the holy truth, if they wished to be conscientious seekers of it to the end, what prevented them from conducting “the strictest scientific investigation” of all these miracles of God performed here? But they did not wish to do so; they had resolved in advance—like their evangelical forebears the Pharisees—to acknowledge nothing of what the Church and the people reverence with awe: evidently, though one were to rise from the dead, they would not, they would not believe!.. Is that honest?

Reflecting on the wondrous works of God performed in our days—remembering all the miracles of God wrought by Him not only in Sarov but also in Chernigov, in Kursk, and at Borki—one becomes at once both joyful and fearful… Joyful: for all of this is being accomplished before our very eyes, all of it is for us—the most reliable, heavenly, and indisputable testimony to the rightness of our holy faith, our native Orthodoxy. Can all the high-sounding words of the present-day enemies of the Church—all these “allies in the struggle against Orthodoxy”—stand against such testimony? God is with us, and all His enemies, all the enemies of His Holy Church, will be scattered! But it is also fearful… Indeed, never have there been so many astounding, so manifest, so indisputable miracles as in our time… Except perhaps in the days of the first Christians, in the days of persecution against the Church of God… But now, it seems, those are not the times…

And a sorrowful thought arises: is it not for this reason that the Lord is multiplying miracles on Russian soil—to leave us without excuse at His dread judgment? He has warned us, warned us again and again through various calamities—and we do not heed His warnings; we do not live in an Orthodox manner, we do not show the works of our faith. And so He, in His infinite mercy, has begun to instruct us through His benefactions, through His miracles… Thanks be to God that the people revere these signs of God’s mercy—but what of our so-called intelligentsia, our so-called educated classes?.. Open their beloved newspapers for July 19: their ideal, the apostate and renegade Combes, to whom they see fit to devote their editorials on such a day, and some “other” kind of enlightenment—anything but that of the Church… And the soul becomes deeply, deeply pained when one recalls that in the time of Christ as well, the “intelligentsia” of that day treated the Savior of the world in just the same way—and… we all know how the history of the God-chosen people ended…

Let us therefore pray fervently to the Lord that, through the prayers of the newly revealed miracle-worker, He in His mercy will not allow all these schismatics to lead our Orthodox people astray onto the paths of corruption, and that He will enlighten even those unfortunate spiritually blind souls upon whom sin abides, according to the word of Christ (John 9:41), and will turn them onto the path of the radiant truth of Orthodoxy.

O venerable father Seraphim, pray to God for us sinners!

P. S. August 15, one o’clock at night. The window is open. On the square between the Trinity and Dormition Cathedrals in the holy lavra of the Venerable Sergius, the people are stirring… All the past day, in an unbroken procession stretching nearly a verst, they filed along the square before the holy gates of the lavra, climbing up from below the hill and flowing in waves into the monastery. And all of them are Orthodox Russian people, who have come to venerate God’s saint. But they did not manage to do so during the day. They stand even through the night, waiting their turn… They stand five, six, eight hours. What patience! What faith! Lord, bless these humble of heart and strengthen them on the path of life… Here is the strength of our Orthodox Russia! And as long as that strength does not run dry, the Russian land will stand firm, in spite of all storms, all the machinations of its enemies—both hidden and open…

The same is happening in Sarov, and has been happening now for a fourth week… The great saints of God receive with love these “little ones” and continue the holy work they performed during their lives on earth…

1903