St. Seraphim of Sarov

Prokhor Isidorovich Moshnin was born on July 19, 1754 (Old Style) in Kursk, Russia, into a family of merchants. From childhood he was drawn to prayer, to long church services, and especially to the lives of the saints. According to tradition, when he was about ten years old, he fell from a tall bell tower and survived unharmed after a vision of the Mother of God. He made pilgrimages to holy sites including the Kiev Caves monastery, and at the age of nineteen he entered the Sarov monastery in the forests of Tambov province, roughly 300 miles east of Moscow.

At Sarov he was tonsured as a monk in 1786 and later ordained a priest. Monastic records indicate that he suffered from a serious illness during this period of his life, though the specific physical effects of it are not well documented. After serving for some years as a cell-attendant to the elders of the monastery, he sought permission in 1794 to withdraw to the surrounding forest as a hermit, settling in a small wooden cabin deep in the woods. There he embraced a life of intense prayer, silence, and manual labor, chopping wood and growing vegetables. The hagiographic tradition records that he spent a thousand nights standing on a rock in prayer, an ascetical feat that became one of the most famous images associated with him. He is also remembered in tradition for a tamed wild bear that reportedly shared food with him.

Around 1810 he withdrew further into silence, communicating mainly through gestures. By the early 1820s he had emerged from this period and began receiving the many pilgrims who came to seek his counsel. He is remembered above all for the radiant joy with which he greeted visitors. Whether at Christmas or at Pascha, he would embrace each person and say, "My joy, Christ is risen!" He taught that the aim of the Christian life is the "acquisition of the Holy Spirit," and he counseled visitors with startling directness about prayer, humility, and detachment. He died at Sarov on January 2, 1833 (Old Style).

Seraphim's spiritual influence quickly outgrew his forest hermitage. He is associated with the nearby Diveyevo Convent, which he helped guide and which remains a major center of devotion to him. His reputation for holiness grew throughout the nineteenth century, and he was officially glorified (canonized) by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1903, one of the last great canonizations before the upheavals of the twentieth century. After the Russian Revolution, his veneration continued in the Russian diaspora, and devotion to him was restored within Russia in the decades following the fall of the Soviet Union. He is now one of the most beloved saints of the Orthodox world and is venerated by many Catholics as well.