Father Seraphim Rose

[Pravoslavnik]

Catherine,

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 Let me begin by thanking you for sharing what your spiritual Father in Russia has opined about the American Hieromonk Seraphim Rose.  It certainly deserves careful consideration.

 I should tell you that my own spiritual Father is one of Father Seraphim Rose's closest disciples; Hieromonk Ambrose Young, formerly Father Alexey Young.  Hieromonk Ambrose was originally ordained by ROCOR Bishop Nektary (Kontzevich) at Platina in the 1970s, and he was the founder and former editor of the newspaper [i][u]Orthodox America[/u][/i].  Hieromonk Ambrose has also published a number of Orthodox books and pamphlets during the past 30 years-- including a history of the ROCOR, a monograph about the philosophy of Kireyevsky, a hagiography of St. John of San Francisco, and his own lengthy correspondence with Father Seraphim.  This is all a matter of open, public record.

  While I would never presume to speak for Hieromonk Ambrose (he can certainly do that more eloquently, himself, I dare say!) he has spoken to me privately (and in public sermons, etc.) about Father Seraphim Rose on many occasions during the past 20 years.  As you may know, Hieromonk Ambrose publicly criticized the original biography of Father Seraphim Rose, [i][u]Not of This World[/u][/i], on the grounds that it was inaccurately negative in its portrayal of Father Seraphim's relationship with the ROCOR hierarchs.  My understanding is that Father Seraphim had profound love and respect for the ROCOR hierarchs of his day-- including blessed Metropolitan Philaret, and his own Orthodox mentor, St. John (Maximovitch), who originally ordained him a Reader, and blessed him to establish a skete at Platina.  After Father Seraphim's repose in 1982, the St. Herman's brotherhood eventually departed from the ROCOR.  It is this later development at Platina which may have led to the inaccurate, negative portrayal of Father Seraphim's relationship with his ROCOR superiors in [i][u]Not of This World.[/u][/i]

   I have heard many profound, marvelous first hand stories about Father Seraphim Rose from Hieromonk Ambrose, and have also witnessed some rather remarkable things relating to Hieromonk Ambrose, himself, which would, perhaps, be improper to mention at this time.  I will say, however, that your comment about Hieromonk Seraphim Rose appealing only to the superficial, "Western" Orthodox is patently false.  I, myself, found and joined the ROCOR primarily because of Hieromonk Ambrose and his spiritual Father-- as have many other Americans in the ROCOR whom I have known personally  during the past 20 years. Of course, it was a struggle for me to become part of the ROCOR, and I had to begin from a more Westernized liturgical tradition (for five years) before being baptized in the ROCOR and learning how to stand and pray for hours at a ROCOR service.

  Recall that St. John (Maximovitch), himself, said that one of God's hidden purposes in the White Russian diaspora of the 1920s and 30s was to bring Russian Orthodoxy to the West-- to Western Europe, Australia, North and South America.  This has, in fact, happened, partly through the translational work of Orthodox clergymen like Hieromonk Seraphim Rose (and his spiritual son Hieromonk Ambrose Young.)  The sad truth is that most other Orthodox emigres to the West never had a significant missionary focus toward heterodox westerners.  They were focused, instead, on preserving their churches in the context of their own ethnic communities.  This has certainly been true of the Greek Orthodox in America,  for example.  It is also true, I fear, in the case of many recent Soviet-era Russian emigres in the American ROCOR, who tend to view the church as a Russian social, ethnic club.  Not that this wrong, mind you, but it is not very missionary-oriented toward Westerners.

   I know of cases in my own former ROCOR parish where recent Soviet emigres have directly told American converts that they needed to leave the ROCOR and go to an "American" parish.  Hence, I suspect that some of the recent misunderstandings about Father Seraphim Rose and his work--which consisted mainly in ascetic labor and the publication of Russian Orthodox literature-- may be related to his Anglo-American ethnicity, or perhaps to the  problems that occurred at Platina after Father Seraphim's repose.  As for the spiritual aspects of his hagiographical work, it speaks for itself!  If you doubt this, try reading [i][u]Russia's Catacomb Saints[/u][/i], published by Father Seraphim at Platina many years ago.  The book is, in my opinion, priceless.  What could be more significant for the true Orthodox today-- in Russia and in America-- than Father Seraphim Rose's chapter on "The Nuns of Shamordino" in [i][u]Russia's Catacomb Saints[/u][/i]?

[jgress]

I hope we don't start a fight over Fr Seraphim in the last week of Lent. I think we can agree to disagree. I will offer some of my own thoughts. If you disagree, that's fine. But don't accuse me or anyone of not being truly Orthodox because of this kind of opinion.

For what it's worth, my own understanding is that Fr Seraphim was a good monk, but hadn't achieved that level of holiness and asceticism that we associate with true sainthood. This doesn't mean he wasn't saved, but that his holiness was not exceptional. If you want true sainthood, read the life of St John Maximovich. The difference should be obvious.

That being said, I think Fr Seraphim's life is instructive and his writings edifying. He almost always tended to prefer the most traditional presentation of Orthodoxy, which I would have thought would endear him to the True Orthodox. His publication of the Orthodox Word was mainly aimed at countering the modernizing tendencies of World Orthodox publications and of World Orthodoxy in general for the benefit of English-speaking Orthodox, at a time when English material for traditionalist Orthodox was still hard to come by.

One, I think pretty small criticism is that he insisted on very 'literal' interpretations of teachings that also have more 'allegorical' interpretations, for example, the six-day creation of the world or the toll-houses. Remember that in ROCOR the chief rival in English-language publication was the Holy Transfiguration Monastery under Fr Panteleimon. Although they were also traditionalist and True Orthodox, they tended to an opposite extreme, for example, in insisting on a purely allegorical interpretation of the Creation story (and accepting evolutionism), completely rejecting the toll-houses teaching and so on. However, I think these disputes are minor when placed in the context of the traditionalism that both Platina and Boston preached with regard to faith and praxis in general. An analog, I think, is the current dispute over the place of Romanidean theology in the Greek Orthodox church. Even among traditionalists this is disputed, but I would say we can stand back from the argument and see that, apart from this, both sides are on the same side of traditionalism and anti-ecumenism.

One other dispute that I think used to be minor, but has turned out to be important, is the teaching on grace in World Orthodoxy. In this instance, Boston was the stricter, insisting that the MP and World Orthodoxy had lost grace, while Platina more or less preached that the WO still had grace. At the time when ROCOR wasn't in communion with the WO anyway, this difference could seem academic. Unfortunately, as we True Orthodox know, certain revisionists have used ROCOR's ambiguous statements on the WO to argue that they had never truly broken communion with the WO, and that there was no reason to avoid union with the MP and the WO. While I do not believe that the presence of grace in the WO is a matter of faith, I can see how an ambiguous or overly condescending attitude can easily lead to loss of truth. For my part, I support my own Synod's strict pronouncements on the new calendar State church, and I don't believe that grace can withstand conscious, public participation in heresy, such as the World Council of Churches. But if others disagree, I don't treat them as heretics.

[Cyprian]

I hope we don't start a fight over Fr Seraphim in the last week of Lent. I think we can agree to disagree. I will offer some of my own thoughts. If you disagree, that's fine. But don't accuse me or anyone of not being truly Orthodox because of this kind of opinion.

For what it's worth, my own understanding is that Fr Seraphim was a good monk, but hadn't achieved that level of holiness and asceticism that we associate with true sainthood. This doesn't mean he wasn't saved, but that his holiness was not exceptional. If you want true sainthood, read the life of St John Maximovich. The difference should be obvious.

That being said, I think Fr Seraphim's life is instructive and his writings edifying. He almost always tended to prefer the most traditional presentation of Orthodoxy, which I would have thought would endear him to the True Orthodox. His publication of the Orthodox Word was mainly aimed at countering the modernizing tendencies of World Orthodox publications and of World Orthodoxy in general for the benefit of English-speaking Orthodox, at a time when English material for traditionalist Orthodox was still hard to come by.

Much of this is well said, and I can agree with, except I wish to qualify that I never knew Fr. Seraphim, neither did I even know of him when he was alive on the earth, so I do not feel comfortable passing judgment with regards to the extent of his level of holiness and asceticism. I can only go by what I've read in his writings, which are edifying and beneficial to read.

One, I think pretty small criticism is that he insisted on very 'literal' interpretations of teachings that also have more 'allegorical' interpretations, for example, the six-day creation of the world or the toll-houses.

With this I must express my disagreement. If you read his writings carefully, Fr. Seraphim did not insist on the literal six-day creation. He certainly advocated for it strongly, but he was not "insistent". And he advocated it for good reason! Because that is precisely what the fathers of the Church teach. It was St. Ephraim who said we must not simply allegorize the creation account in Genesis, and St. Ephraim (among others) taught that the six days were literal 24 hour days. Fr. Seraphim presented the patristic tradition regarding the hexaemeron correctly.

Remember that in ROCOR the chief rival in English-language publication was the Holy Transfiguration Monastery under Fr Panteleimon. Although they were also traditionalist and True Orthodox, they tended to an opposite extreme, for example, in insisting on a purely allegorical interpretation of the Creation story (and accepting evolutionism), completely rejecting the toll-houses teaching and so on.

HTM in Boston "were...True Orthodox"? How about now? When did they cease being true Orthodox, and what caused them to cease being True Orthodox? No one can be true Orthodox while defending the evolution heresy. Fr. Seraphim's writings on this topic are very edifying.

An analog, I think, is the current dispute over the place of Romanidean theology in the Greek Orthodox church. Even among traditionalists this is disputed, but I would say we can stand back from the argument and see that, apart from this, both sides are on the same side of traditionalism and anti-ecumenism.

What's to dispute? Romanides was a schismatic and heretic, and his writings are trash. Much of what Fr. Seraphim wrote (and translated) is quite edifying, even if I might disagree on a few points here and there. His writings are worth reading, while those of Vlachos and Romanides are not. Fr. Seraphim was a good monk and if Catherine has nothing nice to say about him, and no evidence to put forth, but just innuendo, and anonymous hearsay, then she should keep silent and stop scandalizing others. She already scandalized some of us here with her comments defending Mohammedism. Enough already.

[Anastasios]

Fr. Seraphim presented the patristic tradition regarding the hexaemeron correctly.

When I read the Hexameron (which was a few years ago) I also read Kalomiros and portions of Fr Seraphim's work as part of an investigation of the topic, and I thought both Fr Seraphim and Kalomiros were proof-texting St Basil. I don't remember Kalomiros's arguments at all anymore, but I remember at the time they struck me as totally contrived. While Fr Seraphim's positions are obviously a lot more Orthodox than Kalomiros's, I still felt that he was trying to argue things in to St Basil that weren't there. It didn't seem to me that St Basil was trying to write a tract on science. It seemed to me that St Basil was using the science of his day for purposes of analogy, such as the whole bit about the cunning squid, not that we intended his writings to be a scientific treatise. But again, it's been some time and perhaps I am glossing over Fr Seraphim. I'd love to sit down and read the whole work, but at several hundred pages, and with stacks of patristic writings and spiritual writings to read ahead in the queue, I doubt it will be anytime soon. Wish I had more time to read

At any rate, the Hexameron is such a beautiful work, as one simple example shows:

9. ...Therefore, when you see the trees in our gardens, or those of the forest, those which love the water or the land, those which bear flowers, or those which do not flower, I should like to see you recognising grandeur even in small objects, adding incessantly to your admiration of, and redoubling your love for the Creator. Ask yourself why He has made some trees evergreen and others deciduous; why, among the first, some lose their leaves, and others always keep them. Thus the olive and the pine shed their leaves, although they renew them insensibly and never appear to be despoiled of their verdure. The palm tree, on the contrary, from its birth to its death, is always adorned with the same foliage. Think again of the double life of thetamarisk; it is an aquatic plant, and yet it covers the desert. Thus, Jeremiah compares it to the worst of characters— the double character.

1. " Let the earth bring forth." This short command was in a moment a vast nature, an elaborate system. Swifter than thought it produced the countless qualities of plants. It is this command which, still at this day, is imposed on the earth, and in the course of each year displays all the strength of its power to produce herbs, seeds and trees. Like tops, which after the first impulse, continue theirevolutions, turning upon themselves when once fixed in their centre; thus nature , receiving the impulse of this first command, follows without interruption the course of ages, until the consummation of all things. Let us all hasten to attain to it, full of fruit and of good works; and thus, planted in the house of the Lord we shall flourish in the court of our God, in our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

(Homily 5)

[Pravoslavnik]

Question for Father Anastasios and the St. Euphrosynos Cafe directors. Should the recent posts on this thread about Father Seraphim Rose be re-posted on a new, separate thread entitled Father Seraphim Rose? This is an important topic, and I would be interested in the opinions and observations of Orthodox Christians on the subject-- especially those who have had direct contact with Father Seraphim Rose or his contemporaries within the Orthodox Church. Of course, I agree that it should not be a matter of mere argument, or idle gossip, especially during Great Lent-- but rather an honest, direct exchange of ideas and information.

[jgress]

Cyprian,

You are right to warn me against judging Fr Seraphim. As I said, whether he was truly saved or not is not for me to judge. I pray to God he is saved. My understanding of his sanctity, on the other hand, should be within my capacity to judge, in that a Christian should be able to discern the truly virtuous and spiritual from those who fall short. My understanding has been informed by two sources: the biography Fr Seraphim: His Life and Work (i.e. not the older, discredited edition); and the evidence from a hieromonk I know who used to be at Jordanville. The biography, as you may know, only portrays him in the most complimentary light. My monastic friend, however, knew many fathers at Jordanville who themselves remembered Fr Seraphim, and they did not believe his ascetic life was anything exceptional. I would not extrapolate anything from this evidence other than that Fr Seraphim's level of sanctity is not beyond doubt.

If Fr Seraphim did not insist on the literal interpretation of the six-day creation (i.e. six 24-hour periods), then I stand corrected. If St Ephraim believed in this, then his views should be heard with respect, but they should be measured against other patristic sources that permit a more allegorical interpretation, such as St Basil the Great, or St Augustine.

I never meant to imply that the Boston monastery, or the HOCNA jurisdiction, has ceased being True Orthodox. I do not believe this, even if I don't always agree with the views they promote. And as regards evolutionism, they have lately come out more firmly against it, at least judging by Met Ephraim's published sermons. I am not prepared to call evolutionism itself a heresy, however. Fr Seraphim wanted it to be labeled heresy, but recognized that it had not been so labeled. If an evolutionist denies the Creator or creation, then yes, I call that heresy. But if he says that evolution is simply a description of the mechanism of creation, it is hard for me to see what is intrinsically heretical about that.

Your personal opinions of Fr John Romanides' writings certainly conflict drastically with many in my jurisdiction, including at least two bishops. If it makes you feel better, I am inclined to be skeptical about his interpretation of original sin, and certainly about the interpretation of Heaven and Hell offered by his follower, Dr Alexander Kalomiros, who, unlike Fr John, is an Old Calendarist and traditionalist. If Fr John was a heretic, well technically that's true, in that he died a new calendarist, and so at least died under the anathemas against that church, regardless of the theological status of his other teachings. But, again technically, that has nothing to do with his writings that have gained such a following, such as The Ancestral Sin. I personally don't feel comfortable with the uncritical promotion of a new calendarist's theology in our True Orthodox church, but that is less to do with the quality of the writings themselves than the fact that, because the author is a new calendarist, that has the capacity to scandalize many. The same goes for Met Hierotheos Vlachos. I have read both the Ancestral Sin and the Mind of the Orthodox Church, and while I found good things in both, I recognize also that they are not beyond criticism. To that extent I sympathize with your concern. But to call them heretics simply on the basis of those writings, I think, is excessive.

I'm not aware of Catherine's defense of Islam, but if her comments bother you especially I can have a word with her. If she doesn't like Fr Seraphim, that's her choice. If she spreads unsupported gossip about him, I will call her on that.

[Kybihetz21]

I do not want to pass judgment on anyone (not on Catherine, not on Fr. Seraphim, not on anyone) as I don’t have the desire, will, intention or time to do so. I have always liked facts, and I have always tried to see justice and understanding on all things. This is my opinion, nothing else.

All saints (since they are just simple human beings, sinners like all of us) have a different way of being. There is no saint without its detractor and accuser; this occurs because the evil one hates the Light and the Truth, and therefore likes to sow doubt, hate, mistrust, suspicions, and many other emotions and sins among those who strive towards the Light and the Truth.

I never met Fr. Seraphim, but I have met many, many people that knew him (people that at the same time knew most of the ROCOR hierarchs, even going back to Metropolitan Anthony – whom some consider a heretic/false teacher, but that’s another subject of conversation – and including modern saints like St. John and St. Philaret). I have heard various comments and observations regarding Fr. Seraphim, and although he may have been controversial, and indeed, “not of this world”, I do not see anything major that will make me (or anyone else) shun him and dislike him. I am personally friends with his Godfather, some of his former spiritual children, people that were baptized by him, people that knew him as Eugene, people that only knew him as Fr. Seraphim and people that were not that in good terms with him at all. Whether he is a saint or not, I cannot say, only God knows, and time will tell if he is glorified by the Church, but I can say that it is my understanding that he was a good monk, a struggler, a faithful son of the Church, and a person that tried to attain salvation for himself, and for others. The fact that one of his relatives, instigated by personal temptations, sensationalism, and looking to make some profit on the already departed, decided to publish certain stories (the veracity of which has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt) about his past, creating misgivings and scandal in the process, doesn’t lessen his life after he found Orthodoxy, nor all his good works. Fr. Seraphim was a sinner, like all of us, but what makes him different was the fact that he went further than most of us go on our way to attain theosis and the Grace of God. We cannot weight him on the same scale we weight ourselves, simply because most of us are neither monastics, nor clergymen, and those two things already imply a great struggle, which is added to our daily ones against the evil one and his servants. We can only try to emulate someone who tried to reach for the Truth, and teach others about it. We must repent ourselves and look into our hearts and souls, not into the souls and hearts of others. May the Grace of God, the prayers of His Holy Mother, all those who struggled in the Faith, and those of his faithful servant, Hieromonk Seraphim, of blessed memory, help us on our warfare against the invisible and visible forces that constantly persist on taking us away from Christ, our God and Savior.