With the pleasant authorization of the parish St Seraph of Sarov Street Lecourbe in Paris.
 text written by the Archpriest Dimitri TROÏTSKY
 

 

 

LIFE
OF SAINT SERAPH OF SAROV

 
 
 

- I -

Saint Seraph, miracle-worker of Sarov, large servant of God and intercessor of the Russian Earth, belong to the multitude of the Russian ascetics of the XIXème century who were animated of an insatiable desire of spiritual life, of moral perfection and noble of a dash towards true freedom, freedom which consists above all of the release of the man with respect to the sin. By the rise and the force of its faith, the staretz Séraphin remains for orthodoxe Russian the most glorious representative of his time, and its life by a rise “of degree in degree” does not cease offering a deeply edifying interest.
The father Seraph, in the world Prokhore Isidorovitch Mochnine, was born on July 19, 1759 in Koursk, street Saint Serge, close to the church Saint Serge de Radonège. His/her parents, Isodore and Agathe Mochnine, belonged to famous and rich corporation of the merchants of Koursk. They had also an elder son, Alexis, who thereafter began again of his father and whose descent remains still nowadays. Isidore Mochnine, owner of brickyards, were a large material supplier for the construction of churches and houses. He died whereas Prokhore was old only only three years. It is his/her mother who takes again the direction of the orphan house then, but devotes especially education of his/her children in their inculcating the fear of God, and the respect of the next one.
It remains us little of information on the childhood of Prokhore, but all its biographies bring back two events of its youth. The first, whereas it had seven, was a serious fall on the building site of a church which it was concerned unscathed. His/her persuaded mother that he had died, and in distressing presentiment of this terrible misfortune, went down from the scaffolding of the church but Prokhore was healthy and except. By this miracle, his/her mother could not distinguish yet particular divine protection towards her son.
The other fact was the miraculous appearance that it had on behalf of the Mother of God. At that time, old Prokhore then only ten years fell seriously sick and saw in dream the Very Holy Mother of God who promised to him to cure it. Some time later in the city, a procession with the icon of the Mother of God of Koursk precisely passed in the street where lived Mochkine. As it started to rain, and to take a short cut, the procession passed by the court of Mochnine. The mother of Prokhore pressed herself to present it at the icon and since this day, its state improved. This disease as its fall did not shake to it solid health of Prokhore. The boy grew in force, with a great sensitivity, and pointed out himself by his very good memory like by his virtues of humility and softness which at his place appeared innate.
It should be noted that at that time one learned how to read mainly in the psautier, and the beauty of the churches with their offices printed in the heart of the children, heat, purity and rise in thoughts. The Prokhore young person felt attracted by these saving sources and took taste with the reading of the Holy Scriptures to the church as those done by the adults. Having then learned how to read the Hours and Psautier, the frequentation of the offices became for him of a vital need. This zeal for the Church and the education of the word of God had a great influence on the future destiny of Prokhore. Strengthened spiritually, it was formed in him the decision to leave the world to be devoted to the austere life of monk. This decision matures completely in its seventeenth year. His/her mother intelligent and favorable to Christian piety felt in her maternal heart the true vocation of her son and did not prevent it from carrying out its secret projects.

- II -

 
Formerly, the life of orthodoxe orthodoxe Russian in its many demonstrations, was filled of edifying manners and caused touching solemn habits, if beautiful by their simplicity. If a member of the family were on the point of leaving on a journey to foot or car, everyone was to sit down during a silence full with graces which filled up and those which left and those which remained. During these minutes, a terrible thought could come to them to mind: T there were nothing forgotten essence or important and also carried one in oneself the peace and the serenity of the heart? Thus this Russian tradition was also strongly enracinée in the Mochnine family, and the good-byes of his/her Prokhore son were moving when this one left to venerate the saints of Kiev and over there, in silence, near the saints and by the startzy, to test its decision there to leave vanities of the world.
During the good-byes, all sitted while being keep silent during these seconds thought certainly of many things, requested God, when Prokhore prosterna in front of his/her mother who made him embrace the icons of the Saver and the Mother of God, blesses it by giving him a large copper cross. Only afterwards, it left. It kept and carried this cross over its clothing open on the chest during all its life and until its death. Accompanied by the blessing of his/her mother and her close relations, Prokhore arrived to Kiev. The magnificence of the churches, the abundance of the holy places and the monasteries where many monks lived, got an unutterable spiritual joy to him.
At once, it went to find the staretz Dosithée, a gifted recluse of perspicacity and a very rich spiritual experiment, who lived at that time in the desert of “Kitaïev” not far from Laure of the Caves of Kiev. The Prokhore young person struck, with fear, joy and quivering, with the door of the cell of Dosithée, the recluse. He entered and knelt. Slope of abundant tears, it opened its heart, its thoughts to him, then humbly asked him council. Having received its blessing, it asked him towards which it was appropriate to move for a salutary spiritual direction in order to fight the evil and where it could find this place, this cell, these stones of church which would represent for him sure stages in its spiritual advance.
The staretz Dosithée cherished the young boy and the desert of Sarov indicated to him. Delighted and reassured by the order of the recluse, and after having alleviated its spiritual hunger and having venerated the relics of the saints of Kiev, Prokhore returned for little time towards its birthplace of Koursk, in its family. It then left definitively the family nest for the remote forests of pines of the desert of Sarov.
November 20, 1778, festival day before of the Presentation to the Temple of the Very Holy Mother of God, Prokhore, old nineteen years arrived in Sarov. One can imagine with which feeling moving by humility the young pilgrim saw the monastery that God intended to him. It was in winter, bragged them did not cool the heat of the pilgrim. The thick white coat of snow corresponded well to the purity of the desires of the young man, the imposing silhouette of the pines and of the secular fir trees, by their ornament, said the eternal life that nothing can imprison, nor to freeze, and of the underground forces mysteriously gave to the trees alive and green beauty.
It should be said that the only sight of the desert of Sarov which belongs to the sacred History of asceticism gives to the man a very particular heat. This very picturesque site with the monastery built on a high escarpment and the visible cupolas of the church of Dormition by far in the surroundings, attracts, by its calms monastic and accessible, the tired traveller. There, with the bottom of the hill where the monastery is located, the two Satis rivers and Sarvka meet and in the neighborhoods, it is the thick forest without any dwelling.

III

 
 
In this time, the vice-chancellor of the desert was the severe one but tender higoumene Pakhôme. Resulting him also from a family of merchants, he knew the parents of Prokhore. Thanks to its tested glance, it guessed all the force and the purity of intention of the young man, then accepted it paternally and gave it to the obedience and the care of the treasurer, the hiéromoine Joseph. Near this staretz, Prokhore had to achieve the service of the cell, then like beginner, it was sent to bakery, for the prosphores, and with joinery. It was also to awake the brothers for the offices of the morning and to fulfill the function of sexton.
The whole of the activities of the young beginner did not stop solely with the easy execution of even tiring work. With its great zeal, it fixed its attention on its own vocation, on what precisely constitutes most important and the single raison d'être of the monk. It was put to be rehabilitated, being supervised constantly while aspiring to moral perfection. There, the young man raised with the fear of God, in a Russian orthodoxe family, engaged with strength and zeal on the way of the abnegation: obedience in work, softness and temperance, but especially the prayer, here all that was now its rule of life.
It knew that here, with the monastery, under the rigorous control of startsy tested in their spiritual life, it was surer to him to keep temptations of the world and that there would be more ascetic possibilities of exploits to completely discover in itself the spirit evangelic.
Firmly decided to achieve its exploit spiritually, it engaged joyeusement on this way of achievement starting from the councils of the monastic life of saint Jean Climaque: “As the ship which with a skilful pilot arrives healthy and except at the port with the assistance of God, thus goes from there it of the heart guided by good Pasteur; it rises easily towards the sky, although it was pecheress before… Like that which, without guide goes on an unknown way, and can be easily lost, although it is reasonable, the same is it in the monachism: that which achieves the obedience of its own will perishes easily, in spite of the knowledge of the wisdom of the world”.
This so serious and considered attention of itself on its behavior of monk, was reflected over all when the young beginner assisted with assiduity at the offices while remaining upright without moving, and always in the same place of the beginning until the end. It achieved also strict manner the monastic rule in its cell.
Of course, it is difficult to imagine that Prokhore, twenty years old, could not advance on this monastic way without obstacle nor combat. The thoughts, the sorrows, the trouble, the abatement, these permanent companions of the sin who poison the everyday life in the world, pass as well sure also through the walls of the monasteries. And the Prokhore monk pushed back victoriously and with force these traps diabolic while carrying out the combat in a constant monitoring and by asserting a rule of work.
At his place, Prokhore read the Holy Scriptures and achieved physical work. It read the Gospel and the epistles of the Apostles always upright as well as Hexameron of saint Basile the Large one, the talks with saint Macaire the Large one, the holy Scale of saint Jean Climaque, Philocalie and much of other books to the moral and religious contents. This great knowledge of the Saints Fathers developed in him the capacity to apply all that it read through the various behaviors human being, from there its aptitude to clear up any situation by its decisions clear and in conformity with the word of God.
By its physical activity, it took part in joint work of the monks: floatation of wood, preparation of the logs, and during its rest, it carved crosses out of wooden of cypress to distribute them to the faithful ones. But the prayer and the abstinence were what he liked over all. Become a very large ascetic, fasting, working, the Prokhore monk was already conscious of the direction of the asceticism and the softness of the monastic state. Thereafter, its life was a concrete example of asceticism, of a constant work on oneself, negation of oneself, abstinence, renouncement of the pleasures and the consolations of the world, all that constitutes unfortunately, the batch of a small number of strong people.
Currently and at various times many sports associations appeared where one voluntarily exerts his members, his muscles, and develops it plastic and the rate/rhythm of the movement, which development assistance of the body, with physical health and gets wellbeing and the company approves any kinds of sports. But in same time, which sharp attacks one did not hear and still hear us about asceticism in the lesson of the Church, which is however the gasoline and the base even of any Christian spirituality.
The profane books and newspapers, in majority, are often indignant with spite against asceticism and the monachism, and are opposed to the researchers of the truth and the religious revival. Why, think they, all these fasts, these stations upright with the church, these tears of mortification, this contrition of the sins, whereas it is known as that Christianity is the religion of the joy and the gaiety? and what the monachism would cover it with sorrow and a black dress? God gave to the man, the universe, a family, the life to be delighted, but the monachism which requires the austere refusal of all these goods, that could appear against nature.
It us to seem necessary to introduce this short reflection here on the monachism and asceticism, because on the one hand virulent and contemporary atheism tries to erase surface of the ground the concept even of the monachism, and on the other hand because the orthodoxe ones, by living conditions in Western Europe are obligatorily brought to côtoyer of other designs within Christian movements in sectarian matter, who do not have any teaching on the fast, the asceticism and the monastic vows.
In addition, while referring to old times, we discover that the Egyptian deserts, which amounted then per tens of thousands, proved to be the kingdom of the monks. The history of the orthodoxe Russian people will also convince us by the construction of hundreds of monasteries which in the past emerged to the extreme North, - in populated absolutely desert areas natives the such austere and wild areas of Arkhanjebsk, Oloretz, Vologda, Viatka, the area of Moscow, of Iaroslav, and Pochekhon. These monasteries shone like stars, because the monks and ascetics who traversed the impenetrable forests of this North, then deserted, left everywhere “skits”, monasteries, and so much of other holy places.
The monachism left thus in the Russian company and the private life of the individuals a print of order, peace, of purity, and knew inspired obedience towards the elder ones, kindness, patience, the hope in the mercy and in the will of God, as well as the indifference with the terrestrial goods. Would this be bad? It is true that the Christian virtues require each one this life of asceticism: patience and humility, chastity, softness and abstinence. Thus by nature, of the men who aspire to a peaceful stay out of the noises of the world, become foreign with a life of family, requesting and contemplating the divine things, become they monks.
Why move away them from the asceticism? Teststemyà if flees few circumstances in the life where by having, people the profane obligations? Here, on the contrary, only one rule: that which in is able, this one must achieve the ascetic exploit. Remove the asceticism of the religion, and not only the force which animates this share of the human heart will flee the world, but also will keep silent the source of any other animation.
The orthodoxe Russian people venerated the saint asceticism, sought the life of the monasteries, made piles pilgrimages to live during long years near startsy known and to become thus this torch of faith and piety.
 
Here is the ideal of life which the Prokhore young person carried in his heart. It applied to it of all its forces, in a great spiritual dash and during its first years with the monastery, Prokhore was essential a very severe fast. It ate neither Wednesday, nor Friday, and the other days of the week took food only once per day. With the blessing and the authorization of sound staretz Joseph, the Prokhore young person started to seek the solitary prayer at his free times in the forest. With deepest of this one, it built a hut and there it was damaged in the contemplative prayer. In silence, far from the men, it was devoted with love to its rule of prayer, surrounded of immutable splendors of the nature, which revealed the size of the Creator the Almighty to him.
In 1780, Prokhore, fell seriously sick. Its body was swollen and the disease did not yield to any treatment, undoubtedly a hydropisy which lasted three years, and during which there remained confined to bed one year and half. The unusual respect that the startsy and the brothers of Sarov had for the young monk, also appeared during its disease. The staretz Joseph, the higoumene Pakhôme, the staretz Isäie were constantly with him, and the brothers gave all their attention and their prayer to him. One day, the staretz Joseph requested for the health of Prokhore during the Divine Liturgy. The patient confessed himself and communia. And here that in an unutterable light the Mother of God appeared to him with the Jean apostles the Theologist and Pierre. Our Sovereign, showing to the beginner at Jean saint the Theologist says to him: “This one is of our race”. It posed its right hand on its head and with the sceptre which it held in its left hand, the patient touched. The visible sign of this contact was a cavity on the leg of Prokhore, through which ran out of water and the pus, which made it so much suffer. Then, Prokhore was quickly cured by miracle.
Soon, one started to build in Sarov of new buildings. The cell where Prokhore lived and in which had taken place its cure miraculous, was destroyed and on his site one built an old people's home for old men and a church on two floors; that of bottom was placed under the invocation of the saints Zossisme and Savra de Solovki and that the top under the invocation of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
The Prokhore monk, indicated to collect the gifts necessary to the construction of this church, thus went in many cities and villages of our mother Russia, and like Vekrassov says it: “For him, nothing is distant, it passed from Moscow to the Caspian Sea and the edges of Néva imperial…”. It also remained in its birthplace of Koursk, in his brother, remembered his childhood and of their mother so tenderly loved, who rested out of ground; it went to the cemetery and remained a long time to be collected in the prayer on the tomb of his parents. His/her Alexis brother who managed his business well, made a generous gift for the church of the monastery.
In certain biographies of St Séraphim, one informs us at that time about appearance external of the beginner: “Not much 25 years old, it was of big size, with a pale and round face, the right and frayed nose, eyes light blue expressive and penetrating, broussailleux eyebrows, thick hair of color châtain clearly. It was strong and robust, had an attracting speech, an exceptional memory and a faculty of acute comprehension.
 
 

IV

August 13, 1786, Prokhore was tonsure and accepted the name of Séraphim, which means “blazing”. That which accepted Prokhore wanted to print to him for all its life this flame spiritual which was had a presentiment of already in the young beginner. One year after, in December 1787, it was ordered hiérodiacre and since then during six years it almost always took part in the offices. It reinforced its prayer in cell; the day before of Sunday and festivals, it requested upright all the night without feeling of tiredness and needing rest. Thanks to such exploits, the Séraphim father had the privilege of particular revelations.
Sometimes it saw angels in white clothing and gold concélébrer with the brothers during the monastic offices. The hiérodiacre Séraphim had the particular privilege of a remarkable vision during the Divine Liturgy of the great Maundy Thursday: “When after the small entry, the hiérodiacre Séraphim proclaimed: “Lord, saves the faithful ones and listens to to us' then S” being addressed to the people it finished while saying: “and in the centuries of the centuries”, suddenly there was in him a change, because he could not any more move of his place and say a word. Celebrating understood that it had a vision. The others hiérodiacres brought it in the sanctuary where there remained three hours, sometimes the face very illuminated, sometimes very pale, not being in a position to pronounce only one word. When it returned to him, it told its vision with the fathers Joseph and Pakhôme, his startsy.
“I had just proclaimed, said it, “Lord save the faithful ones and listen to us' and raising L” orarion on the people, I finished, “and in the centuries of the centuries” when suddenly as a sunbeam dazzles me and I live Our Lord Jesus Christ, like the Son of man in glory, brilliance of a light unutterable and surrounded of the celestial powers, angels, chérubins and seraphes, a such swarm of bees, rising in the air starting from the Western doors of the church. The Lord approached the ambon, raised his very pure hands and blesses celebrating them and the faithful ones. Then it entered by the royal doors where its Holy Image is and surrounded by a multitude of angels, it was transfigured while an unutterable light filled all the church. Me, which am only ground and ashes, with this meeting of the Lord Jesus Christ, I was found worthy of his share of a particular blessing. My heart is delighted by all its purity, lit, in the softness of the love towards God”.
This miraculous appearance reinforced its requirement of the solitary prayer; and it more often went, the evening in its hermitage, in forest, requested there all the night and the morning set out again in Sarov.
 
 

 
- V -

 
 
12 September 1793, called by its bishop in the town of Tambov, the hiérodiacre Séraphim, was ordered hiéromoine and as from this day, living with the desert even, it communia the every day. Invested grace of priesthood, with what a devotion and what a love, it achieved the service of the Holy Church! Like a celestial séraphim, it was dedicated entirely to the service of God, was strengthened by his prayer in front of him harms and day; he thought any more neither of eating, nor with drinking, and regretted to need rest and to be able to serve God without interruption. The task of its life consisted consequently, according to its personal expression “in the final construction of the residence of the heart. From now on, its chest carries a heart similar to wax, which conceals in an unutterable joy the celestial visions of which it is inhabited.
At that time the Séraphim father was already well prepared for the great ascetic exploit which was the solitary life with the desert. The vice-chancellor of the monastery, the Pakhôme father, died soon and before dying its blessing gave him so that it begins his solitary activity.
November 20, 1794, the hiéromoine Sérapahim, old 35 years, left in the thick forest to five or six verstes the monastery, close to the Sarovka river, to insulate itself in its cell with the desert. The pretext of this departure was that because of its long stations upright to the church, or of its prayers in cell, its legs had started to swell and of the ulcers had been formed.
Its cell in forest, simple a isba with an entry of some steps, comprised a stove; it was surrounded by a kitchen garden which the father cultivated the summer. It had also hives.
It was equipped with clothing of simplest and hardest with on the head a small used hat, on its shoulders a cassock of white flax, to the hands of the leather pulley blocks and the feet of the kinds of boots, like socks out of leather and lapk ..... One could see on his chest a copper cross, that which his/her mother had given to him at the time of her departure, and on its back a bag which always contained the Gospels. Winter like summer, it always wore the same clothes. With work, it was always of merry and radiant mood. It happened that during its work, its shovel or its spade fall sudden with its hands, while its face took an extraordinary expression, and there remained and motionless thus upright, being damaged in the contemplation of the divine mysteries.
It always worked by singing liturgical songs which it by heart knew like the dogmatic one, your 1: “Universal Glory…” and the ear-plug: “The anchorites are always thirsty for God”. The rule of prayer to the desert was very important and very strict and often, in the place of the prayers of the evening, it made thousand prostrations of only one blow. The Séraphim father nourished so to speak only vegetables; he took Sunday with the monastery of the stale and dry bread for all the week, but distributed it almost entirely to the birds and with the animals of the forest which came until him and it liked. Sometimes it sometimes happened to him to refuse to take bread with the monastery. It arrived at such a degree of fast that during almost three years, it nourished only grass, goutweed, that he cooked in a pot and made dry for the winter.
Sundays as well as the day before and the feastdays, the Séraphim father went to the monastery and during the offices remained upright, then communiait with sacred mysterieies. These days, it spoke with the monks who needed his wise councils, and then set out again with the desert. In a word, the Séraphim father, being consumed love for God, delivered himself to the desert with forms of lapse of memory of oneself and with the rule of prayer. “Insulation, the prayer, the love and temperance are the four wheels which carry the spirit towards the sky” often said it and it was the first to apply it.
During these years, the Séraphim father avoided the visitors by all the means. Usually it humbly greeted people whom it met in the forest and at once deviated. Those which saw the hermit for the first time were strongly impressed. The only sight of this servant of poorly equipped God touched the heart and testified to something of sublime and spiritual while inspiring by the veneration to the men but also to the wild beasts. What a extraordinary table and concerning that the Séraphim ascetic who nourishes his own hands a bear of the forest which looks it with a very particular tenderness and which obeys to him! À ce moment-là, attentively look at the face of the Séraphim father, who shines of a light angelica of joy and of mercy and you will be able to decipher there the secrecy of the humility and obedience of the bear.
But the intensive life of the ascetic excited the cruel spite of the demon which inflicted various tests to him. One day, during the prayer, the Séraphim father heard a wild howl outside his hut. Another time, it felt that a whole crowd of noisy people which struck with her door broke it then threw inside an enormous piece of wood which eight people would have had great difficulty to remove. Sometimes during the prayer, it seemed to him that its cell broke down and that wild beasts threw themselves on him while howling or it saw also an open coffin from which a corpse left.
The Séraphim father overcame all these tests and aimed external by the power of the sign of the cross, but then the enemy redoubled his attacks with a rage even larger; he raised the ascetic and threw it with such a force with ground that its bones should have broken if the assistance of God had not preserved it à ce moment-là. One can think that the Séraphim father tested with his measurement the force temptress of the evil spirits. The naive question of laic about the demons, the ascetic answered while smiling: “They are contemptible. As well as a sinner cannot support the glare of an angel, thus is it terrible to see the demons because they are contemptible.”
During these years, the Séraphim father was elected twice higoumene and archimandrite of the monastery but by modesty it refused these proposals. In front of such a humility, the devil made fall down on him a new terrible misfortune even more powerful when it caused in its heart by very strong temptations a spiritual combat. The Séraphim father pained; indeed that which fixes its attention on its spiritual life, can more severely control the movements of its heart, by an increasingly acute conscience, but then the aggressions of the enemy will be done increasingly strong. Because in the spiritual combat, the enemy often attacks where are concentrated the principal forces in order to better break and destroy any principle of resistance. Calling upon the help of Christ Saver and the Mother of God, the Séraphim father decided to carry out the exploit of the stylites.
 
 

 
- VI -

 
In the forest, halfway between its hut and the monastery, a very large granite stone was. It is in this place the Séraphim father decided to become stylite. Each day, with fallen the night, it remained in prayer, or knelt upright on the stone, and the raised arms it repeated unceasingly: “God, have pity of me sinning…” He also deposited in his cell another stone on which he requested in this same attitude, during all the day. He achieves this great prowess during thousand days and thousand nights. Such a physical effort and an uninterrupted prayer got great consolations to him. The malignant one stopped testing the Séraphim father whose heart had been forged and temptations ceased disturbing its thoughts. However, because of these stations, lasting almost three years, its physical state had weakened and the state of its legs again had worsened. “The man power were not sufficient” will say the Séraphim father on this subject, “I found a force interior and a celestial gift resulting from the Father of the lights who comforted me. When our heart softens, then God is present.”
Already old, the Séraphim ascetic, little time before his death, entrusted to his brothers about these long stations. The stones on which the Séraphim father requested exist still nowadays but there remains nothing any more but one piece of the large stone. Those which came in pilgrimage in Sarov to venerate the Séraphim father, carried pieces in remembering of them. A long time in the orthodoxe Russian families, one piously kept pieces of granite on which was represented the Séraphim father in prayer, and which was transmitted to their descendants.
A specimen of this stone is preserved at the church of Saint Séraphim de Sarov, 91, street Lecourbe in Paris. It is a brought back gift of Russia, of Tsarskoïe Selo, that made Ekaterina Serguievna Dokhtourosa with the author of these lines. There is also a small piece of the mante of Saint Séraphim de Sarov (gift of the Alexandre archbishop, an enthusiastic admiror of Séraphim Saint who called upon it with force). These two holy relics with a little flour given formerly to Sarov, were inserted in the icon of Séraphim saint, who rests on “the analoï”, in front of which a night light burns now in Paris in the honor of this man of God, since already two years.
The tests of the Séraphim father were not finished yet. September 12, 1804, it was cutting wood in forest, when three unknown peasants approached him and asked him money by insulting it with coarseness. Without being useful itself of its axe to defend oneself, quite to the contrary, it posed it and crossing the arms says to them: “Made what you owe”. They struck it with the head with the axe, at once of blood ran out of its mouth and the ears, and it fell stiff dead. Lastly, they bound it, wanted to drown it in the river, but thinking that he had already died, they threw it in the entry of its cell which they excavated thoroughly to seek there money. While not finding, they transfer only one icon and some potatoes. Disappointed, the brigands are reflected in anger, panicked, then took fear and fled.
Little time after, the Séraphim father returned to him, demolished its bonds with sorrow and with the assistance of God arrived the following day at Sarov for the liturgy. À ce moment-là its aspect was terrible, its hair and its beard gotten mixed up very covered with dust, was stuck by coagulated blood. Its hands and its face were strongly ensanglantés, some teeth were broken, its tried dress of blood stuck by place to the wounds of its body. The run doctors of Arzamas, found fractures of the skull, coasts and the inserted chest, and were astonished to still see it in life. When they auscultated it, the Séraphim father fell asleep and had a vision of Très Holy Mother of God who approached his bed with the apostles Pierre and Jean the Theologist, and showing them the ascetic known as: “This one is of our race”. Awaking, martyrized felt a relief and an intense joy of spiritual plenitude. The same day and for the first time since its aggression, it fed from a little bread and salted cabbage.
Saved by miracle of an inevitable death, the Séraphim father remained however five months with the monastery until his complete re-establishment, then turned over to his hermitage. All these wounds added to the after-effects due to the fall of a tree on him changed its appearance. Until hurled there, it goes from now on curved, supported on a stick, an axe or a pickaxe.
Its attackers, of the serfs of the count Takychev of the village of Kremenok, were quickly found and with his request one forgave the criminals who saw it, repented and made him the promise to be corrected, the more so as the Lord himself set fire to their house and thus were punished.
 

- VII -

In 1807, the second vice-chancellor of the desert of Sarov died, the saint higoumene Isaïe, so much liked and venerated by the Séraphim father and his death was a great test for him. Its three startsy, liked so much, Joseph, Pokhôme and Isaïe, to which it owed its entry with the monastery, rested already in the tomb. Very moved, the Séraphim father venerated their memory, to each time it went to the cemetery of the monastery, and collected himself a long time on their tombs.
Become orphan, the Séraphim father was a new ascetic exploit, silence. The desire to pass by this asceticism seized him with insistence. Saint Ambroise of Milan spoke about it as follows: “I saw some much running away myself by silence, not only one by chattering”. It remembered also the words of another Master: “Silence is a mystery of the world to come; the words are tools for this world” and thereafter, he will say itself: “Loneliness and silence generate humility and softness, they lay out the man with piety, bring it closer God and make of him a terrestrial angel”.
Its life with the desert proved now insufficient when it decided to make wish of silence. Now, it avoided the visitors, did not receive them any more in its hermitage, and if it met somebody in the forest, he fell the face against ground, and was raised only when there was nobody any more near him. The feastdays which took place in week, one of the brothers brought food to him to the desert since the Séraphim father had ceased going to the monastery, even these days. One winter, the monk come by a covered with snow way, arrived to the silencer to bring bread and some vegetables to him. As of his entry in the anteroom of the cell, the monk deposited by ground food. Without raising the eyes on him, the Séraphim father took it then gave a piece of bread or cabbage; by there it meant with the beginner what it was to bring to him the following day. Here in what it expressed its silence outside, while the interior significance and the gasoline even of this asceticism consisted with a renouncement of all the concerns and goods for this world. It lived thus in such a silence approximately three years before engaging on a higher way, that of the reclusion.
It was then fifty years old when the assembly of old the hiéromoines of the monastery which started to be concerned with this silent, so that it more often can communier with sacred mysterieies of Christ, decided that the Séraphim father would come either in Sarov, Sundays and feastdays, or which it was to return to live with the monastery. To the memory of its monastic vows which committed it to give up its own will and to live obedience, the silent one thus returned to live with the monastery.
It is on May 9, 1810, which Séraphim the recluse, again crosses the doors of the monastery of Sarov, after fifteen years spent to the desert. The vice-chancellor and the brothers accommodated it with joy and astonishment, but this one was all the more large when the shortly after its arrival, the staretz after having communier with sacred mysterieies, was locked up in its cell without leaving there nor to receive anybody. Its cell was empty separate the icon close which a night light burned constantly, and a log which was used to him as chair. To mortify its flesh, it carried under its shirt, attached to its neck, a cross out of cast iron of five “verchok”. (…) It never carried heavy chains, nor of cilice because it said: “If one offended us in word or action, and that we support offense according to the Gospel, here is our cilice.”
At that time, it really ate very little, and nourished only meals, of chopped cabbage, and drank only water. Its neighbor of cell, Paul was charged to get this rudimentary food to him which it deposited with his door and set out again. It happened that the Séraphim father did not take anything and then the Paul monk took again food.
Its rule of prayer remained as important and difficult as before. In the week, it read all the New Will, and during the reading, it commented on with high voice the Holy Scriptures. Coming close to its cell, of many elected officials listened to his mouth even edifying words. Sometimes, sitted on a book, as if it were dying out and damaged in contemplation, it stopped reading the prayers, keep silent all while being held motionless in front of the icon. Every Sunday and feastdays, it communiait with Sacred mysterieies in his cell. To always live with the idea of death, the Séraphim father had deposited in the entry a coffin in oak close which it often requested, preparing unceasingly at its last hour.
 

VIII

Spent five years of austere reclusion, the staretz Séraphim had weakened a little physically, but the period of its exploits was not finished yet. It broke neither its silence, nor its reclusion even when the archbishop of the diocese of Tambov, its Jonas Eminence (future exarque of Georgia) which wished to see it came in Sarov. Its Eminence accompanied by the higoumene Niphonte, approached the cell of the Séraphim father but the door remained closed. The higoumene wanted to insist that the staretz opens the door to them, but the archbishop was not favorable there and full with respect for the staretz, he says: “One should not insist, it would be a sin”, and moving away from the cell, it left the recluse in peace.
Then, after five more years of reclusion, the staretz Séraphim agreed to receive the brothers and the laic ones in his cell, and conversed readily with them, their teacher with love the Christian faith and piety. November 25, 1825, the Mother of God appeared to him and ordered to him to leave its fence to receive all those which would need its support, its councils and its prayers. At that time, the Séraphim father who then had sixty-six years and with his great experiment of monastic life of a half century, engaged on the way of the “starchestvo”, namely the spiritual direction of the hearts.
It should be specified that the “starchetvo” is the most vital nerve of the true orthodoxe monachism; without him, it is impossible to constantly educate the spirit by the perfect renouncement of its own will and its thoughts. “A staretz with the monastery, it is a queen in a hive of bees, to which is subjected the higoumene him too.” In the writings of the Fathers of the Desert, many touching examples of true humility towards the staretz are. Where a staretz is, it is there that the monks and the beginners find comfort, him which comforts in the affliction, reconciles in the argument, slices the doubts, teaches, builds, and requests with the monk. Saint Séraphim said to the father Antoine, the late superior of Laure Saint Serge: “Would not be a father, but a mother for the monks”. And this applied much more to the staretz that with higoumene or the vice-chancellor. A vice-chancellor must be sometimes formally severe, but the staretz is always tender and good; the higoumene holds the capacity, the staretz the love; it can threaten: “I will drive out you monastery”, the staretz sigh to him, reflect and say coldly: “Make as you hear it”, while making understand that it is offended by the disobedience and nonthe execution of its commands. Also the threat: “I do not love you more, screw as you hear it”, it is much more than “I will drive out you” and in front of such a demonstration of love, the people are ready prosterner and to pour tears of repentance, so that again it forgives them and likes them.
Unfortunately, in the life of the world one knows little the joy of the monastic life, but when one approaches this life, then, via the heart, one manages to know the joy of the contact of the spirit full with graces of the starchesko, and then of many hearts aspire to the saints monasteries in order to be refreshed there, to renew themselves spiritually near the staretz liked and to feel the superiority of the spiritual and interior values on the vanity of the world. And indeed, this spiritual and mysterious contact close to such startsy, will not cease after their death; the love never dies.
It is enough to remember what Saint Séraphim de Sarov said to his/her spiritual children: “When you are afflicted, come on my tomb and tell me all, as if I were alive and I will comfort you”. The hearts which like of such startsy, come on their tomb, or write by far with the monastery: “Venerate dear Père, go on his tomb, murmur to him, your daughter, your sons is in the affliction - helps us very expensive Père…” From these words simple but sincere, diluted tears, one feels well that one appreciates in the staretz his spiritual experiment: “The word of the experiment is a running water which refreshes the heart; the word without the experiment is a water which runs on a wall; the word of the experiment it is pure gold, without the experiment it is only copper”. And of the startsy have such a treasure in abundance. “That which was tried can more easily help that which is tried”. Here is which force full with grace is in the starchesko and the Lord God gives his blessing to the Séraphim father on this way.
 

IX

 
The Séraphim father, over all liked to converse with the monks. He taught the meticulous execution of the monastic rule to them, the zeal for the religious offices. “It is necessary to observe our life like a candle usually made of wax and of a wick which burns” taught the Séraphim ascetic, “the wax, it is our faith, the wick, the hope, and fire the love which links them together; and the faith and the hope - as wax and the wick, burn together under the action of fire. A candle of bad quality emits a bad smell and dies out, thus the wick of the sinner in front of God spreads a stink with the spiritual direction. This is why by looking at a candle which burns with the church, we also think of the beginning, the course and the end of our life; like the candle melts lit in front of the face of God, of minute in minute our life reduces itself, us bringing closer the end…. ”
“This thought will thus contribute us to be less inattentive to the church, to request with more enthusiasm and to make so that our life in front of God is similar to a pure wax candle, which does not release from bad smells”.
In the work of the hello of the heart, the Séraphim father granted a great force to the communion. He advised with the monks and laic to approach the Holy Communion at the time of the twelve great festivals and not to forget to fast during the Lents of the year. He spoke about the salutary importance of the Sacrament of Eucharistie in these terms: “If we poured as many tears as an ocean, we could include/understand the Lord for the life that it gave us in abundance, by its very pure Blood and its Body of which it nourishes us and who wash us, purify us, vivify us and ressuscitent us. And approaches without doubting, would not be confused and have only only the faith”.
The love and humility were qualities all particular recoveries in the discussions with the Séraphim father. Whatever was that which came, poor wretch or rich man, whatever was the sinner, and the state of its conscience, it received them all and tried to help them and to comfort them all “. The every day, as of the end of the liturgy of the morning up to eight hours of the evening, the cell of the Séraphim father was opened with the laic ones, but for the monks it remained always open. Only a night light and candles lit in front of the icons lit this small cell and two windows gave on the pastures to far. By ground, there were sand bags and stones which were to certainly to be used him as bed.
During his talks, the Séraphim father was vêtu as with accustomed of his white cassock and his mante, and when it communiait, it covered the epitrakhil and of the on-handles. The force of its words came especially owing to the fact that what it preached, it put it into practice, because whatever the spiritual exercises that it recommended to the others, it did them itself and achieved them with the assistance of the grace.
“To teach with the others - said Séraphim father - it is as easy as to throw stones top of our church, but to achieve what you signs, it is to carry of the stones at the top of the church”. It accommodated with a very particular love those which wanted to be corrected and which repented their sins sincerely. While speaking with these people, it imposed the epitrakhil to them and posing its right hand on their head it pronounced these words: “I sinned, Seigneur, I sinned in my heart and my body, action, thought, and by all my directions: sight, hearing; sense of smell, taste, touch, voluntarily and involuntarily”. Then it pronounced the prayer of usual discharge, coated with oil coming from the night light by a sign of cross on the face of the visitor and gave him, if it were the morning, of water bénite of Théophanie and the bread.
The people set out again filled of an unusual joy in the heart. The Séraphim father advised with insistence to have always in the heart the prayer of Jesus: “Lord Jesus-Christ, sons of God, take pity of me, sinning” “All your attention and your education must be concentrated in this prayer”, taught it. Put besides that, it insisted especially so that each Christian follows at least the small rule of prayer. “Once waked up, he said, it is necessary to say three times ours Père, three times” Delighted Marie “and once it” I believe in a God “. Then at rest, on a journey, or with work statement the prayer of Jesus and in company of the others, to repeat in thought: ” Lord, take pity “; before the meal, to take again the rule of the morning; after the lunch until the evening, instead of the prayer of Jesus statement: ” Very Holy Mother of God, saves me, sinning “; before falling asleep, repeating the rule of the morning again. That which does not have the time, which he says the rules in way, or on its bed remembering that” all those which call upon the name of the Lord will be saved “and that which has time that he reads also the verse of the Gospel, the acathists, the psalms. This small rule of prayer has a great quality: the first prayer of the” Our Father “is the model even of the prayer given by the Lord himself; the second: ” Delighted, Virgin Mother of God “, was that pronounced by an angel descended from the sky and the third, the Symbol of the faith, contains all the dogmas of the faith.
We mentioned above than the health of the Séraphim father in this time was already well staggering. Because of its many work, stations on the stone and of its reclusion, it suffered from the legs and had strong headaches, which obliged it to breathe the fresh air and to often leave during the night its cell.
Since 1825 (after the appearance of the Mother of God), since the blessing of the vice-chancellor, the Séraphim father went the every day with two verstes of the monastery, at a place which one called the close desert, contrary to its hermitage in forest which was the remote desert. There there was a source of pure and fresh cold water close which a tree trunk held place of vault as there were some so much in the vastness of our fatherland, with crossroads, close to the sources and the wells. On this trunk, there was an icon of Saint Jean the Theologist, and this is why this source was called “Theological”. Around the source, there were plat bands that the staretz drew while lowering the bottom of the source with stones to cultivate vegetables there. On the hill, there was a shelter where the Séraphim Father protected himself from heat and the evening it returned in Sarov. Very early, around four hours and even two hours of the morning, it went to the desert close vêtu to its cassock and its mante, carrying an axe with the hand and a bag filled of stones or sand and especially with the Gospel. And when one questioned it on his bag, it always gave in answer these words of Ephrem Saint the Syrian: “I tire that which tires me”.
At that time many orthodoxe Russian of all the corners of our fatherland wished outward journey to see the Séraphim father and to take his advice. Its name started to circulate by the mouth with ear well beyond the governmental limits of Tambov and the close areas. One could observe in this time with Sarov, during the feastdays, a very large particularly solemn spectacle, when the Séraphim father returned from the church after having communié with sacred mysterieies. The staretz, arched and vêtu of its mante, the épitrakhile and its on-handles, went slowly, with on its face of old man the mark of a particularly radiant joy.
Everywhere on the road of the monastery or the desert, a crowd of people awaited it. Its discussions with the visitors were filled of a great spiritual force, its words removed like a stringcourse on the eyes and opened new horizons. It always said what was most important and most useful in circumstances given. Its words heated the heart, brought to the repentance, generated the desire to be corrected and to improve. It penetrated the heart of the people and awoke their deadened conscience.
The ascetic of Sarov left a very large spiritual will to the younger generations, with the children in their relationship with their parents. At the time current, whereas among the younger generations one sees some much oublieux owe them subsidiary towards the parents, and while the good received councils and the education of the parents do not find ground receptive in the heart of their children, the will of the Séraphim father to a very particular value. The large ascetic taught with the children the respect towards the parents even if the latter had weaknesses which lowered them. As for the lapse of memory of the duty subsidiary of these young people, the following example is particularly instructive: a man arrived to the staretz with his mother who was alcoholic. He was going to inform the Séraphim father of the weakness of his mother, when the staretz posed one moment its hand right on its lips and did not allow him to tell him only one word on this subject.
Thus the faithful orthodoxe ones nourished comfort full with graces of the staretz Séraphim. Sometimes came to him more than two thousand people. Its love heated each one with such a force that often floods of tears ran eyes of those of which the heart which was hard as the stone broke in this day.
The staretz, large zealot of orthodoxy, venerated especially the memory of those which had explained some and instituted the gasoline and it a great attention carried to works of the holy pope Clément, those of saint Jean Chrysostome, saint Basile the Large one, saint Gregoire the Theologist, and also of Athanase saint of Alexandria, Cyrille saint of Jerusalem, Epiphane saint of Cyprus, Ambroise saint of Milan. It liked to remember their solid perseverance in the faith. To safeguard the dogmas of orthodoxy, persuasive the staretz gave the example of the happy Marc d' Ephèse, who with a courage inébranlable had known to defend orthodoxy with the Council of Florence. The Séraphim father also liked to say in what true orthodoxy consisted and was delighted by what our Church contained in itself the truth of Christ in all her plenitude and its integrity.
The ascetic had also a very great veneration for our Russian saints, and it spoke about their life, and drew some from the examples to imitate. In general, the life of the saints represented for him alive letters of which it was used for to teach the people. One even preserved for the posterity of many cases where by simple conversations, it exerted an astonishing influence on indifferent visitors.
“We found the staretz which worked with the desert, a visitor writes thereafter - it demolished a plat band with its pickaxe. When we are prostrate in front of him, it blessed us and posing the hands on my head, it said the tropaire of Dormition: ” In the birth, it kept its virginity… “ Then it sat down on plat band and it ordered to us to sit down, but we remained with knees in front of him without the capacity, and we listened to what it said on the future life, the life of the saints, the intercession and the protection of Our Sovereign, the Mother of God, for us sinning, and about what is necessary in this life for the eternal life. This maintenance did not last more than one hour, but this hour does not have any comparison with all my last life. Throughout maintenance, I felt in my heart an unexplainable celestial softness, without any connection with something of terrestrial. God alone knows as it was infused to me. Previously, everyone spiritual was indifferent for me. The Séraphim father was the first to make me test all the power of the Lord our God, his inexhaustible mercy and his supreme perfection.
Over - all, it had the gift of perspicacity on a very high level. It told itself to the one his spiritual children: What the Lord orders to me, as with a servant, I retransmit it with that which requires it like a useful thing. I consider the first thought which crosses me the spirit like a sign of God and I speak, without knowing what my interlocutor has on the heart, but I believe only that thus God reveals me his will. I do not have clean will and with which seems good, I transmit it. This is why thanks to this mysterious direction of the gift of perspicacity, the Séraphim father, without to have read the letters, knew the contents of it and answered it. Thus, after his death one found many nonopen letters, but the answers had been given of alive sound.
It also predicted the terrible years of the countryside of the Crimea and it said that “Three powers will be assembled against Russia, which will exhaust it enormously, but the Lord will have pity of it and will protect it thanks to orthodoxy.
The staretz with the glance right had also predicted the glorification of saint Nitrophane de Voronej and at the time of the invention of the relics of the saint, it addressed a letter of congratulations to the archbishop of Voronej, whereas there had been at that time no revelation and no miracle on the tomb of the saint.
The Séraphim father knew by the spirit of many ascetics with whom it communicated though they were far from him, and that never they do not transfer it. For example, one knows well his relation filled of marvellous perspicacity with George the Recluse of the Gift of the monastery of the Mother of God, who had had secretly the project to isolate himself even more. Nobody, besides itself, knew this secret hesitation when suddenly a staretz arrived at his place and says to him: “The Séraphim father ordered to me to say to you: ” Don't you have shame, you remained so much of years in reclusion and you would be overcome by such enemy thoughts to leave this place? Does not go nowhere elsewhere: the Very Holy Mother of God orders to you to remain here “.
By this gift of perspicacity, the Séraphim father communicated spiritually with the recluse Daniel d' Atchinsk, withdrawn in Siberia. Indeed, the staretz Séraphim had known to read its spiritual eyes, of what consisted the family happiness of an officer owner of the area of Riazan. This one went in Sarov and asked him to grant its blessing for its marriage to him. The Séraphim father indicated one to him been engaged that God had indicated to him. It lived not far from the owner and the staretz tells him its name. But the officer says to him that it is another that it was to marry. “This will not bring the joy to you but sorrow and the tears” answered him the staretz. The officer Maria according to what it had chosen and less than one year after it became widowed. He turned over to the staretz, then married then that which he had indicated to him the first time and they lived happy.
The Séraphim father had also the gift of cure. He coated the patients who came to him with oil from the night light which burned in its cell in front of the icon of the Mother of God of Tenderness that he called “Joy of All the Joys” and when it was asked him why he did it, usually he answered: “We read in the Holy Scriptures which the Apostles coated with oil the patients and which much were cured. Who is it necessary to follow, if not the Apostles?” And those which received from him oiling cured. By the prayers of the Séraphim father, such a miraculous virtue was also transmitted on spring water of the close desert. This water remained pure many years, the patients came washed themselves all the year and even during the winter and obtained the cure there. In the lives written on the Séraphim father, one reports many cases of miraculous cures, thanks to this water bénite.
Indeed, in 1830, a young officer with horse passed close to Sarov for his military activity and hearing in way the accounts on the staretz, it wished outward journey to see it but was not able to decide, being afraid that the staretz revealed its sins in front of the others and especially its thoughts on the icons. It seemed to him that the work of the hands of man, often pecheress, could not contain the grace and to be an object of veneration. But shortly after it had, with a team of subordinates, to pass by again close to Sarov and there, according to the council of its father, it decided to go to see the staretz and here that which occurred thereafter.
“Close to the cell, there were many people which had come to seek a blessing. Blessing some, the Séraphim father looked at me, - wrote then the officer, and it beckoned of the hand to me to approach him. I obeyed to him, with fear and love prosterna in front of him asking me its blessing to follow the road and to leave to the war at the time, and its prayers for the safeguard of my life. The Séraphim father blesses me with his copper cross which hung on its chest, embraced me, began to confess me, saying itself to me my sins as if I had made them in front of him. At the end of this consolatrice confession, he says to me: ” One should not yield to the fear that the devil prints with young people but it is then necessary to strengthen its spirit and to remember that in spite of our sins, we are covered by the grace of our Redeemer without the will of which not only one hair do not fall from our head. “
After that it was put to speak to me about my error in connection with the veneration of the icons: “As it is bad and harmful to want to penetrate the divine mysteries, inaccessible to the weak human spirit, and for example to know how acts the divine grace through the icons, how it the sinners like us”, added the staretz cures “and not only the body but also the heart, so that the sinners finding in themselves the grace of Christ, are saved and obtain the Kingdom of heaven.” Listening to the Séraphim father, I forgot my terrestrial existence of it. The soldiers who returned with me of the regiment were them also worthy to receive its blessing and it predicts to us that none among us would perish with the combat, which appeared true.
Leaving the Séraphim father, I deposited beside him three roubles for the candle. But the enemy inspired this thought to me: Why leave such an amount of money to the saint father? This thought disturbed me and I hurried to say to him. I entered while requesting at the staretz and envisaging my words to him, says to me the following thing: “During the war with the Gallic ones, a chief of war was going to lose his right hand but this one had made gift with an anchorite for the Church and by the prayers of the Holy Church, the Lord saved it. Include/understand it well and henceforth does not regret your good deeds. Your money will be used for construction of the monastery of Divievo, for your health!” Then the father Séraphim once again confessed me, embraced me and blesses me, gave me a few pieces of dry bread and water bénite that it poured me in the mouth while saying: That the divine Grace drives out the malignant spirit which is in the servant of God, Jean “. The staretz gave me dry bread for the road, of water bénite and especially a prosphore that it put itself in my cap. Finally receiving his last blessing, I asked him to request for me. And there he says: “Mets your hope as a God and requires of him his assistance, learn how to forgive with your next and you will obtain all that you N” oses not demander'. During all the military partner, I fought several times and everywhere the Lord kept me by the prayers of his Juste.”
And here that a day a General arrives to the staretz and tells: “Your prayers saved me during the countryside of Turkey. Encircled by the enemy regiments, I remained only with mine. There was no hope of hello. I requested with enthusiasm and continuously: ” Lord, take pity by the prayers of the staretz Séraphim “, and I ate the dry bread that you had given me in blessing and drank water, thus God kept me intact of the enemy. The staretz answered me: ” The faith and especially the ceaseless prayer of the heart are a very great means of hello “.
Sometimes it showed a true peacemaker for the married life of the already separate husbands. A mother, having lost of sight her son, and come prosterner with the feet from the staretz, found it afterwards three days with Sarov.
At that time the installation of its cell made think of a iconostase. There were icons and much of night lights burned as well as hundreds of candles posed on round plates for the alive and late Christians. The staretz itself explained this manner why there were such a quantity of night lights and candles: “I have many people - he said to Motovilov which venerated it - which is devoted for me and which fills benefits my orphan (chocolate éclairs of the monastery of Divievo). They bring oil to me and candles and require of me to request for them. And here when I read my rule, I mention them each day. And because I could not say to each paragraph of the rule, at the place which it is appropriate, the very many names and which there would be no time to me to entirely carry out it, I put a candle for each one of them in sacrifice at God, for others, several people, I put large a candle, for others still I talks the night lights, and where it is necessary I mention them in the rule while saying: ” Lord, all your servants, for their heart, I remember light, me your Séraphim servant, these candles and this censer “. It is not a human imagination which comes from myself, Séraphim servant, nor a zeal without base, but I will quote you the words of the Scriptures. In the Bible it is known as which Moïse intended the voice of the Lord to say to him: ” Brace, Brace, say to your Aaron brother that it raises day and night in front of me a censer. That is good in my eyes and this sacrifice is pleasant for me! “ And this is why the Holy Church took the practice to light censers or night lights posed in front of the icons in the saints temples and the house of the faithful ones.
 
Arriving at the end of his life, the Séraphim father did not soften the austerity of his way of life. He ate only once per day. He wore a black and thick fabric cassock and to protect itself from the rain or heat, he covered small a mante thick leather, with an opening for the head and the arms. Over its clothing, it was girded of a white fabric and carried the cross of his mother. A rich man asked him: “Why carry you such let us haillons?” The staretz answered: “The tsarévitch holy Joséphat considers the clothing which an anchorite had given him, much more invaluable than imperial purple.”
It slept sitted by ground the back supported against the wall and the stretched legs. It was often put on bricks or over logs and last times, it was put at knees and slept the face against ground, being held the head in its hands what got for the ascetic a particular tension favourable with contemplation; and it was as so already it had left the ground.
With an officer who asked to him whether it could transmit its share something to a relative of Koursk, the Séraphim father by showing the face of the Saver and of the Mother of God made him at the time, this characteristic answer: “Here my parents, but for my parents in life, I am already a death living.”
In this time, whole Russia venerated already the Father Séraphim and the contemporary ascetics regarded it as a great spiritual figure. Certain bishops wrote to him to ask for council. Antoine, the archbishop of Voronej, that the staretz called “large archbishop of God”, venerated it particularly. And indeed, the Antoine archbishop had an inexhaustible reserve of charity towards the others. Itself confirmed this idea: ” The affliction for the others is sometimes more useful for the heart than the affliction for oneself “.
The senile infirmities weakened already the Séraphim father, so much so that it could not go any more the every day to the close desert and receive the visitors there; but its external appearance was radiant and merry. Until its last days, it kept a clear and broad spirit. The well educated people regarded it as an endowed man, felt his powerful spirit and a creative sharp source. Its face had remained pale, its limpid and penetrating glance, and a redness like childish with the cheeks under its thick gray hair.
When the last months of the life of the staretz arrived, it started to speaking about death. One saw it often upright in the entry of his cell close to the coffin of oak which it had prepared. There it meditated on the life of beyond and its terrestrial advance seemed to him so imperfect that it cried bitterly. Bidding its farewell, the staretz said: “We will not see ourselves any more”.
When some emitted the desire to come in Sarov for the Large Lent, the staretz answered: “Then my doors will be closed. You will not see me any more”.
In August, its Eminence the archbishop of Tambov, Arsène, who will become the métropolite of Kiev, came to return visit to the father Séraphim, four months before its death. The staretz gave him a chain, some candles wrapped in fabric, an oil fuel bottle and wool pants. Then it brought to him separately a bottle wine of church. All this meant that the staretz required that it request for him after its death. With the advertisement of its death, the candles, oil and the wine which the archbishop had kept, were used, with the liturgy which it celebrated for the rest of the heart of the staretz. The Séraphim father had ordered to send to certain personalities letters inviting them to quickly come to see it and entrusted to others the mission of transmitting useful councils to them. “Themselves will not see me” explained the staretz.
Its last discussion with laic was undoubtedly very moving and very rich person. The Christians who venerate the memory of our very dear man of God should especially remember this maintenance.
“Make to the good… one you reprimand; reprimand not. You are driven out, supports; you are insulted, rents; condemn yourself yourself, thus God will not condemn yourself; subject yourself to the will of the Lord; never lie, thinks of the good and the evil that you made: happy the man who knows that. Like your next, it is your own flesh. If you live according to the flesh, then you will lose your heart and your body, but if you live according to God, you will save both. Much perished to have yielded to the world; that which does not make the good, that one sins.
It is necessary to like everyone and especially God. Would be good with your subordinates, by reducing their work and not by evil. Give to drinking and to eat, would be right, the Lord is patient, God perhaps knows, and it will support still a long time. Make as follows: since God forgives, also forgives… All that the Holy Church accepted and embraced must be expensive in the middle of the Christian. Do not forget the feastdays; would be sober, goes to the church ............, requests for all: thus you will do much good to them; give candles, wine, oil with the church, generosity will do much good to you. Eat little during the Lent. The bread and the wine do not make of evil to anybody. Thus people lived hundred years. The man did not see only bread. What the Church fixed at the seven ecumenical councils, observes it. Misfortune with that which will add or cut off only one word with that. What the doctors say in connection with right, who cure wounds infected by the only contact; the Lord challenges us, but we do not want ourselves.
Acquire humility by silence. God said to the Isaïe prophet: “Which will look at I requesting if not who am soft, quiet and trembles with my words?” “That which communie will be saved everywhere; but that which communie not, is not with Me”.
This maintenance took place on December 25, 1832, the Christmas Day. This great day, it attended upright the liturgy celebrated by the higoumene Niphonte, superior of the monastery. The father Séraphim communia as with accustomed and after the liturgy spoke lengthily with higoumene. He questioned it on many monks, especially the young people. Then the staretz recalled him that one deposited it with his death in the coffin in oak which it itself had carried out. This same day, the staretz gave to the hiéromoine Jacques the enamel icon of the appearance of the Mother of God with saint Serge de Radonège and required that at its death this one be put in its coffin. It is the Antoine archimandrite, about which it is spoken higher, which had sent this icon of holy Laure of the Trinity Serge.
The end of the year 1832 arrived. The new year 1833 began one Sunday. For the last time, the staretz went to the liturgy to the church of the hospital of the Miracle-workers of Solovki, which was so expensive to him and where was before its cell where it had received the grace of the miraculous cure and the appearance of the Mother of God. It had gathered itself the gifts for the construction of this church and had carried out itself with its hands a furnace bridge in cypress.
The Séraphim father arrived at the church, embraced all the icons while putting at it of the candles. It remained upright during the liturgy, communia with sacred mysterieies and bade then its farewell with all the brothers present, blessing them and embracing them, it says to them: “You Save, you do not sadden, are vigilant. Today crowns are prepared to us”. At the time of the good-byes, it prosterna in front of the cross and the icon of the Mother of God, then it made the turn of the furnace bridge and left the church by the doors north, as if it wanted to say that the man comes in the world while being born and leaves it while dying.
After the liturgy, the staretz, accepted the sister of the monastery of Divievo, Irene Vassilievna, to which it gave two hundred roubles in assignats for the purchase of bread for its community. Then it went to the hiéromoine of the desert of the high mountain of Arzamas, Theoktisk. By leaving it, the staretz says to him: “Remainder to celebrate here”. Not having time to remain in Sarov and not having included/understood the words of the Séraphim father, the hiéromoine from went away. But the staretz still says to him: “Then tomorrow you famous in Divievo”. And indeed, the hiéromoine Théoktisk accepted the news of the death of the Séraphim father in Diviévo and celebrated for him a panikhide there.
This day also, there was at the staretz another moniale of Diviévo to which it says: “Matouchka, which new year we will have now, the ground will pour tears”. The sister did not understand that the staretz spoke about its death. How the Séraphim father spend did the last evening of its life? We know it only thanks to its neighbor of cell, the Paul brother; its cell had a common entry with that of the father Séraphim and the cells themselves were separated by a wall without door. The Paul father was a good monk, humble, never not condemning anybody, and the staretz which had confidence in him said about it: “The Paul brother thanks to the purity of his heart will enter without sorrow the Kingdom of God. He does not judge nor never envies anybody, but knows only its own sins and its nullity”. Although it was not strictly speaking an assistance of cell, since the Séraphim father did not have any, he happened that the Paul father, being his neighbor, helped it while rendering some services to him. The Paul father had prevented the staretz on several occasions, because this one being accustomed to letting burn in its cell, during its absence, of many candles could cause a fire. But the Séraphim father always answered him with that: “As long as I will be in life, there will be no fire, but when I die, a fire will reveal my death.”
January 1, the Paul father had noticed that the Séraphim father had left three times his cell to go to the place which it had chosen for his burial, and while remaining there upright, it looked at the ground a long time, and the evening it sang in its cell the songs of Easter: “Having seen the resurrection of Christ… Shine, shines Jerusalem. O large and very holy Easter of Christ!”. These solemn songs intersected with other triumphing prayers, proved that the spirit of the Séraphim father had risen towards the celestial residences already ready for him.
The morning of 2 January, outgoing his cell to go to the first liturgy, the Paul father smelled an odor of smoke in the entry which came from the cell of the Séraphim father. The Paul father tried to open the door which was closed interior by a hook. He then says the usual prayer of visit to the brothers. There was no answer. Then the Paul father left on the perron and seeing in the darkness the brothers who went to the church, it invited them to check what it had predicted in connection with the fire, thinking at the same time as the Séraphim father had certainly left to the remote desert. One of the brothers who passed, the Anikita beginner precipitated on the door of cell of the father Séraphim and shaking violently it made tear off the interior hook. Since the day hardly rose and that the weather was dark in the cell, one could nothing see in the darkness; one felt only the odor of the fabric coupons which started to burn at the entry of the door, but one did not see nor heard the staretz.
The Paul father and the Anikita beginner are reflected to seek the Séraphim father with touch, lit then a candle, and transfer whereas the staretz was held with its usual place with knees close to the anatoï, the naked head and his copper cross on the chest; its eyes were closed, its cross arms rested on the anatoï, the book of prayer where was its rule of prayer and in front of the icon of the Mother of God of Tenderness. Its leaning head in prayer rested on its arms. The first impression of the two monks being that the staretz had fallen asleep, they tried to awake it gently, but at once they understood that the Séraphim father had emigrated towards the Lord, that its heart had flown away towards another world, a world eternal, while its face continued to reflect the high prayer and the spiritual joy of the late one.
This night, ghost of crossbred, the staretz Philarète which had been illustrated with the desert of Glinka, in the government of Koursk, showed with his/her brothers an unusual light in the sky and said: “Here how the hearts of right rise. Today in Sarov, the heart of the Séraphim father rises with the sky”.
One washed according to the monastic practice the face and the knees of the staretz, one covered it his monastic clothes, and one deposited it in the coffin which it had prepared; one put at it the enamelled icon of saint Serge and one took along it at once to the church.
The news of died of extraordinary the staretz spread all sides quickly. A multitude of people arrived at Sarov. If one takes into account the affection without terminals which the Séraphim father carried to the beings and who cordially invaded those which liked it, then one will include/understand the impact which its death produced. Its words: “The ground will groan of tears and of tears”, were carried out in all their measurement. The coffin remained open during eight days. The day of the burial of the thousands of people found themselves in Sarov even more strongly to feel in their prayer their spiritual relationship towards that which lived now in eternity, and already illuminated by the divine blessing.
The rigorous unfolding of the monastic office of burial, depth of the liturgical songs, and sonorities full with componction of the funeral laments accompanied the late one with dignity, whose dear remainders were descended in the tomb the church from Dormition from the desert from Sarov.
In the church Vladimir Saint of Kiev, our Russian painter Vasnietsov painted around the cupola a work with the spiritual contents called “Deaths of the Paradise”. This remarkable work reproduces with an extraordinary force the aspiration of the hearts of the saints towards God and their joy for the eternity of the divine union. It is in this such so merry take-off towards God that the heart of the Juste de Sarov rose towards the celestial residences to announce then in the world and over all with the Russian people an inexhaustible source of miracles and the great intercession of the servant of Holy God Séraphim by his glorification.


 

CANONIZATION

In 1902, the Saint Synod of the Russian Orthodoxe Church charged the archbishop of Tambov, Dimitri, to examine fall it, the coffin and the remainders of the saint monk and to join together all materials for the nearest canonization of the man of Séraphim God.
At the beginning of the year 1902, the Dimitri archbishop, accompanied by ecclesiastics and people by the civil administration, arrived at Sarov to carry out the task which the Saint Synod had entrusted to him.
One must announce that the burial of Séraphim saint was in the right part of the cathedral of Dormition. For a long time already, the faithful ones had set up on the tomb a beautiful vault and had placed a heavy cast iron monument above the vault.
When one removed the higher part of the tomb, an unexpected table was offered to the sight of the archbishop and all those which accompanied it: the vault had been flooded, so that water covered the lid with the coffin. After reflections and conjectures, the Dimitri archbishop decided not to continue the inspection, drew up an act on the fact and sent a report with all his explanations to the Saint Synod. The qualified engineers and the startsy of Sarov expressed their certainty which water had run in the vault of the saint monk during the plumbing work which had been carried out in this place not less than forty years before. Therefore, the coffin of the saint monk had been in water for several decades; that encouraged the archbishop, who wanted to keep a careful and respectful attitude towards the memory of the man of God, to require of the Saint Synod later instructions.
For the period when the exchanges of opinions to the Saint Synod took place, the divine grace appeared to appear even more extremely for people who beseeched with faith the intercession of the Séraphim father.
The Saint Synod decided that it was necessary to continue the inspection of the worthy relics of Séraphim saint and to make all the preparations necessary to their right canonization.
About at the same time, Monseigneur Dimitri was named archbishop of Kazan and it was Monseigneur Innocent who became bishop of Tambov.
December 17, 1902, Its Majesty the Emperor ordered at the Commission charged to organize solemnities of Sarov to set out again over there and to continue the investigation. The members of this commission were: the métropolite of Moscow Vladimir, the archimandrite Séraphim Tchitchagov, author of the history of the monastery of Seraphim-Diveevo, and prince A.A. Chirinsky- Chikhmatov; formed also part of this commission, charged with a special mission, prince M.S. Poutiatine, creator of the mounting, and captain D.N. Loman, sent on mission by the commander of the palate with a detachment of the Guard of the Palate.
January 9 1903 all these characters took the railroads Nikolaievsky to go to Moscow and, while passing by Arzamas, to the monastery of Sarov. January 10 in the evening this commission arrived at Diveevo, from where, after y to have spent the night, it left the following day at the small day in Sarov.
By a splendid morning of winter, at the time of the office of crossbred, the travellers of Saint-Petersbourg arrived at the monastery. They requested with enthusiasm in the church of Sarov, were confessed, communièrent with Sacred mysterieies of Christ, and in the cell of the higher father, the higoumene Hiérothée, they established the programme of their occupations with the participation of Monseigneur Innocent, archpriest of the cathedral of Tambov, and the architect of the diocese, come from Tambov. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, all the Members of the Commission went in the funerary vault and after a panykhide was celebrated by the joined together clergy, one dismounted and one removed the cast iron monument which we mentioned. When this work was completed, the Members of the Commission, the sexton of the cathedral of Tambov and prince Chirinsky-Chikhmatov, holding of the lit wax candles, went down in the vault filled with water. To go down they had threaded adapted impermeable boots. One passed from the straps and of the cords under the coffin which had the shape of a trough and with the assistance of the brothers of the monastery, one hoisted it and one deposited it on beams resting on the edge of the vault. One put the a little tilted coffin, the place of the head in the raised part, so that water can run out about it by the opening which one discovered in the lower part… Then the coffin was covered with a cage in boards prepared in advance and of a cloth in brocart, one posed an icon over, a night light was lit in front of it and one installed with the head a large silver candelabrum. A panykhide was celebrated at once, the report of the acts of the Commission was drawn up on the spot and Its Eminence the métropolite Vladimir gave his blessing to the daily celebration of panykhides for the starets Séraphim.
The report was drawn up in the following terms:
“In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Saint Spirit. The year 1903 from the Nativity of our Lord God and Saver Jesus-Christ, the eleventh day of January, Vladimir, métropolite of Moscow and Kolomna, Dimitri, bishop of Tambov and Chatsk, Nazaire, bishop of Nijni-Novgorod and Arzamas, Séraphim, archimandrite of Souzdal, Arcadius, archimandrite of Vychenka, Hiérothée, higoumene of Sarov, the hiéromoine Clement, treasurer of Sarov, the priest Tikhon Pospielov, sexton of the cathedral of Tambov, and prince Alexis Chirinsky-Chikhmatov, prosecutor of the office of the Saint Synod in Moscow, achieved the task assigned by the Saint Synod, namely the inspection of the worthy remainders of the starets of holy memory, it hiéromoine Séraphim. After having attended a late liturgy, then with a panykhide celebrated by Monseigneur Dimitri in memory of the starets resting as a God, the people convened for the inspection penetrated in the vault built above the tomb of the hiéromoine Séraphim to the south-eastern angle of the church of summer of Dormition. The cast iron monument which is in the middle of this vault has the aspect of a tomb resting on a support, also out of cast iron, which, it, is fixed on a stone base. This monument establishes in an absolutely undeniable way the place where the happy starets Séraphim rests. On the monument is engraved the following inscription:
“Here the body of the late servant of God is buried, the hiéromoine Séraphim, deceased in 1833, January 2, which, coming from a family of merchants of Koursk, entered this desert of Sarov at the 17 years age and there is extinct at 73 years. All its days were devoted to the glory of God and the moral construction of the orthodoxe Christians, in the heart of which the Séraphim father always saw”. With the head of the monument, western side, is an embossed bronze representation of happy death of the Séraphim father, with the following inscription: “The happy death of the Séraphim father, hiéromoine of the monastery of Sarov and hermit. January 2, 1833”. On the southern side of the monument, bellow, to 2 verchoks and half of the ground, one sees a round opening where people who venerated the memory of the saint monk passed the hand to take sand of its tomb. At the request of Its Eminence the métropolite Vladimir, some beginners who achieved various works in the monastery were convened in the vault at midday to carry the monument described. The monument and its support were carried in the church recently built above the cell of the Séraphim father. Then, the door of entry was closed and some workmen, under the direction of a qualified mason, dismounted the stone base and removed all sand on a archine of depth to release the higher part of the tomb of the starets Séraphim of holy memory. Around 4 hours of the afternoon this part was cleaned. Northern side one noted that it was split in the medium on a square archine and this slit was stopped by three pieces of board. This opening was practiced on the order of Monseigneur Dimitri, bishop of Tambov, which carried out in August of the previous year, in 1902, a preliminary inspection of the coffin and remainders of the Séraphim father on the strictly confidential request of the Saint Synod. One then dismounted this top made up of very large of the same bricks cuts which were exhausted easily. Inside the vault, the people present saw the coffin out of wooden of oak. Considering impossibility of carrying out a meticulous examination of the worthy remainders of the starets Séraphim to a depth of a archine and 14 verchoks, it proved to be necessary to hoist the coffin outside, which was made with great precautions while making pass below the straps which made it possible to raise it and to deposit it on a table especially envisaged in the north of the tomb. After that the people present undertook a meticulous examination of the outside of the coffin and noted that it had following dimensions: for the circumference, 2 archines 12 verchoks and half with the head and 2 archines 10 verchoks and 3/8 with the foot, for the length, 3 archines 1/2 verchok; the color of the coffin was almost black. The bottom of the coffin to the foot, on the right side, as well as the higher part of the lid started to rot and in several places of external surface, with the touch, wood appeared soft and wet. Nevertheless, as a whole, the coffin is solid. After having removed the lid, one noted that the interior walls also wet and in three places were covered with moulds, but one felt no musty smell. In the coffin one saw the Net contour of the skeleton of late, covered with the remainders of his rotted monastic dress to half. The body of the Séraphim father of holy memory underwent the decomposition. But its bones, perfectly preserved, were laid out completely correctly, simply they were a little detached from/to each other. The hair and the beard, of a reddish gray, had preserved themselves, but were not any more in their place. The cushion placed under the head of the Séraphim father was filled with oakum. With its feet it had sandals of bark of birch. Under his hands one found a cross coppers some measuring to 3 verchoks approximately. The finished inspection, the remainders of late resting as a God were covered with a cloth of brocart and one passed around the coffin, the head and the foot, a solid cord of silk at the ends of which a small marked plate of the personal seal of Its Vladimir Eminence was fixed, métropolite of Moscow. Then one went down again the coffin in the vault, one covered it with a cloth of brocart and fall it was closed by a wood shield over which one put a carpet and a covered table of a tablecloth of brocart white on which one posed to an icon of Très Holy Mother of God, called “of Tenderizing”, and one lit a night light. The people having carried out the inspection left the vault at 6 o'clock in the evening. “
The act authenticates was signed by all the people mentioned at the beginning of the official report.
The following day, January 12, the Members of the Commission left Sarov by leaving the vault and the coffin of the saint monk to the good care of the authorities of the monastery. During almost a six-month period, of January 11 at the beginning of July 1903, the coffin remained in the position where the Members of the Commission had left; water ran out drop by drop of the coffin and fell at the bottom from the vault remained opened, so that at the time fixed for the translation of the relics in the mounting, July 3, the coffin had sufficiently dried
I already said that the construction of the mounting had been entrusted to prince M.S. Poutiatine. It was necessary: 1) to make a stone tomb and to fix it on an elevated platform of some steps under the right arc of the cathedral of Dormition de Sarov, 2) to make according to the model of the old coffin in rough oak a new coffin, much lighter than old, which is closed with key and which can be descended in the new tomb, 3) to manufacture with thin small planks of cypress a miniature coffin to deposit the holy relics and 4 there) to fix out of four stone columns a bronze baldachin which was to be the crowning of all the work. Work had been carried out beforehand in Saint-Petersbourg, Moscow and Sarov.
All the following actions of the Commission were accomplished in accordance with the direct and personal instructions of Its Eminence Antoine, métropolite of Saint-Petersbourg.
July 3 at 9 o'clock in the morning, in the vault, in front of the coffin of the father Séraphim, the métropolite Antoine, surrounded by all the clergy, celebrated a panykhide the following which the coffin was raised by members of the clergy and solemnly transported to the church of “the Infirmary” of the saints Zossime and Sabbatius in the sanctuary of which the ablution of the worthy remainders of the Séraphim father was to be carried out. But this transfer did not escape the glances from the already many pilgrims to Sarov. One carried the coffin in the church and one deposited it in the medium on the stone which covered before the tomb with the saint monk. The pressing request of the animated pilgrims of a great enthusiasm and who wished to see and touch the coffin of Séraphim saint, the métropolite Antoine granted to let crowd approach the coffin during one moment, and during one hour, an uninterrupted flood people ravelled in the church to see and greet this crowned thing. When crowd had withdrawn itself, the hiéromoines, passing by the northern door, carried the very worthy remainders of the saint monk in the sanctuary and there the métropolite Antoine, assisted bishops Nazaire and Innocent and other monks, carried out the ablution of the saints remainders of the Séraphim father and their transfer in the new coffin in cypress. Between the furnace bridge and the northern wall of the sanctuary one had put a table on which one deposited the saints remainders of the Séraphim father. The people who took share with ablution were: the archimandrite Séraphim Tchitchagov, the sexton of the cathedral of Tambov the priest T. Pospiélov, the senior of the monastery, the hiéromoine of Sarov under the personal direction of Its Eminence the métropolite; y assisted also prince Chirinsky-Chikhmatov and prince M.S. Poutiatine.
The people present at the time of the opening of the coffin testify that the worthy remainders of the saint monk had been wrapped at the time of the burial in its monastic cover and that its head was capped with a felt cuculle. The Séraphim father was wide in the coffin on chips of oak and, in consequence of the properties of the tannin, all the contents of the coffin, the saints remainders themselves, as well as the gray hair, the beard, the moustache and all clothing of the saint man - his linen, his cassock of fabric, its cover, its stole and its cuculle - all had taken the same color pointing out that of the crust of the rye bread. In order to observe silence, so that no word is pronounced, during this time, in the church a hiérodiacre read in front of a lectern the gun of the office made up for the memory of saint Séraphim de Sarov.
It is also known that at the beginning of the ablution of the holy relics, a perfume clearly smelled by all the people present was spread in the sanctuary; it was an odor of eyelet and all new honey of lime. This day of July clear, was shone upon, hot, and the windows of the church were large open. One had the impression that one mowed of grass some share very close and which this scent emanated from the flowers and the hay crossed. Its Eminence the métropolite, which passed in the church, known as then with those which were in the sanctuary: “my brothers, my brothers, but which soap you took, it really is very scented.” But this soap was that which the sexton of the cathedral of Tambov had brought to wash the holy relics, that one even as one calls “Greek soap” in Russia and than one uses to wash the furnace bridges at the time of the dedication of the churches. Then Its Eminence the métropolite was signed and everyone included/understood which scent was spread in the church.
It should be noted that the worthy relics of saint Séraphim de Sarov line up in the category of the relics of incomplete conservation, i.e. if the perfect conservation of the bones were checked, on the other hand the conjunctive fabrics of the articulations had undergone the putrefaction so that the members with the elbows and the knees had separated a little. The head of the saint monk with his hair, its eyebrows, its moustache and its beard which were remained intact was very well preserved, according to the personal appreciation of the author. The skin had preserved and wrapped the skeleton narrowly also partially well as if it had stuck there while drying so that the hands with the wrists and the feet with the ankles had not separated and the face of the saint monk had preserved a certain resemblance to its iconographic representations.
On its chest, over the stole, a Gospel was, and in its left hand (strongly tight against its chest) there was a cross coppers some - that with which his/her mother had given him her blessing and from which the saint monk never separated. With precaution and respect, Its Eminence the métropolite itself withdrew this cross of the hand of the saint monk to carry it with the greatest care with Tsarskoie Selo and to personally give it to Its Majesty the Emperor.
The empress Alexandra Fedorovna, who venerated the memory of Séraphim saint piously, liberally made gift of an invaluable ECRIN with a gold chain to put this Holy Cross at it and when it came in Sarov for the ceremony from the invention from the relics and canonization from the father Séraphim, July 18, after vespers in the church of the saints Zossime and Sabbatius, it deposited its pious offering on the worthy relics of the saint monk in the presence of the Hiérothée father, higoumene of Sarov, and the archimandrite Séraphim Tchitchagov.
After the translation of the relics of saint Séraphim de Sarov in the new tomb, Its Eminence the métropolite Antoine had left a few times. During his absence, one completed in great haste with Sarov various constructions and other work for the festivals which were to take place. To accommodate the pilgrims, one builds to two verstes walls of the monastery a whole city with more than one hundred very roomy hutments. One built at the same place a whole series of various shops for the sale of the food. There remained more than one week before the beginning of solemnities, but in the small city the life had been organized already perfectly. A crowd of pilgrims had settled in the hutments: women in the ones and men in the others. All these simple people come to taste with the joys of this religious festival constituted a table extraordinarily variegated and picturesque. There the representatives of almost all the people of Large Russia were gathered. Naturally, the pilgrims were for the majority of Large and Small Russiens; but there were also among them much Belorusses, of Mordves, Zyrianes, and various other ethnos groups. All these people from which the living conditions, on their premises, were completely different, constituted here a kind of family, animated of only one thought: prosterner in front of the worthy relics of Séraphim saint and after a prayer marked by the simplicity of the heart, but enthusiastic, to receive joy and consolation for their heart. What a multitude had gathered here while hoping to receive by the intercession of saint Séraphim, a divine help and the cure of the various evils which overpowered them! With each step one met the lame ones here, blind men, impotents and other disabled person. And good number of them, grace is returned from there to God, were cured because of their faith. One constantly intended to speak about case of cures, and they were not only hearsays, one saw also the same people who had cured and who glorifiaient and thanked God for having expressed to them His grace in response to the prayers of Séraphim saint. Close to the source of saint Séraphim, this fountain of cures, one constantly observes manifestations of the grace of God. More than ten cures of patients who limped produced here in only one day. The latter, as to prove that the divine grace miraculeusement had been spread miraculeusement on them, collected their crutches and delivered them to the flames in front of a crowd of people attroupés at the edge of the Sarovka river. Except this source which attracted a ceaseless multitude pilgrims, the vast place in the enclosure even of the monastery; where rose the churches and the cells of the monks, was another also required place. There, before the beginning of the festivities, it is the church hones some on two stages dedicated to the saints Zossime and Sabbatius which attracted the pilgrims particularly. One always saw the people knelt in front of this church, and for the good reason which they knew well that they was there that was, for a certain time still, which was for them a treasure: holy relics of the Séraphim father.
From July 10, the many hotel trades especially built for the nearest festivals started to fill of new come. July 10 Its Eminence the Dimitri archbishop designated by the Saint Synod to take part in nearest solemnities arrived of Kazan. The following day arrived the substitute of the Attorney General of the Saint Synod, the senator V.K. To sand, and saturdays July 12 at 6 o'clock in the evening Its Eminence Antoine, métropolite of Saint-Petersbourg. At the same time, also arrived at Sarov to take part in the offices and processions at the time of the ceremony of the invention of the relics certain representatives of the clergy of the capital, namely the archimandrite Serge, vice-chancellor of the seminar, the Corneille archimandrite, vicar of Laure de Saint Alexandre Nevski, the Gédéon archimandrite, sexton of Laure, the Macaire archimandrite, manager of the board of directors of Laure, the archdeacon of Laure, Jean, two sub-deacons, Hilarion, hiérodiacre of Laure and 60 cantors of the choral society of the métropolite. There was also in the capacity as popular preachers, the archpriest Philosophe Ornatsky and the priest Alexandre Rojdiestvenski.
In accordance with the instructions given by Monseigneur Innocent, bishop of Tambov, one then made a whole series of preparations for the faithful ones. It should be said that the situation of the desert of Sarov is exceptional and far from resembling that of the other monasteries located in the middle of localities and of cities. The desert of Sarov took refuge in a thick forest. The nearest village is with 12 verstes. Only the buildings of the monks gather around the churches of the monastery and apart from the enclosure of the monastery four hotel trades are. It is thus understood that all these pilgrims brought together here could not find asylum in hotel trades of the monastery. The small built city with two verstes of the monastery was not enough either. This is why, in order to answer this urgency, the civil authorities had installed hutments on all the sides, apart from the monastery, not far from the roads. The authority diocésaine, for its part, had recognized that it was necessary to build vaults for each group of hutments and to equip them with all that was essential to the celebration of the panykhides and with Te Deum. In these vaults, one always found priests of service and cantors to sing the prayers. It is there that one distributed to the crowd of small icons of Séraphim saint, the “bulletins of the church of the Holy Trinity”, of the booklets with religious contents. To ensure the service all these places, Monseigneur Innocent had made come 30 hiéromoines from the monasteries of the dioceses from Nijni-Novgorod, Tambov and Kharkov, as many priests of the districts north of the diocese of Tambov and to 150 beginners and clerks. Each day, the processions started from these hutments distant in direction from the monastery where, on a hillock, was celebrated solemn vigils and songs of thanksgiving.
Sunday July 13, at the request of the sisters of the convent of Diveevo, Its Eminence the métropolite Antoine, with the participation of the bishops Nazaire de Nijni-Novgorod and Innocent of Tambov, celebrated there a liturgy in the church cathedral of the Trinity. Many personal objects of the Séraphim father is preserved at the convent Diveevo. Shortly after the death of the saint monk, the chocolate éclairs transported its cells of hermit there, “the close desert” and “the small remote desert”. The first small isba is in the same state where it was alive happy starets and second was transformed into sanctuary in the church of Transfiguration. In this church four windows were installed where the objects of the saint monk are preserved: its liturgical stole, its cover, its books, its cap, its camail, its hoe, its hatchet, its sandals, its pulley blocks, a wick of hair, part of the stone on which it requested, its knife, its bottoms, its boots and still some other things. In the sanctuary the stool is which was in the cell of the saint monk. The icon of the Queen of the Skies, “the Virgin of Tenderizing”, painted on a fabric tended on a board of cypress, which was with the monastery in the cell of the Séraphim father, is enchased in a small cupboard special and covered with an invaluable trimming; it is close to a column in the left part of the cathedral of the Holy Trinity of the convent of Diveevo. Of the four side chapels of the cathedral, a remainder not devoted since 1875 because the sisters of Diveevo believed so extremely in the holiness of the Séraphim father and his future canonization until they patiently waited this day to devote it to its saint name.
July 15, the day of the commemoration of the illuminator of the Russian ground, holy Vladimir, equal to the apostles, the church of the monastery of “the Vivifying Source”, His Eminence Dimitri, archbishop of Kazan, celebrated a Divine Liturgy following which Te Deum for Vladimir saint, equal to the apostles, was celebrated by His Eminence the métropolite Antoine with the Dimitri archbishop and the bishops Nazaire and Innocent. After the liturgy, priest A.V. Rojdiestvenski pronounced an edifying homélie. The following day, the large bell sounded and at midday, in the cathedral of Dormition a solemn panykhide was celebrated with the commemoration of Their Majesties the sovereigns and sovereign, since the empress Elisabeth Pétrovna to Alexandre III including, of Monseigneur Victor, bishop of Vladimir who had ordered the father Séraphim hiérodiacre, of Monseigneur Theophilus, bishop of Tambov who had ordered it hiéromoine and of all the late archpriests of Tambov, of the parents of saint Séraphim, Isidore and Agathe, and also of all higoumenes and late founders of Sarov which the saint monk had known. At the same time one celebrated also panykhides in the other churches of the monasteries and in the vaults installed close to the source, the “small deserts”, the hutments, etc In the cathedral of Dormition, Its Eminence the métropolite and the bishops were assisted by 11 archimandrites and 19 archpriests, priests and hiéromoines. The cathedral was full people in prayers. Two choruses took part in the office: that of the métropolite under the direction of Mr. Ternov and the chorus of évêché of Tambov. The panykhide lasted more than one hour and half.
The same day, at 6 a.m., in the cathedral of Dormition and the church of the “Vivifying Source”, but also in certain churches of the monasteries where the priests were not occupied receiving the confessions of the pilgrims, vigils for the late ones were celebrated. In the cathedral of Dormition, the office was celebrated by Its Eminence the métropolite Antoine and Monseigneur Innocent, and in the church of the “Source Vivifying” by Its Eminence the Dimitri archbishop and Monseigneur Nazaire. The name of the hiéromoine Séraphim of holy memory was mentioned in the litanies.
July 17, as of the first hours of the morning, the pilgrims invaded the monastery in on this side and beyond the enclosure. This day, the processions of the moniales of the two convents of Séraphim saint were to come in Sarov. At seven hours precise of the morning, by a beautiful shone upon time, a procession left the monastery of Sarov to go to the meeting of the moniales. The crosses, the icons and the banners were carried by the representatives of the company of the carriers of banners, come from various places to take part in solemnities. Monseigneur Innocent and of many monks and priests accompanied them. The procession crossed the Satis river and stopped to await that of the moniales, at the place called place of the last torment, in an open vault out of wooden on all sides, which one had temporarily built here. Around 8 a.m., one lives to leave the forest the procession of the moniales. The two processions met to make of it more that one and, moving towards the doors of the monastery, formed a majestic and solemn procession. On all the course, were held of innumerable crowd of pilgrims. The carriers of banners come from various places of the governments of Moscow, Iaroslav, Vladimir, Toula, Nijni-Novgorod and Riazan contributed much to the magnificence of the procession. Each one brought in gift to the monastery one or two banners, from which several were characterized by their price and their artistic quality. At 9 a.m., the bells sounded for the liturgy. This office of late, celebrated in the cathedral of Dormition by Its Eminence the métropolite Antoine and the Nazaire bishop, who pronounced also a homélie devoted to the memory of Séraphim saint, was characterized by a particular beauty. Here are words of Monseigneur Nazaire:
- Thus, beloved brothers, we arrived at the luminous days of the great festival of the canonization of our very worthy and holy Séraphim father. Come from various places, close relations and very distant, we gathered in this monastery, in this church, close to this place of the ascetic exploits of the saint monk and of its eternal rest, we gathered driven by the same feelings of pious veneration and love which made run towards him lasting a century almost, of sound living and still after its happy dead, the orthodoxe Russian people. We are run here to take part in this great festival of the Church and to even live this merry spiritual meeting with that one which is glorifié, our brother in the faith with the Christ who, by the grace of God, knows celestial glory. Here is a young man, high in a family with the old religious principles, in fear of God and in close relation with the Church, which is attracted by the ascetic exploits and leaves his/her mother and her country and comes to be fixed under the shades of the monastery of Sarov. Alarm and merry, it takes the route of the monastic abnegation and, “like iron with the blacksmith”, it is given completely to God; obedience in work, softness, the abstinence and especially the prayer, “queen of the virtues”, constitute its life. With what a veneration and what a love it is devoted to the service of the Church after having received sacerdotal ordination! Like celestial Séraphim, it is put entirely at the service of God, taking care in prayer in front of Him day and night; he forgets to drink and eat and regrets to need to take a little rest and to be able to serve God permanently. “To have the spirit diverted of all that is terrestrial and as far as allows it the human weakness, to link with Christ” - here what constitutes now the goal of its life, - “the final installation of the house of the heart” according to its own expression. From now on it “carries in its chest a heart which melts as of wax to the heat of the inexpressible joy of the celestial visions which come to him”. There is no end with the improvement of the human spirit, created with the image and the resemblance of God; there are no limits with the love which the man owes with God, his Creator and Saver; there are no either terminals with such exploits of abnegation which would frighten a Christian loving truly God. And here that burning love for God, Séraphim leaves in the forest to live entirely with God and as a God, and will achieve all kinds of acts of abnegation, all the exploits of the eremitic life. “Insulation, prayer, love and abstinence are the quadriga which carries the spirit in the sky” said it many times by informing the others, and itself took this advice in particular, without failure. It is arranged to firmly barricade the forest path which leads to its cell of the desert and is plunged entire in the prayer, the thought of God, the reading of the Divine Word and the writings of the Fathers of the Church, - and it requests during thousand days and thousand nights on a stone, with an astonishing leniency it undergoes the aggression of gangsters who coil it blows in extreme cases of death, and it forgives them and asks only one thing: that they are not continued. With regard to the wish of abstinence, holy Séraphim chooses to fill it in most difficult, but also most fertile of all the exploits of abstinence, i.e.: the wish of silence. “From insulation and silence is born the tenderizing and softness” said it later. “They raise the man towards piety, bring it closer God and make of him a kind of angel terrestrial”. Many, various but also consequent were all the exploits of the happy starets in its “desert” and its cell isolated from the monastery. These steps which it climbed step by step, firmly, guided by the divine grace to rise with this degree of holiness and purity to which it is given to see God. And it saw the Lord, it saw It and it spoke with His Very Pure Mother, it saw the saints angels. Its glance also penetrated in the folds of the heart and of the spirit of the men and with an astonishing perspicacity it distinguished the future of some, it entered in spiritual relation with people, whatever the distance which separated them. And when, on the order of the Mother of God, it put an end to its ascetic exploits of reclusion and silence and opened the door of its cell to speak, at the beginning with the monks, and then with the laic ones, which love for the man showed it in the world. Day and night one came to see it, one with his doubts, the other with his misery and its sorrow, the third with its diseases, and hardened the faith of the ones to him, comforted the others by directing their thoughts towards God, the Dispenser of peace and of the joy, miraculeusement cured the third of the affections of their body. The orthodoxe Russian people saw in him an elected official of God, large Juste, it recognized its holiness whereas it was still in life and was put to also venerate it like saint after his happy death. Just as of living of the saint starets, of immense crowd forwarded themselves to her small desert to see it, receive its blessing, a consolation or a cure, in the same way after its death, of crowd even more, with the same needs, started to flow towards its tomb, the places of its life of hermit, near the source which it had made flash back. In their conscience, the faithful ones did not make distinction between the Séraphim father living or dead, just as there is no difference between the alive ones and deaths for the Lord. (Epistle with the Romans 14, 8) And holy Séraphim itself did not change its behavior with people after his death. Now, like before, it does not cease requesting and interceding for them near God; also maintaining it is sympathizing and sensitive to the misery and the sorrow of the men and it hastens towards those which run towards him to lavish its generous assistance to them: it comforts, it saves, it cures; also maintaining it is alive and close to all those which venerate it and like it. - Here are which enters to a moniale sick of Diveevo and known as: “I came to return visit to my poor; I had not come for a long time”, then it makes a sign of cross on the patient and this one cures; it appears with another moniale, patient it also, and when this one requires of him: “Es this you, father? ”, he says to him: “That you have little faith, my joy, it is yourself which claimed me and here that you do not believe it”. It comforted many other patients or their parents and their close relations in their saying with softness and love: “Does not cry, is not afflicted, your daughter will live and go well”; “Am not afraid, my daughter, you will know a great joy, you will see the image of the Mother of God”; “My joy, I am always with you, courage, does not let myself cut down”… Voici in front of us the expensive work of saint Séraphim, the monastery of Diveevo. This convent is in truth a miracle of divine kindness, by the prayers of its saint founder. How much affronts, of misfortunes and torments it underwent during its existence! It endured the famine, was devastated by fires and, in spite of that, it increased, saw growing the number of its living and embellished their virtues. Of what thus do live the “orphan ones of Diveevo”? They live alive presence among them of their father, holy Séraphim, which nourishes them and requests for them. Known as with the one of them that such or another thing is well arranged in their convent, and you will have like answer: “It is the Séraphim father who wanted it thus; on our premises, all is done according to its prayers”. Ask their the higher how it thinks of acting in such or another circumstance: “As will decide some the Séraphim father; as it will indicate it to us” such is the usual response to this kind of questions. We question ourselves: Isn't this because we believe that holy Séraphim is alive and requests God for us unceasingly, that we gathered for the glorifier? In did this church where we achieve today the nonbloody sacrifice while requesting for him, where it was him which celebrated the Divine Liturgy formerly, which among us does not feel his presence and its participation in our prayer? Who doesn't see by the eyes of the spirit his enlightened image of a celestial light? Who doesn't hear his words full with love? And all these cures of patients who occurred under our eyes - these paralyzed people who are sudden surveys, these blind men which recovered the sight, of what attest, if not the invisible presence, here among us, of the saint monk who imposes his hands on the patients and beseeches God so that It sends the grace of the cure to them. Admirable in your saints, Seigneur, even at our time when some of our communities give up Your Holy Church, scorn the sacraments, the dogmas and the traditions, You raised in Your glory, for the very great joy of Your faithful, a new torch of the Church and it shone for all, believing and the undecided ones, in the person of Séraphim saint. You showed the faith and the force of the faith for which it is nothing impossible, which surmounts all the obstacles in the field of the spirit as in that of the matter, which is even able to move the mountains according to Your word (Marc 11, 23). To egoistic people, proud and vindicatory, You showed in this man an example of abnegation, the beauty and the size of humility and the true good which resides in the absolute leniency and the love. With intemperate of all kinds, You showed in the exploits of the Séraphim father a marvellous model of patience and the perfect achievement of Your word on the capacity of the alive and prompt spirit on the weak flesh, and Your force which is spread in the weakness. (Maths. 26,41; 2.Corinth 12,9) You showed us an angel in a terrestrial being and a man which already tasted on ground the softness of the Kingdom of heaven, You made us gift again and large intercessor in front of Your throne, requesting for our needs, our afflictions and our diseases, and a new miracle-worker of the Russian Earth. For a so great demonstration of Your grace, that all see, even the blind men, and who is widespread abundantly on us today, of the bottom of the heart we Te let us return thanks to You, our Guard Father, Fils and Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the church of the “Vivifying Source” a liturgy was celebrated by Its Eminence the Dimitri archbishop. There, the homélie was said by archpriest F.N. Ornatski. Following the liturgy, one celebrated in the two churches of the panykhides for the hiéromoine Séraphim of holy memory.
The divine service was completed… But people did not disperse, left the places, neither inside the monastery, nor apart from the walls, because it had been learned that his Majesty the Emperor, accompanied by the Empress and other people by the imperial family, had arrived at Arzamas, and travelled in direction of Sarov. Thousands of pilgrims had been posted on the way which were to borrow the imperial cars and formed a compact wall. Behind the doors of the monastery and in front of the pilgrims, the moniales of Diveevo had been well aligned. All the glances were fixed on the majestic forest of Sarov from where the cars were to emerge bringing the majestic travellers. Around 4 hours of the afternoon, in the bell-tower of the monastery the powerful tinkling of the large bell resounds which announced the imminent arrival their Imperial Majesties. At 5 a.m. all the bells are reflected to ring. Around 5 a.m. and half, with the skirt of forest, the first harnessed car of 4 horses appeared, in which Its Majesty was the Emperor and the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna. Powerful “the hurrah” of the immense crowd of pilgrims was reflected in the neighborhoods. The enthusiasm of the people was indescribable. In the following car the empress Maria Fedorovna was, who preceded the large-duke Serge Alexandrovitch and his wife the large-duchess Elisabeth Fedorovna, the large-duchess Olga Alexandrovna with her husband prince Pierre Alexandrovitch Oldenbourg, the large-dukes Nicolas Nicolaievitch and Pierre Nicolaievitch, accompanied by his wife the large-duchess Militsa Nicolaievna and prince George Maximilianovitch with his wife Anastasia Nicolaievna.
To the holy doors of the monastery, Its Majesty the Emperor and the Empress got out of their car. Its Eminence the métropolite, followed bishops and of all the ecclesiastics who took part in the festivals of Sarov, went to their meeting and the welcome by a short short speech wished them of which here essence:
- The saint monastery of Sarov accommodates you joyeusement, pious sovereign come here to today take share with the ceremonies of the canonization of his large ascetic, starets of holy memory, the hiéromoine Séraphim. And all this multitude of the orthodoxe people gathered here is delighted to see its Tsar coming to request at the same time as and to share to him the joy of its radiant festival. Between thus in peace, Majesté, in this monastery and by the prayers of the man of although we glorifions, that your arrival is blessed by the Lord.
Their Imperial Majesties and their continuation advanced in the alley covered with a red cloth, behind the métropolite which preceded them to the cathedral by Dormition where a brief was celebrated Te Deum. Then they went to the church saints Zossime and Sabbatius where the coffin containing was the holy relics of the Séraphim father. Entered the church with Its Eminence the métropolite and other bishops, their Imperial Majesties and their Highnesses inclined themselves in front of the worthy remainders of the saint monk. Then, their Majesties went to the house of the superior of the monastery where one had prepared apartments for them on the floor. At the ground floor the large-duke Serge Alexandrovitch and his wife placed. For the Empress Maria Fedorovna, one had prepared apartments in the house of the bishops where the large-duchess Olga Alexandrovna and her husband were also installed. For the other members of the imperial family, one had decided to install them apart from the monastery, in a building lately built on other side of the Satis river, close to the forest.
After having accommodated their Majesties, Its Eminence the métropolite, having accompanied by the bishops and other members by the clergy who had attended the meeting, went to the cathedral of Dormition and says a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord God for the arrival of the majestic visitors. At 7 o'clock in the evening, in all the churches of the monastery, the crowned ministers, especially appointed, vigils for the late ones celebrated.
At 11 o'clock in the evening, when crowd had withdrawn itself from the esplanade of the monastery, the archimandrites left the church of Transfiguration the old coffin of oak of Séraphim saint and transported it in its old place, in the tomb which one can reach by a small stone staircase. At that time it tomb was covered with thin plates of marble and on a side one had replaced the marble by a glazed partition so that one could always see the coffin. On the tomb the old monument was posed.
July 18, at 5 o'clock in the morning, the bells sounded to announce a morning liturgy. One celebrated offices in all the churches of the monastery. The Emperor and the Empress attended the liturgy celebrated in the cathedral of Dormition and communièrent with Sacred mysterieies. (The day before at the evening they had been confessed to the hiéromoine Siméon). Many people communièrent this day there. At 8 a.m. and half the bells sounded for the last office for the late ones in remembering the hiéromoine Séraphim holy memory. They was crowned ministers who celebrated the liturgy in the cathedral of Dormition. The finished liturgy, a short ringing of bells invited the faithful ones to come to request last once for the rest of the heart of the hiéromoine Séraphim. Their Majesties and the Imperial Highnesses attended this panykhide. Right before celebrating it, the métropolite Antoine had left on the ambon and had pronounced the following homélie:
- “Admirable is God in His saints”. With us all present and joined together here in the prayer, the Lord granted the great favor to take part in the luminous festival of the canonization of the ascetic of holy memory, the hiéromoine Séraphim. Glory and recognition with the Lord who spreads so many benefits on us. Show yourself and delighted, monastery of Sarov, glorifié by the glory of your saint. We say today the last prayer for the late servant of God, Séraphim, bus then and in all times it is with him, the man of canonized God, that the orthodoxe Christians will address their prayers. And its very pure remainders which rested seventy years in the center of the ground now will be deposited in this mounting for the pious worship of the faithful ones which run towards him with their prayers to find assistance, cure, consolation. In truth, in this canonization shone for us the image of Resurrection. The words of the Apostle come constantly to mind: “Sown méprisable one is raised glorious, sown weak one is raised powerful”. By the grace of God in the waxy paleness of the remainders of the saints, which strikes our glances, the force of the life is hiding place. It is via these relics that the Lord grants to the men all these various cures of infirmities and diseases. And in these miraculous cures, also shone the glory of Séraphim saint. Of sound living already, the power of its prayer always brought a multitude of pilgrims in the monastery of Sarov. And maintaining here it is glorifié in front of all the orthodoxe people which gathered here several tens of thousands of people come from all the corners from Russia, and even of remote Siberia, the west and the east, north and the south, and which put at the head of this large crowd the Emperor himself, the Empresses and of the members of the Imperial House come to take part in solemnities. In this gathering in front of the holy relics of a crowd of pilgrims so different, but linked by a community of ideas and feelings the traditional attitude of the Russian people towards the life is expressed. The Russian people know his country and the history of this one, not so much according to the political facts and soldiers that by the life of the ascetics of the faith and the truth, the love and the good. He knows Kiev by the Antoine saints and Théodose of the Caves, Laure of the Trinity and Moscow by Serge saint and hiérarques the Muscovites, north and the Solovki islands by the saints Zossime and Sabbatius, Siberia by Siméon Verkhotoursky and hiérarque Innocent of Irkoutsk. Year by year, of century in century, he visited the holy places glorifiés by the exploits of the men of God, learning through them the principles from a holy life and strengthening themselves in the faith and the truth, the good and the love. And maintaining in the person of Séraphim saint, the Lord makes emerge a new torch, a new Master, a new citadel of the spirit for the Russian people. Glory with our God, admirable in His saints. By the prayers of the saint monk, many miracles occur here each day. And if one among us raised questions on this subject, we would answer this questioner with a pious audacity, but in all conformity with reality, by the words of the Saver addressed to the disciples of Jean: “The blind men see, the lame ones walk, the deaf persons hear, the poor are évangélisés”. Thus let us request last once with enthusiasm, devotion and sincerity for the rest of the servant of God, the hiéromoine Séraphim of holy memory and return glory to God, admirable in His saints. Amen.
Then a panykhide started, with the participation of all the prelates who attended the festivals, accompanied by the very beautiful song of the chorus of the métropolite. The panykhide was completed by a prayer of rogations on the tomb of Séraphim saint where one went in procession. Of return to the cathedral, Its Eminence the métropolite blesses the mounting of great price offered by their Imperial Majesties for the holy relics. This mounting draws the attention by its extraordinary beauty. It is out of stone, like pointing out the exploits of the saint monk requesting on a stone in the forest of Sarov. It is made of a marble which has a color gray-yellow and becomes blanchâtre when it is cut. It has the aspect of an oblong monument at four sides, measures a archine top, 2 archines and 12 verchoks length and a archine and 2 verchoks broad. It consists of four massive flagstones, fixed on a raised stone platform, to which come on two sides, three made steps of the same marble.
The mounting is decorated on all the circumference with chisellings without polishing nor gilding to point out the humble simplicity of the saint monk and his renouncement of the wordly goods.
With the head, on a round medallion is engraved a cross with four equal branches decorated of Byzantine reasons. On the sides right and left, under a corbelling, the exact reproduction of the crucifix with eight copper branches is engraved which had been preserved during seventy years with other crowned objects remained in the cell of Séraphim saint after his death. With the foot, in a round and convex medallion, under the crown of Vladimir Monomaque are engraved the initial ones in characters slavons givers of this mounting, their Majesties the Emperor and the Empress. With the angles; make covered surmounted pilasters of cross with eight branches of very old form and on the planks top and bottom, the mounting is decorated of a edge of palmettes. On the four sides of the mounting, inscriptions in slavon are engraved on the stone. With the head, on the two sides of the cross with four branches two verses of the Holy Scriptures are engraved: “But the right ones live forever, their wages are to the Lord and the Almighty has concern of them.” (Wisdom of Solomon - V.15). “The Lord takes care on all his bones, not one of them is not broken” (Psalm 33, 21). On the two side walls of the mounting the chronicle of the principal events of the life of Séraphim saint is engraved. On that of left, framing the crucifix, the following inscription in slavon is reproduced: “Our saint Séraphim father, miracle-worker of Sarov, were born in the town of Koursk in year 7267 since creation from the world and the year 1759 since the Nativity from Christ, the 19th day of July.
Entered the monastery of Sarov in the year 1778 since the Nativity of Christ, the 20th day of November.
With taken the monastic dress in the year 1786, the 13th day of August.
At summer ordered hiérodiacre in October of the year 1786.
At summer raised with the dignity of hiéromoine in the year the 1793 2nd day of September. “
In the foot of the mounting framing the round medallion, appears the following inscription which is the copy of a prayer of Séraphim saint that one found, written of its own hand on one of the liturgical books which it left after his death: “Lord, saves and take pity of Your servant (NR), clarifies his spirit in the light of the comprehension of Your Évangile saint, puts it on the way of Your commands and learns to him, Sauveur, to achieve Your will, because You are our God (holy Séraphim de Sarov).”
The top of the mounting is out of money, weighs approximately 3 poods and half and with the shape of a broad framework in inclined plan in which is inserted, under a pane, a zincography representing holy lying Séraphim in its coffin. With the angles, Seraphes with six wings are represented and between them, on the four sides, a tropaire common to the saints monks is written in slavon. The top of the mounting is closed with key. On the lower face the inscription is engraved: “Under the reign of the very pious monarch, the Emperor Nicolas Alexandrovitch, autocrat of all Russies, this mounting was carried out on the order and by the zeal of their Majesties the Emperor and his wife, very pious Impératrice Alexandra Fedorovna, in the year 1903 since the Nativity of Christ, the 19th day of July.”
In the mounting that we described, one placed the coffin of oak, a reproduction of that in which during seventy years the very worthy remainders of the saint monk rested, and the small coffin in cypress containing the holy relics was deposited in this one. The coffin in oak, which measures 2 archines, 8,5 verchoks length and 14 verchoks diameter, is furnished with three circles of iron ornamented of ramifications of sheet of oak and on the sides, one fixed ten braided iron handles, to carry the coffin. Moreover, to transport it with the holy relics in the processions, one envisaged velvet a covered special stretcher green and decorated of one gallon. Twenty people can take part in the transport of the coffin on this stretcher. A bronze grid, where are represented eagles with two heads in the angles and of the Seraphes with six wings on the sides, was installed around the tomb.
Four stone columns support the baldachin which rises with 12 archines above the tomb and has as a whole, the aspect of a vault above a well with a roof curved in the old style of Vladimir and Souzdal. The bronze baldachin gilded finely worked is crowned of five cupolas in the shape of bulbs. In the arcs and the “kokochniks” are represented: 1) on the western side - the face of the “Saver not painted of hand of man” with this inscription in slavon on the plank: “Jesus-Christ is the same one yesterday, today and in every century” (Hebrew 13, 8), 2) on the northern side - the night prayer of the saint monk on the stone, with the inscription on the plank of the words of the prayer of the publicain: “O God, takes pity of the sinner who I am!” (Luc 18, 13); 3) on the southern side - appearance Séraphim saint of the Mother of God accompanied by 12 virgins crowned the day by the Annunciation, March 25, 1831, with the inscription on the plank: “Lord, Jesus-Christ, Sons of God, by the prayers of the Mother of God, have pity of us, sinning” and 4) on the face - the happy one died of the Séraphim monk, with the inscription: “It has price with the eyes of God, the death of His saints” (PS. 115.6)
In the windows of the central cupola of the baldachin the icons of saints are with whom holy Séraphim had a spiritual relation, by works of which it had been built and of which it advised the reading with those which ran towards him to find a consolation: Masters and the hiérarques universal ones - Basile the Large one, Gregoire the Theologist and Jean Chrysostome, Isaac the Syrian, Macaire the Large one of Egypt, Jean Climaque, Ambroise of Milan, the saints monks Antoine and Théodose of Kiev, Zossime and Sabbatius de Solovki, Serge de Radonège and others.
With the angles of the architrave eight representations of blazing Seraphes with six wings are and between these images and the “kokochniks” are placed the icons of the saints Isidore and Agathe (of which the parents of Séraphim saint bore the name), of saint Prochore (secular name of the saint monk) as of two saints whose memory is celebrated by the Church the day of the birth and the day of died of Séraphim saint - on July 19 and on January 2.
Above the capitals of the columns the icons of saints are bearing the same name as the Russian sovereigns and their children, i.e. the icons of hiérarque Nicolas of Myre in Lycie, of the saint Grand Prince Alexandre Nevsky, of holy Alexandra, queen and martyrdom, of holy Marie-madeleine, equal to the apostles, of happy Princesse Olga, holy Tatiana martyrdom, holy Anastasia martyrdom and a Guardian angel.
Around the mounting runs a series of night lights hung in the four arcs of the baldachin and on the side of the platform, a large candelabrum is fixed. One counts in all 36 night lights, among which five are offered by the imperial family. These night lights are fixed on the side which faces the nave. The night light of the sovereign is of the round gold shape, decorated with invaluable stones coming from the mountainous ores Siberian and left in a natural state, without polishing. On the circle of mounting one sees an openwork inscription in slavon: “It is You, Seigneur God, who chose it and You proved his faithful heart towards You. Gift of Their Majesties the Emperor Nicolas II and the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna - July 19, 1903.” A porcelain cup, of spherical form, is inserted in mounting and the cup inside is out of red glass. The night light is suspended by four chains made up of engraved representations of heads of Seraphes to six wings and large invaluable stones. Under the night light, four bunches of pearls are hung; the stones decorating the night light are of three colors: white, green and pink.
Under the night light of the sovereigns that is their children, decorated in the same way that the preceding one, with for only difference that the four chains consist of engraved reproductions of the armorial bearings of the empire and are fixed in top at the imperial crown. On the circle of mounting is engraved the following inscription: “The light of Christ lights all the men. Gift of their Imperial Highnesses the large-duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia - July 19, 1903”
On the right of this night light, on a silk violet ribbon, that of the large-duke Serge Alexandrovitch and the large-duchess Elisabeth Fedorovna is fixed. On the circle of gold mounting, the small partitioned enamel icons are of saint Alexandre Nevsky and Marie-madeleine. Between the holy icons is engraved in slavon the following text: “To the saint starets Séraphim de Sarov, glorifié by God, this night light is offered with an enthusiastic faith by the large-duke Serge Alexandrovitch and the large-duchess Elisabeth Fedorovna - July 19, 1903” the four chains of the night light are made up of openwork sheets with a pearl on each sheet. Under the night light is suspended a white enamel cross; all the night light is decorated with pearls. On the left of the night light of the large-duchesses that of the large-duke Pierre Nicolaievitch and the large-duchess Militsa Nicolaievna is. The night light is made up of a mounting of two circles joined together by three invaluable stone chains - pearls, ruby, chrysoberyls; in lower part, the gold representation of Séraphim with six wings is fixed on a similar chain. In top, the night light is fixed on a silk violet ribbon; mounting has a metal bottom on which a cup out of red coloured glass rests; on a circle the inscription in slavon is reproduced: “A city located on a mountain cannot hide. That which practices the least command and the sign will be called large in the Kingdom of heaven”. The higher edges of the two circles are decorated with cross out of invaluable stones and the lower edges with the same stones into pendeloques. On the outside of the circle of in bottom a small image of the “Virgin of Tenderizing” on enamelled porcelain is enchased. The face of the Virgin is framed by this word of the Paul apostle: “My language and my preaching were not words of persuasive wisdom, but a demonstration of Spirit and power, so that your faith rests not on the wisdom of the men, but on the power of God” (I Corinthians)
Opposite this night light that of the large-duke Nicolas Nicolaievitch is, representing a round crown out of white enamel ornamented of large aquamarines. On the circle of mounting one reads this inscription in gold letters: “Happy the pure hearts because they will see God”. The majority of these night lights were made according to the drawings of the large-duke Pierre Nicolaievitch, who was famous for his knowledge of the style and the ornamentation in the old Christian art.
Work present, for which one used exclusively Russian materials, is distinguished in the whole by the harmony and the rigor from its lines. The total value of the mounting with its baldachin is assembled to approximately 35.000 roubles; the weight of the tomb with the baldachin is of almost 2.000 poods and that of the mounting alone, approximately 100 poods. The development of the project of all the work as well as the completion of the work and the installation on the spot was entrusted by the Emperor to prince M.S. Poutiatine. The various parts of the tomb and the baldachin were manufactured in various workshops of Saint-Petersbourg and Moscow, and all iconographic work was carried out in the workshop of the Muscovite painter Gouréanov.
The same day at 4 hours of vespers of short duration were celebrated in the cathedral of Dormition and at 6 a.m., the large bell sounded to call the pilgrims with the vigils. It was the first office to which the saint Séraphim monk went to be glorifié in the chorus of the saints of God and his holy relics, offered to the veneration of crowd. Awaited the importance of the divine service which was going to be celebrated, of tens of thousands of pilgrims ran towards the doors of the monastery. As the esplanade in the enclosure even of the monastery could not contain such a multitude, one had let enter only part of people and still, by limiting their number in order not to obstruct the procession at the time of the transfer of the holy relics. Under the acclamations, Its Eminence the métropolite entered the cathedral of Dormition, follow-up at once of their Imperial Majesties which were placed beside the chorus of right-hand side. The vigils started. It was already a new celebration: “The office devoted to our saint father Séraphim de Sarov, the miracle-worker” Begins the prayer of rogations… All the assistants light their candle and are held upright, their candle lit in the hand. The chorus of the métropolite sings the stichères prayer and at the same time the procession shakes since the cathedral in direction of the church of the saints Zossime and Sabbatius. Their Imperial Majesties advance, followed by the Minister for interior businesses V.K. Von Pleve, of the Minister for the Imperial Court the baron Frederics, the Ministers for the transportation routes prince M. Mr. Khilkov, the count I.I. Vorontsov-Dachkov, the senator V.K. To sand and much other dignitaries. The doors of the church of the saints Zossime and Sabbatius open to let enter Its Eminence the métropolite accompanied by the bishops, their Imperial Majesties, crowned ministers appointed to carry the coffin containing the holy relics and of some other people of the procession. In front of the holy relics exposed in the middle of the church, everyone kneels. Its Eminence the métropolite encense the coffin, which is then carried by Its Majesty the Emperor and the large-dukes helped by the crowned ministers appointed for the celebration. Apart from the church, the coffin is placed on a stretcher and one raises it well high above the heads so that it is visible of all and on all the sides. The appearance of the coffin containing the holy relics at the exit of the church marks one very touching moment. One intends to cry the women, some even sanglotent; over the way of the procession, country-women spread out pieces of fabric, towels, wire hanks. At the edge of the way, patients and disabled person are lengthened. With the doors of the cathedral of Dormition, the first litany of the prayer of rogations is pronounced, followed other litanies, called to the four stops to the other sides of the cathedral. After a reading of the prayer of the rogations to the Western doors, the procession penetrates in the cathedral and the coffin containing the holy relics is installed in the medium on a estrade envisaged to this end. And the office continues. Between the cathisms, Monseigneur Innocent pronounced a homélie for the festival which one celebrated, of which here the text:
- “That the saints are rented in glory (PS. 149)”. In front of this coffin containing the holy relics of the happy monk, the human thought is transported involuntarily in the field of the faith. Because it is from there only that it sees at which point is different, sometimes even until the opposite, the significance of only and same objects in the life of the every day and in the field of the faith. In the life, for each one among us, a coffin causes desolation and sorrow, a cause of lamentations and tears… Of the sight of a coffin we think involuntarily of misfortune that it represents, with cruel separation, with the orphans. But in the field of the Christian hopes, for the Christian man, the coffin is the place of the rest until the resurrection of all, and because of its faith, it becomes sometimes by the grace of God, a source of celestial revelations, a show of force of God, the promise of a celestial reward for terrestrial holiness, the origin of very high Christian feelings. And it is precisely a radiant joy, tears of tenderizing and a great veneration which in each believing heart the coffin gives birth to which is in front of us.
Gathered around him, with our Imperial Majesties in the forefront, we know all that it kept in him the venerated remainders of a Juste who pleased the Lord, of a man of prayer and exploit, large in his simplicity, crowned humility and of softness, burning same love as Christ for the men. The first three century old Church, persecuted and oppressed, knew its martyrs and its confessors who had suffered for the name from Christ. She buried their bodies with all the honors, gathered their bones thoroughly. The Church of our time, quiet and serene, knows its men of prayer and its ascetics; it respects also the coffins of its right, it venerates their saints remainders. When Polycarpe, the bishop of Smyrna, was tortured and torn by the wild beasts, people of Smyrna sent to the other churches a letter in which they let them know that they had gathered the bones of the martyr in a vase and that they would keep and venerate this saint deposit like a very invaluable treasure. According to the example of this old Church, from these first Christian churches, our Orthodoxe Church withdrew from the center of the ground the bones of its man of prayer and ascetic, the saint Séraphim monk, and henceforth it will surround them by veneration, songs and worship like his invaluable and crowned good.
But this saint coffin also takes for us, children of the Orthodoxe Church, another significance. In him, we recognize the major truth of our holy Orthodoxie. It did not fail, it is held firm on the right way, this Church for which the high celestial world of the saints of God is a constant guide of the thoughts, an inspirer in the prayer, a source of consolation, a help and a protection. In these holy relics of the new intercessor who beseeches for the Russian Church, we feel to palpitate the life of our Church. Because she did not die, she is not solidified, she is not petrified, she saw, she renovates and is flourishing, this Church which avoids the new right ones and new saints of God. In this coffin the source of light and joy of our faith is. It would be cold and without glare if it did not receive the clear encouragement which the prayer and the exploit will be always rewarded and glorifiés by the Lord. In these holy relics, a new reign of the grace and kindness of God appear for the Russian people and the orthodoxe Church, as if the sky opened and our new guard and requesting intercessor for us, unworthy men, was drawn up near the throne of our Lord. And we see the fruits of the prayer clearly that it addresses to the Lord: the blind men cover the sight, the deaf persons hear, the dumb men speak, the disabled person rise. Still a moment, and this salutary coffin will open, the saints remainders we will appear: then, of new miracles will occur, will appear to us the increasingly clear image of saint Séraphim, now admirable among the Saints of God, but soft, humble and miserable in the terrestrial life. And in the soft joy of our faith, under the impression of this marvellous image, we will sing to him: “We let us honor you, worthy Séraphim father”. Amen.
One still reads a cathism and during the song of the anthem “Rent the name of the Lord”, all celebrating them pass in the middle of the church. The métropolite Antoine, descended from the ambon, advances towards the coffin of the saint and opens it. All the assistants kneel and the crowned ministers sing a canticle of praise. After the reading of the Gospel, the métropolite Antoine and the bishops kiss the holy relics. After them, Their Imperial Majesties, then the crowned ministers and all the other people present in the cathedral come in their turn to honor the holy relics. After vespers, one left the open cathedral all the night to allow everyone to pay homage to the relics of the saint monk. All the night, one saw the pilgrims approaching one after the other the coffin, kissing the holy relics and receiving the oiling of the holy oils. During the procession with the holy relics, one noted several cases of cure. Thus a 29 year old girl of the village of Promyslovka of the district and government of Astrakhan, Vera Tchernycheva, who had been paralyzed for 5 years with stiff legs, rose all alone and started to walk without any help. Another woman, Théodora Slejeva, 26 years, was cured epileptic fits from which it suffered constantly.
All the night, in all the churches and vaults, one celebrated Te Deum and the following day, at 5 o'clock in the morning, in the two cathedrals, the churches of the saints Zossime and Sabbatius and of saint Jean Baptiste, like in the church of the cemetery, were celebrated morning liturgies to which thousands of faithful communièrent with Sacred mysterieies of Christ.
A liturgy started later, at eight hours, in the cathedral of Dormition. The divine office was celebrated by the métropolite Antoine with the assistance of other bishops who took part in solemnities. Their Majesties the Emperor and the Empress as well as the large-dukes were present there. At the small entry of the Gospel, at the time of the song “Come, adore”, the archimandrites raised the coffin which was in the middle of the church and carried it around the saint furnace bridge, then deposited it in the prepared mounting. At this point in time still a cure occurred. In the cathedral, among the faithful ones which attended the liturgy, was Mrs Maslenikova, of the class of the merchants, arrival of Moscow with his/her 12 year old daughter who suffered from catalepsy and any more one word had not pronounced for two years. When the coffin with the holy relics passed in front of the patient, the mother will effleura it with her handkerchief, then it essuya the face of her daughter with this handkerchief and at once, under the eyes of all, the child called his mother and started to speaking. The cured young girl was considered to be worthy by Her Eminence the métropolite of communier to Sacred mysterieies. At the end of the liturgy, the archbishop of Kazan, Dimitri, pronounced a homélie:
- In the honor and memory of our saint théophore, the father Séraphim de Sarov, the miracle-worker.
Which great highly significant day, deeply edifying we live all today in this imposing and pious meeting of wire and girls of our Holy Russian orthodoxe Church. And all orthodoxe Russia is in festival and is delighted with us.
This monastery of ascetics, insulated, temporarily became a populeuse city. The forest of Sarov, always deserted and quiet, is full today with effervescence, voice, movement and noise.
However, it is not the effervescence of the activities of the every day and the small petty problems; it is not the noise of the daily bustle. It is, here and there a whisper of deep and sincere tenderizing, it is, current of mouth in mouth, the expression of a jubilation of the spirit; it is the explosion of an enthusiastic enthusiasm, of a rapture in front of what is achieved. It is a great dash and the noisy and irresistible demonstration of the spirit of right and strong devotion which makes breathe and live holy orthodoxe Russia.
The lame ones go. The blind men see. The dumb men speak. And happy that which will not be scandalized by it. Happy that whose heart did not remain indifferent in its major folds to all these wonders which are achieved in front of our eyes.
Blessed either God, admirable in His saints, to have shown us these days by providence, of good and marvellous things. Rented either our Lord Jesus-Christ wisely to have granted to Its holy Church this grace now, to the good moment.
Who in holy Russia does not know for a long time already, the name of large the starets of Sarov, Séraphim? Many pious hearts, sensitive to all that is raised and holy, ran already from the terrestrial life time of the starets in its desert, seeking near him and finding in its faith and its love a consolation for the afflictions of their heart, the solution of painful questions and doubts of the spirit, the indication of the good way, just, true, in the moral distress, the mistakes, the failures.
And the seventy years passed since the happy one died of the monk of holy memory did not cease attracting here, on the tomb where the worthy remainders of the piles rested late, glances of all those which believe firmly in an uninterrupted close relation of Right having left this ground with those which still carry on their terrestrial way of moral rebirth and renewal of the spirit; those which keep a strong hope in the intercession of the saints, who remain now in the light of God. Many marvellous signs of a bienfaitrice help following prayers addressed to a starets which knew a happy end, showed with all them believing orthodoxe that nowadays also, the Lord grants to the men an intercessor who requests for them and which is prompt to help them.
The holy Church, under the terms of the capacity which was given to him by God, has publicly and without one being able to doubt it, attested and confirmed this common faith in the holiness and the force of intercession near God of a large ascetic of the faith and devotion. And here that today, we honor with tenderizing our reverend Séraphim father and we solemnly glorifions the holy memory of the Juste that for a long time already all the generations of the Russian Earth honor and glorifient with a deep tenderizing and a great veneration.
From now on, the extraordinary torch which heated the hearts of its celestial light, which clarifies the spirits and illuminates in all safety the true way that those must follow which seek the spiritual rebirth and aspire to moral perfection, is placed well high on the candelabrum of the Orthodoxe Church.
You thus in the Lord delight, and I still say it: you all delight, you which piously venerate the holy memory of our happy Séraphim father.
That the solemn canonization which honors today the memory with the saint monk serf also to the construction of those which, plunged in perplexity and the moral disorder, try sincerely and without hypocrisy to elucidate for themselves and the others, the direction and the goal of the life of the man; who are ready to take the good way of the truth which leads beyond the limits of time to eternity. The saint Séraphim monk, honoured today by us, when it achieved his terrestrial voyage, directed exclusively and without failure his glance towards the sky, because “our life is in the skies”. Its aspiration towards the celestial one, it liked to sing it by the words of the canticle: “towards the deserts always goes the divine desire”. Terrestrial angel and celestial man, teaching the monks and interlocutor of the angels, it in its luminous heart joined together in Christ the things of the ground and those of the sky. And whereas it was still on this ground, the great joys of the other world, the great celestial joys were revealed to him.
That it is thus for us, him which followed the right showed way to the men by the divine guide, a luminous conducting star, illuminant the way and dispersing the fog which veils this road more and more today. By the intercession of its prayers in front of God, that it also helps us us to carry on our terrestrial way towards the sky, without obstacle and fall, in the love, the joy and the peace of our Lord Jesus-Christ, our Saver. Amen.
After the homélie, one started to celebrate Te Deum for Séraphim saint. After one had sung the tropaire for Séraphim saint, the archimandrites approached the mounting and withdrew the coffin containing from it the holy relics. Behind them, a procession left the cathedral and made the turn of the churches of the monastery. The coffin was carried by the Emperor and the large-dukes with the participation of the archimandrites. Crowd, just like the day before, which formed an alive wall on the way of the procession, was then transported by an immense religious enthusiasm. Everywhere the tears and the sobs of the women were heard. When the procession had returned in the cathedral, while the assistance knelt, Its Eminence the métropolite lute the prayer to Séraphim saint and Te Deum was completed by the usual song of “long life”. His Majesty the Emperor and the large-dukes, after having kissed the holy relics, left the cathedral. Thus the divine service of the great day of solemnities of Sarov was completed.
The following day, the monks of Sarov accompanied the sovereign with the convent by women of Diveevo which is with 14 verstes “Desert”, and Monseigneur Innocent, bishop of Tambov, by wishing happy voyage to the sovereign, pronounced these some words: 

“Very pious sovereign.

The Russian people, gathered for the great festival of the grace of God expressed in the monastery of Sarov, lived significant days of close contact with You: the orthodoxe Tsar came to be involved in his people in this pilgrimage with the saint monastery. And populates it saw its Tsar visiting with foot holy places of Sarov, it saw it carrying on its shoulders the holy relics of the miracle-worker of Sarov; the people saw the Tsar and the Tsarina, knelt and pouring tears, to request with him the saint man of God. Now, it will set out again in the various corners of holy Russia and will tell with enthusiasm in the boroughs and the villages all that it saw and its listeners will have the very tenderized heart and will bless of it in their hearts the names of their sovereigns who took part in this popular pilgrimage with Sarov. As for the monastery of Sarov, it tests two joys today: a celestial joy for the sending of in top of the intercessor and the man of prayers for all the Russian ground, holy Séraphim, and a terrestrial joy out of Te seeing You, our sovereign, and the pious Highnesses and the members of the imperial house, here, in its own walls. For the celestial joy which was sent to him, it thanks the Lord and His saint by an enthusiastic prayer, and for the terrestrial joy, for happiness to see you, Majesté, the host of its walls, he makes you his deeper safety.
That the Lord saves you and keeps you, Majesté, you like Their pious Altesses and members of the imperial house on all the ways of your life, by the prayers of saint Séraphim, the miracle-worker of Sarov. That your departure is blessed as your entry in this saint monastery was merry. Blessed is that which comes in the name of the Lord. “
One must specify that the convent of Diveevo was founded and lives starting from the precepts of Séraphim saint. And so solemnities of the monastery of Sarov were also a moment of spiritual joy in the convent of Diveevo. These spiritual festivals of the one and other monastery were amplified by the participation of the imperial family.
For the arrival of the Sovereign, all the way which leads to the convent was decorated with foliages, flags, triumphal arches; peasants of the corner and those come from remote provinces, covered their costumes of festival, accommodated the Emperor and the Empress with delighted faces. In the enclosure of the convent, the moniales had been aligned with the pupils of the parochial schools in front of them and they formed a hedge all along the way which the imperial procession to the cathedral was to traverse. Around 10 hours of the morning, the imperial cars, under “hurrahs” enthusiastic and ceaseless and greeted by the ringing of the bells, approached the cathedral of Diveevo. At their entry in the cathedral, the majestic visitors were accommodated by Monseigneur Nazaire, bishop of Nijni Novgorod, surrounded of the crowned ministers. Monseigneur gave them his blessing and pronounced some words of welcome. After the usual litany and the prayer of long life, the Emperor requested in front of the icon of the Virgin of Tenderizing, that one even in front of which died in prayer the Séraphim father, and also in front of the icon of the Saver “not painted hand of man” very venerated here, and he kissed them. Then they looked at the vault in the north of the cathedral prepared to be dedicated to the memory of the happy Séraphim father and admired in particular the mural of high quality; it is the work and the spiritual offering of the moniales of Diveevo which introduced” the obedience of painting “into the convent. The majestic visitors attended the liturgy in the vault of the house of higoumene. In the apartments of this one, the tea and a breakfast were been useful and then, the convent was visited. One saw the parochial school and the hearth of the orphan ones. This school is installed in a splendid structure a shed-type which includes/understands two very roomy classrooms, of the apartments for the teachers and the buildings intended for the orphan ones. Teaching in this school is exempted” for holy obedience “by moniales informed (sister Raphaëla and Nadejda Sadovskaia, a beginner who is the grand-daughter of the priest Vassili Sadovsky, the deferent friend of the Séraphim father) and it exists there lesson specialized for the song and the needlework.
During the visit of the school of the monastery, the Emperor asked orphan if she knew something by heart and the small one recited poetry “the orphan one”, then, as the Empress asked to him whether she knew a prayer, this small 4 year old country-woman says the prayer of the Lord, it “Our Father”; then the Empress, like a mother, leant towards the child and embraced it.
The majestic visitors also went in the church of Transfiguration where several objects left by Séraphim saint are preserved. There, the sanctuary at summer built starting from the cell which had been installed in Sarov in the “remote desert” of the Séraphim father by the gangsters who had coiled it blows and with which it had forgiven. After the death of the Séraphim father, the cell was transported in Diveevo and, according to the instructions of the bishop of Nijni Novgorod Jérémie, it was transformed into furnace bridge. One left the beams badly squared in their state and to more surely preserve this memorial of the exploits of the saint monk, the sanctuary was placed outside the walls of the church from which it is separated by a corridor and is covered with a roof with share. In this same church one finds preserved: the Gospel with Psautier whose Séraphim father never separated from sound living and which it usually carried in a double sack on its back, its stole and its cuffs, a piece of the stone on which it remained in prayer 1000 days and nights and other objects of everyday usage: a candlestick, a bench, a chair, etc At the time of solemnities, all that was exposed in new windows and was offered to the veneration of the pilgrims.
In the small “desert” of Diveevo the all small isba of the Séraphim father is whom it had built itself in his “close desert” with Sarov, very close to the source and the Sarovka river. After its death, it was transported in Diveevo and preserved in the state which the alive one of the saint had. And to ensure a good conservation of it, this monument was locked up in a kind of sheath in the external construction industry. In the cell, part of this stone, witness of the exploits of prayer of Séraphim saint, is preserved, as well as a section of tree which held place of seat to him. A ceaseless reading of Psautier was made in this place. All the pilgrims felt obliged to visit this cell where the pure and holy prayer of the man of God had risen.
At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the majestic visitors left the convent. The nuns, the schoolgirls and crowd were held all along the way traversed by the imperial family. Greeted by the ringing of the bells and the hurrahs uninterrupted, they left these holy places.
Solemnities of Sarov, at the time of the invention of the holy relics of happy Séraphim, were completed by the dedication of two churches which are dedicated to him.
The first church Saint Séraphim in Russia was devoted to Sarov, above the cell monacale of the happy Séraphim father. The dedication of the church took place Monday July 24. The day before this day, at 7 hours and half of the evening, the large bell sounded to invite the many faithful ones to come in the church lately devoted to the first celebration from the vigils in these places. Those were celebrated, like that is usually done in these cases, in the middle of the church in front of a table on which all the crowned objects were posed of the principal furnace bridge and the furnace bridge of the preparation, covered with a white silk veil.
To the prayer of rogations and the canticle of praise in the honor of Séraphim saint, the bishop of Tambov Innocent came to join celebrating.
The following day, July 21, the métropolite Antoine de Saint-Petersbourg, proceeded to the dedication of the church. After one had avoided the furnace bridges, a solemn procession led by the métropolite Antoine, the Dimitri archbishop and the Innocent bishop, moved towards the cathedral of Dormition. From there, Its Eminence the métropolite transported, by holding them above its head, of the pieces of the worthy relics of Séraphim saint.
The church with five cupolas which one has just devoted is an original construction of style Russo-Byzantine. The architectural project of the Saint-Séraphim church was conceived and carried out by the professor of architecture A.S. Kamensky. Dimensions of the church are as follows: 22 sagenes length, 8 sagenes broad, for the height, 17 sagenes of the ground to the cross and 10 sagenes of the ground to the vaults inside.
The funds necessary to the construction of the church were collected among the benefactors and the admirors of Séraphim saint. A bienfaitrice made gift of 50.000 roubles for splendid the gilded bronze iconostase and all the invaluable vases were offered by various benefactors. In this church all the banners, 42 are gathered, are on the whole offered to the monastery on July 19 by 18 associations of carriers of banners.
One of the things most venerated with the monastery of Sarov - the cell in which holy Séraphim lived, fought and died out while requesting - is in the Western part of the church, between the chorus and the medium of the nave, and with the aspect of a vault to the roof with four clear bronze slopes in scales, with a line of “kokochniks” on the lower edge and a gold cross on the dome. One can pass all around this cell-vault. On the whole of the external wall, northern side, is painted a representation of the appearance of the Mother of God with Séraphim saint. Close to the entry of the cell is a representation of Séraphim saint giving his blessing, and above the low door, an icon of the “Virgin of Tenderizing”.
Inside the holy low-size cell, in the left angle, is posed a massive “cupboard with icons”, out of embossed bronze, which goes up up to the ceiling and under the panes of which one sees an image of the Saver in a gold trimming and a copy of the icon of the “Virgin of Tenderizing” in front of which holy knelt Séraphim accommodated its happy dead. In front of the cupboard with the icons is a large candelabrum and a night light which one keeps always lit. There is also a lectern with a Holy Cross and the Gospel designed to celebrate Te Deum in the honor of the new man of God.
The objects of Séraphim saint whom one preserved were gathered in the cell. One sees there a stove with a place arranged to sleep, covered green earthenware squares with a floral reason; they is there too that were the cover, the hat and the chain out of leather of the saint monk, two small crosses out of wooden of cypress which it had made itself, the stone on whom it requested the day in his small remote desert, one of its teeth and some hair of its head, and its Gospel partly consumed by the fire which had been declared in its cell the night of its death. All these objects were arranged in clear bronze windows under ices offered by the carriers of banners of Moscow. The dedication of the second church dedicated to Séraphim saint took place on July 22 with the convent of Séraphim-Diveevo chocolate éclairs. There, as the moniales were deeply convinced of holiness and thus, of the prompt canonization of the founder of their convent, a side chapel in the left part of the cathedral since 1875 was arranged in the honor of this one, but it was to await the invention of the worthy relics of Séraphim saint to be devoted.
The dedication day before, the priests of the convent celebrated in the cathedral several offices: small vespers, a gun with the Mother of God, complies and vigils; at the time of the prayer of rogations and canticle of praise during the vigils, Monseigneur Nazaire, bishop of Nijni Novgorod, came to join the priests. The multitude of the pilgrims was extraordinary: the vast church was far from being able to contain all this world and it was surrounded outside by an alive wall. The uninterrupted confessions lasted 3 a.m. at midnight and the following day, more than 1000 people came communier.
The festivals of the dedication of the church started at 7 o'clock in the morning. After the furnace bridges had been avoided, Monseigneur Nazaire transported above his head the pieces of the holy relics since the sanctuary of the principal vault of the cathedral and then, the procession made it tower of the cathedral.
In the Saint-Séraphim church lately devoted, the first liturgy was a pontifical celebration and ended in solemn Te Deum.
On the iconostase of the Saint-Séraphim church lately devoted, on the icon of the holder of the church, our saint monk is represented in his long cover monacale and the glance turned towards the sky; to its feet extends a sight of the desert of Sarov. To side, an icon representing the Prochore apostle “among the 70” (because it was the secular name of the saint monk) is placed, as well as the representation of Sylvestre saint, pope of Rome, of which the memory is celebrated on January 2, the day when holy Séraphim died. A Seraph of fire with six wings, the angel taking care on Séraphim saint in the monastic life, is painted on the northern side door.
Thus the festivities were completed accompanying this very great event in the history by the Russian Church: the glorification of the holy relics of happy Séraphim de Sarov.
Our Russian theologists will write much in later times on this man of God and his canonization.
But our goal only consisted in gathering the materials of which we could lay out in exile and to communicate the personal impressions of an eyewitness of solemnities of Sarov in 1903.
We used the documents and descriptions of the festivals of Sarov published in the ecclesiastical bulletins of 1903, the book of the archimandrite Séraphim Tchitchagov “the chronicle of Séraphim-Diveevo”, the accounts of prince M.S. Poutiatine and his own impressions. These sources which we quote are far from being exhaustive relating to holy Séraphim, but if our work allows to a certain extent, even very tiny, to better know the man of Séraphim God and to see by the eyes of the spirit, the table of the festivals of Sarov of 1903, we will estimate that our task is accomplished.
To speak about admirable the starets Séraphim, to write on him, to evoke it in these disastrous days for us, means to spread a balsam of relief on our wounds.
Because holy Séraphim, it is a luminous ray of the Sun of the Truth, illuminating by the faith and the hope, the sadness of our life, the sorrow and the overwhelming pressure which wrap our spirits and our hearts of obscure clouds.
Among the many luminous stars - the saints men of radiant God in the spiritual sky - we seek with the eyes of the faith, our own star Russian that no enemy force could destroy, which of perishable was transformed into imperishable and was high in the skies by the Lord. And this star, it is largest of the Russian saints, it is the “poor wretch” starets Séraphim! How it is close, pleasant and expensive to us, the terrestrial image of the starets Séraphim!
Curved, legs broken (consequences of the aggression of the gangsters), a bag full of sand and stones on the shoulders: “I éreinte that which me éreinte”, explained large the starets.
This is not to give again courage with the sinners?!
Which sins, in particular the sins of the flesh, could have made this starets “angel terrestrial”?
And its face was always lit by a smile of Pascale joy!
And this “celestial man” was not saved by the terrestrial desire and human spite often continued: sometimes one reproached him for having opened his cell and to receive those which came to seek a council and a consolation whereas he was not the superior of the monastery (others did not need to know that he achieved all according to the will of the Mother of God), sometimes one asked why he gave wine and cookies to those which came to see it, sometimes one was indignant that he moves away in his small “remote desert” for a prolonged stay, giving up the community.
And all these lies and these calumnies spread on that which had been judged worthy to see Christ our Saver of her own eyes during the divine service, that to which the Mother of God had appeared while saying of him “this one is of our race”, that which was, just as the Paul apostle carried with the third sky, and which had the gift of perspicacity, that whose prayers produced miracles, which, by its illuminated face of a celestial light, was similar to an Angel of God; who offended anybody forever, did not judge, but liberally comforted afflicted and the dissatisfied ones; who, while being incommensurably higher than all his contemporaries, said himself “miserable”. We do not know such a humility… And therefore the Lord exalté much more than much of others.
Involuntarily, one thinks of saint Adelphe, bishop of Aravitsk, which requested God while crying to show him in which assembly of the saints holy Jean Chrysostome with the sky was. Miraculeusement transported in spirit in the sky, it saw many Saints Fathers of the Church, but did not find holy Jean Chrysostome among them and very grained, it says it to the Angel which accompanied it. And the Angel answered him: “Does not afflict you, this Jean-there cannot be seen by a man who still has his body envelope, because it is in front of the throne of God and chérubins and the seraphes surround it”.
We also believe and we proclaim that admirable the starets, blazing it Séraphim, after its many exploits, but also the many afflictions and sorrows which he known for the truth and because of his very great humility, is held today in glory, surrounded of the seraphes, in front of the throne of God.

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