A well-born Russian aristocrat and a brilliant guards officer, a military scientist, a hero of the Russian-Turkish war, as well as a writer, composer, artist, author of an original medical system, compiler of the famous Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery, one of the most authoritative church hierarchs of his time - Hieromartyr Seraphim (Chichagov) occupies a special place in the host of Russian New Martyrs. The fruits of the life of Metropolitan Seraphim were so significant that in another country a monument would have been erected to him. In the USSR, he was slandered and declared an "enemy of the people." But time put everything in its place.
Metropolitan Seraphim(in the world Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov) was born on January 9, 1856 in an aristocratic family in St. Petersburg.
The Chichagovs came from an old Russian noble family dating back to the 15th century. The future Metropolitan Seraphim was great-grandson of the famous admiral Vasily Yakovlevich Chichagov (1726-1809), one of the first explorers of the Arctic Ocean. The grandfather of Metropolitan Seraphim Pavel Vasilyevich Chichagov (1767-1849), also an admiral, was the first naval minister of Russia, a prominent participant in the Patriotic War of 1812. He wrote memoirs in which he spoke about his father, the discoverer of the sea route through the Arctic Ocean along the coast of America to Kamchatka, a participant in naval battles with the Swedes and Turks.
The mother of the saint, Maria Nikolaevna (before her marriage, Zvarkovskaya), was endowed with writing talent, she played the piano superbly. She instilled a love for music in her children. Father Mikhail Nikiforovich rose to the rank of major general. He spent the last years of his life in Kaluga, where he served as commandant of the city, under the supervision of Imam Shamil, who was captured in the Caucasus and exiled with his family to Kaluga. Father died in 1866 when Leonid was 10 years old. Many who personally knew Mikhail Nikiforovich with his integrity and ability to find the right tone in relationships with other people bitterly mourned his death. Among them was Imam Shamil, with whom he was able to establish respectful and even trusting relations. Shamil was the first to come to share the grief that befell the Chichagov family. The once cruel, implacable ruler of Dagestan and Chechnya wept, saying: "I, I lost everything with him! Never again will I have such a friend who would understand me so much and take care of me so much!"
EducationLeonid Chichagov received an excellent education. Like his famous ancestors, he was also determined to go to the military unit.
First, he was educated at the First St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium, and then entered the Corps of Pages, the most privileged aristocratic educational institution of the then Russia, which trained the elite military personnel of the Russian Empire.
Leonid Chichagov (photo from the 70s of the XIX century)
Years of stay in the Corps of Pages allowed not only to receive a fundamental military and general education, but also to get to know the court high society with all its often illusory virtues and vices often covered with secular splendor. Despite the fact that on December 25, 1874 he was promoted to chamber-page, not court, but military service was the subject of dreams of an 18-year-old boy. After many years, Saint Seraphim said: "We were brought up in the faith and Orthodoxy, but if we left the building insufficiently imbued with churchness, we understood well that Orthodoxy is the strength, strength and treasure of our beloved homeland."
Military serviceAt the end of the Corps of Pages in 1874, Leonid Mikhailovich was enlisted in the Guards Artillery Brigade of the Preobrazhensky Regiment as an ensign. Even then, he surprised his comrades by observing fasts. In the army, according to the decree of Peter I, this was not necessary.
In 1877 began Russian-Turkish war (1877-1878). L.M. Chichagov was part of the army in the Balkans. He participated in almost all major bloody battles, where he showed personal courage, bravery and courage. For bravery during the siege of Plevna and the capture of Telish, he was awarded by General Skobelev with a personal weapon.
The war between the Russian Empire and its allied Balkan states (Romania and Montenegro) on the one hand, and the Ottoman Empire on the other. The theater of hostilities was the Balkans and Transcaucasia (the fighting in Abkhazia was mainly to divert the main enemy forces), but the Balkans were the key, since it was for the sake of the liberation of the local population that the war was waged.
The purpose of the war is the liberation of Orthodox Slavic peoples - Serbs, Bulgarians, Montenegrins and other Balkan peoples from the Ottoman yoke. The reason for the declaration of war was the brutal suppression by the Turkish authorities of an uprising in vassal Bulgaria in 1876.
In April 1877, Russia declared war on Turkey, and in May, Russian troops had already entered the territory of Romania. The active support of the Russian army by the peoples of the Balkans and Transcaucasia strengthened the morale of the Russian troops, which included the Bulgarian, Armenian and Georgian militia. After the successful exit of the Russian army to Constantinople, England and Austria intervened in the negotiation process to conclude peace. Due to fears that the Russians might occupy Constantinople, England, through diplomatic tricks, contributed to the speedy conclusion of a peace treaty with Turkey in February 1878.
Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878
The result of the war was the liberation of Bulgaria from the 500-year-old Ottoman yoke, autonomy and expansion of the territory of Serbia and Montenegro, the transition of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the rule of Austria-Hungary. Russia, on the other hand, regained the southern part of Bessarabia, lost after the Crimean War, and annexed the Kars region, inhabited by Armenians and Georgians. Great Britain, under an agreement with the Ottoman Empire, occupied Cyprus in exchange for protecting Turkey from further Russian advances in the Transcaucasus.
It should be noted that to this day in Bulgaria, at the Liturgy in Orthodox churches, Alexander II and all Russian soldiers who fell on the battlefield for the liberation of Bulgaria in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 are commemorated.
In 1881, as a highly qualified specialist in artillery, he was sent to France to maneuver the French troops, where he studied the structure of French artillery. In 1882 he was awarded the Cavalier's Cross of the Order of the Legion of Honor and the Montenegrin Order of Danila of the First IV degree.
He took part in resolving issues of arming the fortresses on the western border of Russia and equipping the Bulgarian army. In 1883 he was awarded the Romanian Iron Cross, the Bulgarian Order of St. Alexander III degree. In 1884 he was awarded the Order of St. Anna II degree. Total L.M. Chichagov was awarded 13 awards.
His military career progressed quite successfully: warrant officer (1874), second lieutenant (1876), lieutenant (1878), adjutant assistant to the Feldzeugmeister General, General Count A. A. Barantsov (commanded the artillery of the Russian army) (1878 ), staff captain (1881). In 1890 he was dismissed, and in 1891, at the age of 37, "for comparison with his peers", he was promoted to colonel.
Literary activityLeonid Mikhailovich Chichagov combined military service with historical and literary activities.
During the war, Leonid Mikhailovich had to see and experience a lot. It was at this time that his talent as a documentary writer unfolded. He writes books " Diary of the stay of the Tsar-Liberator in the Danube army in 1877. The book was published three times and was marked by letters of thanks from members of the royal family.
But his most sought-after work was the book “ Examples from the last war of 1877-1878", in which stories about the exploits of soldiers and officers were placed.
He was worried about the theme of the spiritual meaning of life and death, the theme of the moral meaning of suffering and self-sacrifice, which was revealed to him in the exploits of Russian soldiers who sacrificed their souls for their Slavic brothers.
Interests in medicineAcquaintance with the horrors of war makes him think deeply about suffering, life, death. He established a charitable society for helping the military, who, due to illness, were forced to retire before acquiring the right to retire, took care of the organization of free medical care, of orphans whose parents died in the war.
The desire to help the sick and crippled led the future bishop to a serious study of medicine, especially folk medicine, based on the healing properties of plants. Without a special education, Leonid Mikhailovich developed an independent treatment system, which he described in his fundamental work "Medical Conversations" containing numerous theoretical and purely practical recommendations for the treatment of many diseases. The system of treatment developed by him has not lost its significance even today. This is a very rare case when a person far from medicine not only thoroughly studied its secrets, but also created an almost new direction in it. His camping library began to be replenished with medical books, all kinds of "herbalists", and historical research. And immediately after the end of the war with the Turks, the staff captain began to intensively study medicine at St. Petersburg University. So the classical modern methods of treatment were well known to him, but he chose a different way of helping his patients, of whom he had about 20 thousand, there were many severe ones among them, which other doctors refused.
MarriageIn 1879, Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov married Natalia Nikolaevna Dokhturova, daughter of the Chamberlain of the Court of His Imperial Majesty, Acting State Councilor Nikolai Ivanovich Dokhturov. His wife was the great-niece of the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, General Dmitry Sergeevich Dokhturov.
From the very beginning, this brilliant marriage, which gave birth to representatives of two well-known aristocratic families, was different from many high society marriages of that time: Leonid Mikhailovich managed to bring the spirit of traditional Orthodox piety into the way of his family. It was these principles that formed the basis for the upbringing of four daughters - Vera, Natalia, Leonida and Catherine.
Abbess Seraphim (Chernaya-Chichagova) († 1999), granddaughter of Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov)
Three daughters - Vera Natalia and Leonida will later become monks. The granddaughter of Vladyka Seraphim, Abbess Seraphim († 1999, in the world - Varvara Vasilievna Chernaya-Chichagova) will become the first abbess of the revived Novodevichy Convent in Moscow. Thanks to her selfless labors, materials for the canonization of Metropolitan Seraphim were collected and almost all of his writings were republished.
PriesthoodHe is talented, smart, quickly moving up in the service, but something torments him, such a life seems to him surreal, secondary next to the true vocation of a person.
In St. Petersburg in 1878, the providence of God led Leonid Mikhailovich to a meeting with the great pastor of the Russian Orthodox Church St. Righteous John of Kronstadt who became for all subsequent years a spiritual authority for the future saint, and from that time on he made many of his most important life decisions only with the blessing of St. Righteous John of Kronstadt.
L.M. Chichagov also began systematic theological studies. Thus, an officer who did not even receive a seminary education turned into an encyclopedically educated theologian. His theological authority was eventually recognized by the entire Russian Orthodox Church.
In 1890, with the blessing of his confessor, he decides to become a priest.
The upper world did not understand and did not share his aspirations. In the eyes of the people of "this world", the transition from the aristocratic class to the spiritual was an unthinkable thing. From such "heights" at which he soared in society, they did not descend to the priesthood in the 19th century. There was still no way to become a monk, in order to eventually become a bishop, but a priest (!) in this almost self-contained, not very educated, hard-working environment!? It should be remembered that in the post-Petrine times, the Russian aristocracy, infected with the spirit of Freemasonry and nihilism, considered the path of the priesthood shameful for itself. Priests then were mostly raznochintsy.
My wife was categorically against it at first. Relatives urged him to change his mind. But in order to make his way easier, he retires with the rank of colonel of the guard, which corresponds to the rank of general in combined arms units. The wife is firmly convinced that she will be able to prevent a family disaster. And only after several persuasions led by John of Kronstadt, she finally resigns herself.
In 1891, after the release of L.M. Chichagov retired, his family moved to Moscow. BUT in 1893 he takes the priesthood and becomes father Leonid.
Saying goodbye to a dying spiritual father (1908), L.M. Chichagov received the last blessing of the righteous: "I can die in peace, knowing that you and His Grace Hermogenes will continue my work, will fight for Orthodoxy, for which I bless you." The Kronstadt priest foresaw the high fate of his spiritual son.
He serves in various parishes of Moscow and devotes all his efforts to the beautification of churches, donating personal funds for their repair.
The trials of the first year of priestly service were aggravated for Father Leonid by the unexpected serious illness of his wife, Natalia Nikolaevna. In 1895, at the age of 36, she died, leaving four young daughters - Vera, Natalia, Leonida and Ekaterina, the eldest of whom was 15, and the youngest - 9 years old. Father Leonid brought the body of the deceased wife to Diveevo and buried it at the monastery cemetery. Soon a chapel was erected over the grave, and next to the burial place of mother Natalia, Father Leonid prepared a place for his own burial, which, however, was never destined to receive the relics of the future holy martyr.
The chapel no longer exists today. It was destroyed, like so many other things. The ashes of Natalia Nikolaevna were reburied right there in the cemetery. Now on the site of the cemetery there is a school with a sports ground.
"Chronicles of the Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery" and the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov.Chichagov deeply revered the memory of St. Seraphim of Sarov. Once, when he first came to Diveevo, he suddenly heard from Blessed Pasha Diveevskaya, who knew Seraphim of Sarov well: “It's good that you've come: I've been waiting for you for a long time. Saint Seraphim ordered me to tell you to report to the sovereign that the time has come for the discovery of his relics and glorification”. To Chichagov's perplexed questions and assurances that he could not "report" anything to the sovereign, she answered: “I don’t know anything, I only convey what the Reverend commanded me.”
He decides to write a book about the Sarov miracle worker. Again he goes to Diveevo, works in the archives, writes down the stories of Pasha and other people, and in 1896 the first edition is published. Chronicles of the Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery.
The "Chronicle" immortalized all the spiritually significant events in the monasteries of Sarov and Diveev in the period from 1705 to 1895. The “Chronicle” for the first time contained an exhaustive story about the first abbess of the Diveevo Monastery, Mother Alexandra (Agafya Semyonovna Malgunova in the world), gave a detailed biography of the blessed elder hieromonk Seraphim with his quiet words “My joy” addressed to everyone. The Chronicle also told about the closest associates of the great elder - M.V. Manturov, Archpriest Vasily Sadovsky, Blessed Pelageya Ivanovna Serebrennikova, Nikolai Alexandrovich Motovilov, who recorded a conversation with the elder Seraphim about the acquisition of the Holy Spirit as the main goal of Christian life. The Chronicle contains written instructions from the humble monk of the Sarov monastery about God, about silence, about attention to oneself, about peace of mind, about peace, about tears, about deeds, about fasting, about verbosity, forgiveness of offenses and other aspects of the life of believers.
Metropolitan Seraphim recalled: “When ... I was looking through the proofs, it was late in the evening, I suddenly saw the Monk Seraphim to my left, sitting in an armchair. I somehow instinctively reached out to him, crouching against my chest, and my soul was filled with inexplicable bliss. When I looked up, no one was there. Whether it was a short dream or the Reverend really appeared to me, I do not presume to judge, but I understood that the Reverend thanked me for fulfilling his command.
As is known, the Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery, written by Bishop Seraphim, played a decisive role in the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov. Using his connections in court circles, Archimandrite Seraphim managed to transfer the Chronicle to Emperor Nicholas II. After reading it, the Sovereign came to the idea of the need to glorify St. Seraphim among the saints. But semi-Protestant officials and many hierarchs in the Synod were then sharply negative towards the Monk Seraphim. When, bypassing these people, the book reaches the Tsar, the head of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, writes in his diary that “the rogue Chichagov made his way to the Sovereign and told about this whip”(St. Seraphim).
Nevertheless, the long-term blockade around the name of Seraphim of Sarov was lifted. In 1903, according to the presentation compiled by Chichagov and thanks to the support of Emperor Nicholas II, the canonization and glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov took place.
MonasticismThe spring of 1898 was the time when Father Leonid made the final decision about his future fate. Leaving his four daughters in the care of several trusted persons, Father Leonid on April 30 1898 received his resignation from the Presbyter of the military and naval clergy and on August 14 1898 becomes a monk. He is tonsured into a robe at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra with the name Seraphim- in honor of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov.
Over the 40 years of his ministry, Vladyka Seraphim worked in many places in Russia: in Moscow, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Suzdal, New Jerusalem, Sukhumi, Orel, Chisinau, Tver, and Leningrad. And at every place of his service, in all the dioceses entrusted to him, Vladyka Seraphim was engaged in the restoration of destroyed churches and monasteries, the revival of the spiritual life of the people; he fearlessly fought against revolutionary unrest, sectarianism and schisms of all kinds - for the purity of Orthodoxy, actively engaged in the organization of parish life.
In August 1899 Hieromonk Seraphim was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and appointed rector of the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery and dean of all the monasteries of the diocese of Vladimir. The monastery had not been repaired for about 100 years and was in need of a major overhaul. At the cost of enormous efforts and mainly at his own expense (because of insufficient donations collected), Archimandrite Seraphim managed to transform both the economic and spiritual life of the monastery.
The 14th of February 1904 he was appointed rector of the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery. He worked in this monastery for only one year. And here his work left a good mark. Archimandrite Seraphim sealed his hegumenship by restoring the famous Resurrection Cathedral.
By the providence of God, Father Seraphim was prepared for a new church service. April 28 1905 in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin he was consecrated Bishop of Sukhumi. The rite of consecration was performed by Metropolitan Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Moscow, Bishops Trifon (Turkestanov) and Seraphim (Golubyatnikov). From that time until the end of his days, for St. Seraphim, the hierarchal service was inextricably linked with the courageous stand for the purity of the Orthodox faith and the unity of the Russian Church, which the Hieromartyr Seraphim, being the successor of the military glory of his valiant ancestors, already carried out as a soldier of Christ on the field of spiritual battle .
The saint alternately went to the Oryol (1906), Kishinev (1908) and Tver (1912) cathedras - in the rank of archbishop. Everywhere he showed himself as a zealous organizer of the life of parish communities.
Somewhat later, Vladyka Seraphim makes perhaps the biggest mistake of his life. Forgetting how he himself was once persecuted, he, sent to investigate a complaint against the Optina Elders, commits an act that is difficult to explain. Casts out the holy elder Barsanuphius from the monastery, puts “order” in the monastery worse than any devastation.
However, according to the story of the priest Vasily Shustin, the spiritual son of Fr. Barsanuphius, things were different... There were people to whom the wisdom of Fr. Barsanuphias did not let live, and the enemy did not doze off. A certain Mitya tongue-tied from the city of Kozelsk settled in the skete. He was a drunkard and secretly corrupted the monks. Batiushka could not stand this and evicted him from the skete. Now a whole legion has openly taken up arms against the priest... One of the women of the St. Petersburg religious and political circle of Countess Ignatieva came to Optina and collected all the accusations that could be invented against the priest. Bishop Seraphim (Chichagov), who came to Optina, whitewashed the priest, but the matter of his recall from Optina had already been decided somewhere. Father Barsanuphius had to leave the skete...
Music and paintingMetropolitan Seraphim was distinguished by an unusually versatile talent.
He was an excellent musician: he sang and played well, composed church music. In 1999, his instrumental works for organ-harmonium and piano were found in the archive (in 1999, his composition was first publicly performed "Leaves from a music diary"). He never parted with the harmonium. He paid great attention to church singing: wherever he served, he always selected singers for the choir, conducted rehearsals.
Metropolitan Seraphim was also a talented artist who worked in the field of easel painting. In Moscow, in the churches in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Old Vagankovo and in the name of the Prophet Elijah in Obydinsky Lane, as well as in St. Petersburg in the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, icons and wall paintings of his work have been preserved. They amaze with high professional skills. In the Moscow Church of the Prophet Elijah, in Obydensky Lane, at the entrance to the temple you can see the wonderful image of the Savior painted by him in full growth in a white tunic and the image of the Monk Seraphim praying on a stone above the entrance arch in the main aisle.
Full-length image of the Savior in a white chiton, painted by Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov)
Revolution of 1917The preaching activity of St. Seraphim, as well as all his archpastoral ministry, was directed not only to the arrangement of church life, but also to overcoming those destructive spiritual and social temptations with which Russian reality was filled at the beginning of the 20th century. Painfully experiencing the growing separation of the educated part of Russian society from the traditional spiritual and historical principles of Russian life based on the Orthodox faith, St. Seraphim severely denounced in his sermons the spiritual blindness of those who arrogated to themselves the right to act as new "leaders" and " prophets" for the Russian people who became alien to them.
Bishop Seraphim, by that time Vladyka of the Tver diocese, met the February Revolution with a sharp negative reaction. A rebellion is a rebellion, and an oath is an oath. For him, a Russian soldier, there were no questions here.
When in the March days of 1917 the abdication of the Sovereign called into question the very continued existence of the Monarchy, and the Holy Synod found it necessary to support the Provisional Government, Saint Seraphim, continuing to obey the highest church and state authorities, did not hide his negative attitude towards what was happening in his native Fatherland.
At the end of 1917, expelled by schismatics from his see in Tver, St. Seraphim was appointed by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon to the Warsaw See, which he was never able to take over due to hostilities in Poland.
Arrests
Of course, such a bright, talented bishop interfered with the authorities in their policy of destroying religion. In 1921, being by that time already in the rank of metropolitan, Vladyka Seraphim was for the first time arrested and sentenced to exile in the Arkhangelsk concentration camp for a period of 2 years.
After his return, Vladyka Seraphim was again arrested in 1924 and kept in the Butyrka prison: he was charged with the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov in 1903. A few months later, Vladyka Seraphim, at the request of Patriarch Tikhon, was released, however, at the insistence of the authorities, he still had to leave Moscow.
At this time, the saint had to endure a new test, which this time fell upon him not from the side of the persecutors of the Church, but from the side of the abbess of the Diveevsky monastery so dear to his heart, Alexandra (Trokovskaya), whose election as abbess more than 20 years ago was facilitated by St. Seraphim himself. After Vladyka, expelled from Moscow by the authorities, turned to Abbess Alexandra with a request to give him shelter in the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery, the abbess refused the persecuted confessor.
The rejected Vladyka Seraphim, together with his daughter Natalya (in the monasticism of Seraphim), was received by Abbess Arsenia (Dobronravova) at the Resurrection Feodorovsky Monastery, located near Shuya (Vladimir Region). He lived in this monastery for two years.
In 1928 Vladyka was summoned from Shuya by Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) to Moscow and appointed administrator of the Leningrad diocese, where the spirit of unrest and church division reigned at that time, which engulfed a significant number of Leningrad parishes. The split played into the hands of the Bolshevik authorities. Nevertheless, under the conditions of cruel and comprehensive restrictions on church life by the state authorities, Vladyka Seraphim based his archpastoral ministry on the reverent celebration of Sunday and holiday services and inspired preaching in city and suburban churches. “As long as the Divine Liturgy is being celebrated, while people are approaching Divine Communion, until then one can be sure that the Orthodox Church will stand and win, that the Russian people will not perish in the evil of sin, godlessness, malice, materialism, pride and impurity, that our Motherland will be reborn and saved "- convinced Metropolitan Seraphim.
He saw special importance in the preservation of the sacraments, as they are commanded by church tradition and the holy fathers. Lord did not recognize the common confession and fought with it. Priest Valentin Sventsitsky wrote about Vladyka that in his report against the general confession, among other things, he said: "No common confession existed either in antiquity or later, and nowhere is it mentioned throughout the history of the Orthodox Church... The establishment of a common confession is a clear replacement of the New Testament Sacrament by the Old Testament rite."
On December 28, 1929, the Solovetsky prisoner, one of the outstanding church hierarchs of the 20th century, the Archbishop of Vereya, died of typhus in the Leningrad prison hospital. Hilarion (Trinity), vicar of the Moscow diocese. Having himself tasted the bitterness of bonds and exile, Metropolitan Seraphim, at the risk of incurring the wrath of the authorities, obtained permission to bury the deceased Bishop Hilarion (Trinity) according to Christian custom, worthy of the spiritual dignity, with whom they were connected by spiritual ties. His body was handed over to relatives in a roughly knocked together coffin. When the coffin was opened, no one recognized Vladyka, who looked like a 70-year-old man, the imprisonment and illness changed his appearance so much. Vladyka Seraphim brought his white vestment and white miter. After dressing, the body of the archbishop was placed in another coffin. The funeral service was performed by Metropolitan Seraphim himself, co-served by six bishops and a multitude of clergy.
Vladyka Seraphim served as Metropolitan of Leningrad for 5 years. Vladyka's bodily infirmities and the ever-increasing hatred of the state authorities in Leningrad for him made it highly probable that St. Seraphim would soon be arrested. This prompted Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod on October 14, 1933, to issue a decree on the dismissal of Vladyka Seraphim to rest. subsequently to the Patriarch of All Russia, St. Seraphim left his native city forever.
The providence of God gave Saint Seraphim a few more years so that he could prepare for his last service - the feat of martyrdom for faith in Christ. He found his last refuge in two rooms of a country cottage, located not far from the Udelnaya station of the Kazan railway near Moscow.
In one room, the bishop's bedroom was arranged, with a large number of books, icons and a working desk. Another room is reserved for the dining-living room. There was a dining table, a harmonium, and a sofa; on the wall hung a large image of the Savior in a white chiton, painted by Vladyka. With him were his two faithful cell-attendants, the nuns of the Resurrection Feodorovsky Monastery, Vera and Sevastiana, who had been accompanying Vladyka with the blessing of their Abbess Arsenia for more than 7 years. During the day, spiritual children came to him, others came from St. Petersburg; Vladyka was visited by Metropolitans Alexy (Simansky) and Arseniy (Stadnitsky), coming to meetings of the Synod. In the evenings, when everyone dispersed, the Metropolitan sat down at the harmonium and played well-known sacred music for a long, long time or composed himself.
The harmonium of the authorities, perhaps, would have been demolished, but the fact that the tsarist colonel and church obscurantist Seraphim Chichagov continues to be at the center of church life, albeit unwittingly, brought the NKVD out of itself.
ExecutionArrest 1937 turned out to be the last for Vladyka Seraphim. The sentence of the "troika" was formal. A terminally ill 80-year-old man was accused of "inspiring a counter-revolutionary conspiracy."
Illiterately, rudely, ridiculously, this sentence was drawn up on a piece of paper yellowed from time to time. It is on display at the museum in Butovo. Due to illness, they could not take him away on the "black crow", they had to call an ambulance. All property was confiscated, therefore, neither his correspondence, nor his books, nor musical works, nor icons, nor vestments remained. The last, unpublished part of the Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery turned out to be irretrievably lost.
According to the stories of the Metropolitan himself, Father John of Kronstadt predicted to him the day of his death. He repeatedly repeated: "Remember the day of the Three Hierarchs." Every year Vladyka prepared for death on this day. Daughters always wanted to know the real day of death. And then his daughter Natalia (nun Seraphim) had a dream: a radiant father comes towards her and says to her: "Well, of course, on the day of the Three Hierarchs."
As can be seen from the materials of Vladyka's interrogations, contained in the "one-volume" case No. 7154, he pleaded not guilty, despite the brutal tortures to which Vladyka was subjected in prison.
Bishop Seraphim (Chichagov), prison photo, 1937
This last photograph of Vladyka Seraphim, taken in prison, has been preserved: the haggard face of a martyr, but in this face there is such unbending strength of spirit that it is impossible to look away. There is evidence that Vladyka Seraphim was promised to save his life if he publicly renounced his faith and the Orthodox Church. But he didn't give up.
December 11, 1937 he was shot in Butovo, at the so-called NKVD training ground. To the place of execution, tormented by torture, but unbroken in spirit, the executioners brought him on a stretcher ... The body was thrown into a mass grave. There, among the Russian bones, his relics are now not to be found. He was 81.
More than 50 years later, on November 10, 1988, Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov was completely rehabilitated.
Cancellation of saintsIn 1997 Bishops' Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized as a new martyr.
On September 29, 2011 in Tver, at the Third All-Russian Congress of Orthodox Doctors, the name of Seraphim (Chichagov) was included in the Golden Book of St. Petersburg. Although it would be useful to note that at one time L. Chichagov's 10-year active medical activity was accompanied by fierce criticism, slander and persecution.
Troparion, tone 5:
Having loved the army of the King of Heaven more than the earthly one, the fiery servant of the Holy Trinity appeared to you. Compiling the instructions of the Kronstadt pastor in your heart, you have multiplied the manifold gifts given to you from God for the benefit of the people of God. Having been a teacher of piety and a champion of the unity of the Church, you were even worthy to suffer to the point of bloodshed. Hieromartyr Seraphim, pray to Christ God that our souls be saved.
Kontakion, tone 6:
Having been named the Sarov miracle worker, you had a warm love for him, having proclaimed the deeds and miracles of that world with your writings, you were faithful to his glorification, and you were honored with a grateful visit to the Reverend Samago. With him now, Hieromartyr Seraphim, settling in heavenly devils, pray to Christ God of Seraphim joy to be a partaker of us.
December 11 is the day of memory of the Holy Martyr Seraphim (Chichagov). A man of amazing life, a descendant of a famous noble family, a brilliant military man who served the Fatherland with all his strength, an original thinker-theologian, writer, artist, composer, doctor, who created his own treatment system, and then a talented hierarch who served the Church and people with all the talents entrusted to him by the Lord . And he completed his earthly journey at the age of 82 in Butovo - having accepted a martyr's death for the confession of faith.
"Strength is not strength, but strength is love"
In February 1893, Leonid Chichagov, 37-year-old Colonel of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, future Hieromartyr Seraphim, was ordained a priest in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Twelve years later, in the same place, during his consecration to the bishopric, Vladyka Seraphim said: Could I imagine that my initial secular path, which lasted so long and with such success, was not the one that was intended for me by God?!».
Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov was born on January 9, 1856 in St. Petersburg into an aristocratic family belonging to an ancient noble family. He received an excellent military and general education in His Imperial Majesty's Corps of Pages, after which in 1875 he was promoted to second lieutenant and sent to His Majesty's First Battery of the Guards Horse Artillery Brigade.
A special page of his life as a military man is participation in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, where Leonid Chichagov manifests himself as an active participant. Subsequently, he wrote books: "The Diary of the Tsar-Liberator's stay in the Danube Army in 1877", marked by letters of thanks from the royal family, and "Examples from the last war of 1877 - 1878", telling about the exploits of Russian soldiers and officers. The theme of the spiritual meaning of life and death, posed in all its acuteness by the war, the theme of the moral meaning of suffering and self-sacrifice, revealed in the exploits of Russian soldiers, became the most important and motivating for the deep post-war religious reflections of the future saint.
The desire for a feat in the name of the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland permeated the whole life of Hieromartyr Seraphim. For military and civil merits L.M. Chichagov was awarded 14 Russian and foreign orders and distinctions.
Later, in his sermons in the church, Vladyka would call the flock to a truly Christian life, to inner asceticism: “ The Russian school should instill in young men the mighty Russian spirit... love for the great and holy Russia, the desire to preserve the Russian treasure - Orthodoxy, passionate love for the history of their people and unshakable patriotism»
« Our family life must be consecrated and strengthened, or the death of not only the state, the Church, but also the people is inevitable in the future!»
« As long as the Divine, salvific Liturgy is celebrated, as long as people approach Divine Communion, until then one can be sure that the Orthodox Church will endure and overcome. Therefore, above all, think about the preservation, fulfillment and continuous service ... of the liturgy. There will be it, there will be both the Church and Russia».
The whole further life path of L.M. Chichagov was predetermined by the patronage of two great Russian saints: the Monk Seraphim of Sarov and the holy righteous John of Kronstadt. At the age of 22, the brilliant Guards officer Chichagov became the spiritual child of Archpriest John of Kronstadt and for thirty years was in close spiritual communion with him. Decisive turns in the life of L.M. Chichagov took place according to his deep obedience to his confessor: marriage, a change from a military career to a priestly service, and then monasticism.
Life experience and the upheavals of the war, which taught him to deeply empathize with the physical suffering of wounded soldiers, led to a deep study of medicine by L. M. Chichagov. In the future, a significant result of many years of medical experiments was developed by L.M. Chichagov and successfully tested in practice the system of treatment of the body with herbal medicines.
Having made the most important choice, at the age of 34, by then elevated to the rank of colonel, Leonid Chichagov retires to serve the Church with the talents given to him. What, of course, stunned Petersburg, with its impeccable service, high awards, in the eyes of the public it looked like an unjustified damage to a career. By that time, four daughters were born in the Chichagov family.
For his wife, such a change in life was a real shock; Vladyka later recalled this difficult time for the family: “.. that only I could not bear in my time, putting the poor wife in the position of a subject whom only the lazy did not attack for my passion for Father John, for ruining my career, losing my pension, rights for children, etc..»
In the first years of his ministry, Father Leonid took upon himself one of the most important obediences of his life - compiling the Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery. He deeply honored the memory of St. Seraphim of Sarov and drew spiritual strength from visiting the ancient Sarov Monastery, the Diveevo Monastery. And subsequently the chronicle was compiled and presented by Bishop Nicholas II, and this grace-filled work served as the basis for the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov, which took place in 1903.
The trials of the very first year of Father Leonid's ministry largely predetermined his future path, including through the unexpected serious illness of his wife, and then her death.
After some time, leaving his already matured daughters in the care of trusted persons, Leonid Chichagov takes monastic vows with the name Seraphim.
The Imperial Family at the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov, accompanied by Archimandrite Seraphim (Chichagov). Sarov, 1903
Over the long years of his priesthood, Vladyka Seraphim worked in many places in Russia: in Moscow, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Suzdal, New Jerusalem, Sukhumi, Orel, Chisinau, Tver, and Leningrad. At each place of his ministry, in all the dioceses entrusted to him, he was engaged in the restoration of destroyed churches and monasteries, the revival of the spiritual life of the people. He fearlessly came out in the fight against revolutionary unrest, sectarianism and schisms of all kinds, and was actively involved in organizing parish life.
« The spiritual rebirth of Russia is possible only in the way in which its spiritual birth took place. Namely: it is necessary to return to the church and social life of the Old Russian parish, so that the parish community is unanimously engaged not only in education, charity, missionary work, but also in the morality of its members, restoring the rights of elders over younger ones, parents over children, educating and guiding the younger generation, affirming Christian and Orthodox institutions.
Indifference, lack of zeal for faith - that's what scares me the most! The only means of enlightenment is the revival of parish life. It is necessary, urgent!”
Vladyka considered the preaching of the Word of God to be the main work of his ministry. And she found her continuation in many of his works, as a talented writer, historian, philosopher, artist and musician.
Including amazing icons of the “Savior in a white tunic”, St. Seraphim of Sarov, were born. Music occupied a special place in the life of Vladyka, Metropolitan Seraphim composed it throughout his life, it was a natural need of the soul, a continuation of prayer and sermon.
Metropolitan Seraphim fought all his life for the purity of Orthodoxy. He was a member of the All-Russian Local Council of 1917-1918. Together with the entire Church, Metropolitan Seraphim also drank the cup of persecution from the godless authorities. 1921 - 1925 he spends in prisons and exile.
Vladyka Seraphim’s last place of hierarchal service was Leningrad, where he was sent to fight the Renovationist schismatics in 1928.
In those atheistic times, he urged his spiritual children not to be distracted from God's Truth, not to submit to evil: “ Learn inner prayer, for this prayer is not mental, but heartfelt, bringing you closer to the invisible heaven. Learn to forgive everyone for their shortcomings and mistakes. And in view of their submission to evil power and, undoubtedly, not a normal state, say: “Lord help him!”, For he is spiritually ill. Such a consciousness will prevent judgment. For only he who is perfect and does not err can judge.».
Having given all his strength to the diocese, the 77-year-old Saint Seraphim was approaching the end of his archpastoral service as the ruling bishop. On October 14, 1933, the temporary Patriarchal Holy Synod issues a decree on the dismissal of the bishop to rest. Having served on October 24 in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior, in the church of his youth, where he had once married his wife, he served as headman of the parish, the Divine Liturgy, St. Seraphim left his native city forever.
Vladyka Seraphim spent the last years of his earthly life in the suburbs, in two rooms of a country cottage, located not far from the Udelnaya station of the Kazan railway near Moscow. There he was visited by spiritual children, Bishop Metropolitans Alexy (Simansky) and Arseniy (Stadnitsky) visited him, one way or another, he continued to be at the center of church life.
Consistent steadfastness and adherence to principles, which always distinguished Metropolitan Seraphim, under the conditions of Soviet power led to his martyr's death.
Vladyka Seraphim was arrested by the NKVD in November 1937. At that time, he was an 81-year-old elder-prelate, bedridden. He was carried out of the house on a stretcher and taken to the Taganka prison in an ambulance.
The infamous Butovo test site near Moscow is a place of historical memory for special. zone of the NKVD, where mass executions and burials were carried out in 37-38 years of the last century.
The canonization of Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov) took place on February 23, 1997. Largely thanks to the efforts of Vladyka’s granddaughter, Abbess Seraphim (in the world of Varvara Vasilievna Chernaya-Chichagova), who became the first abbess of the revived Novodevichy Convent in Moscow and worked hard to glorify and canonize Metropolitan Seraphim.
A talented hierarch who ardently served the Fatherland, the Church and the people, an original thinker-theologian, a brilliant military man, writer, composer, icon painter, talented doctor and patriot of the Russian land.
The life story of this amazing man, confessor, martyr, who remained faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ until the end of his life, is a legacy for us today. The feat of his life is quite recent. And therefore, the thoughts, statements and example of the life of the New Martyr, who is close to us in time, can now be especially penetrating.
The life of Vladyka Seraphim is also a stunning example of how a person can grow to the full extent of his powers and talents, given by God, how he can dispose of this wealth, selflessly giving to the world, to people.
Martyrdom is the clearest example of faith and fidelity. A feat shared by many new martyrs in the last century. These were living people who were afraid of torment and death, but who turned out to be ready to die for what they believed in. Who better than them to pray for the strengthening of faith.
“Power is not in power, but power is in love!” - said St. Seraphim Chichagov. And his whole life has become a vivid evidence of this. Active, lively, inspirational love.
Holy Hieromartyr Seraphim, pray to God for us!
Prayer to Hieromartyr Seraphim
O great and marvelous saint of Christ, Hieromartyr Seraphim! Now accept our humble song of thanksgiving and implore the Almighty God, glorified in the Indivisible Trinity, send us peace and prosperity, may our power be saved from ruin. With your love and wisdom, bring the people of Russia to conciliar unity and protect from heresies and schisms. By the power of your intercession, patience in sorrows and illnesses has been sent down to us. O all-praise saint of Christ! Ask the All-Merciful God to grant us repentance before the end, so that we may be able to see with you the faces of His unspeakable kindness, glorifying the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen.
Troparion, voice 4
Today the Russian Church joyfully rejoices, glorifying its new martyrs and confessors: saints and priests, royal martyrs, noble princes and princesses, reverend men and women and all Orthodox Christians, in the days of persecution of the godless laying down their lives for faith in Christ and keeping the Truth with their blood. By those intercession, long-suffering Lord, preserve our country in Orthodoxy until the end of time.
magnificence
We magnify you, Hieromartyr Seraphim, and honor your holy memory, for you pray for us Christ, our God.
Kondak, voice 6
Having been named the Sarov miracle worker, you had a warm love for him, having announced the deeds and miracles of that world with your writings, you were faithful to his glorification, and you were honored with a grateful visit to the samago reverend. With him now, Hieromartyr Seraphim, settling in heavenly devils, pray to Christ God of Seraphim joy to be a partaker of us.
Saint Seraphim (in the world Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov) was born on January 9, 1856 in St. Petersburg, into the family of artillery colonel Mikhail Nikiforovich Chichagov and his wife Maria Nikolaevna. The family of the saint belonged to one of the most famous noble families of the Kostroma province, from which came the famous navigator, explorer of the Arctic Ocean, Admiral V. Ya. Chichagov and the Russian Minister of Marine Admiral P. V. Chichagov.
After graduating from the Imperial Corps of Pages, Leonid Mikhailovich participated in the Balkan War of 1876-77. Being a participant in almost all the main events of this bloody war, L.M. Chichagov, promoted to the guard lieutenant on the battlefield and awarded several military awards, repeatedly showed high personal heroism. God's Providence, which saved Lieutenant L.M. Chichagov from death and injury on the battlefield, led him shortly after returning to St. Petersburg in 1878 to meet with the great pastor of the Russian Orthodox Church, St. John of Kronstadt. From that time on, the saint made his most important life decisions only with his blessing.
On April 8, 1879, L. M. Chichagov married the daughter of the Chamberlain of the Court of His Imperial Majesty Natalia Nikolaevna Dokhturova. Bearing in mind that Christian marriage is, first of all, a small Church, in which it is not pleasing each other, and even more so the prejudices of the big world, but pleasing God is the basis of family happiness, L. M. Chichagov managed to bring into the way of his young family the beginnings of the traditional Orthodox piety.
The military career of L. M. Chichagov continued to develop successfully in peacetime. As a recognized specialist in artillery, he was sent to maneuver the French army, and upon his return to Russia, he published the military-theoretical work “French Artillery in 1882”, which was important for the rearmament of the Russian army at that time.
Having learned in the war to deeply empathize with the physical suffering of wounded soldiers, L. M. Chichagov set himself the task of mastering medical knowledge in order to help his fellow men. The result of his many years of medical experiments was the system he developed and tested in practice for treating the body with herbal medicines, set out in two volumes of Medical Conversations.
The providence of God steadily led L. M. Chichagov to the decision, prepared by all his previous development, to accept the priesthood. After his retirement, the family of L. M. Chichagov moved to Moscow in 1891. . In Moscow, Leonid Mikhailovich settled on Ostozhenka in house number 37. This mansion with white columns has survived to this day. I.S. Turgenev once lived in it, who wrote the novels “First Love” and “Mumu” here.
Here, under the shadow of the Moscow shrines, he began to reverently prepare for the adoption of the priesthood. The one-and-a-half-year period of inspired prayerful reflections and languishing worldly expectations was destined to end on February 26, 1893, when L. M. Chichagov was ordained a deacon in the Moscow Synodal Church of the Twelve Apostles. The presbyter's ordination followed 2 days later on February 28 in the same church with a significant gathering of worshipers, among whom the rumor quickly spread about the unusual fate of this protege.
Father Leonid's daughters with governesses and their friend (with a doll on the right). Mid 1890s The trials of the first year of the priestly ministry of Father Leonid turned out to be aggravated by the unexpected serious illness of his wife. She died untimely in 1895. Father Leonid buried her in Diveevo at the monastery cemetery.
One of the most important obediences in his life, Father Leonid considered compiling the Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery, which revealed to him not only the history of one of the most remarkable monastic cloisters of the Russian Orthodox Church, but also the monastic deeds of one of the greatest ascetics of Holy Russia - the Monk Seraphim of Sarov.
Father Leonid described the birth of the idea of compiling this chronicle as follows. “When, after a rather long state service, I became a priest in a small church behind the Rumyantsev Museum, I wanted to go to the Sarov Hermitage, the place of the deeds of St. Seraphim. I spent several days there in prayer and visited all the places where St. Seraphim labored. From there I moved to the Diveevo Monastery, where I really liked it and much reminded me of St. Seraphim, who cared so much for the Diveevo sisters. The abbess received me very cordially, talked to me a lot and, by the way, said that three people live in the monastery who remember the Monk: two old nuns and the nun Pelagia (in the world of Paraskeva, Pasha) ... I was taken to the house where she lived Pasha. As soon as I entered her, Pasha, who was lying in bed (she was very old and sick), exclaimed: “It’s good that you came, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time: the Monk Seraphim ordered you to tell you to report to the Sovereign that the time has come the discovery of his relics, glorification. I answered Pasha that, due to my social position, I could not be accepted by the Sovereign and convey to him what she entrusted me ... To this, Pasha said: “I don’t know anything, I only conveyed what the Reverend commanded me.” Soon I left the Diveevsky Monastery and, returning to Moscow, involuntarily pondered the words of Pasha ... and suddenly one day I was pierced by the thought that it was possible to write down everything that the nuns who remembered him told about St. Seraphim, find other persons from the contemporaries of the monk and ask them about him , get acquainted with the archives of the Sarov Hermitage and the Diveevsky Monastery and borrow from there everything that relates to the life of the Reverend and the period following the death. Bring all this material into a system and chronological order, then print this work, based not only on memoirs, but also on factual data and documents that give a complete picture of the life and deeds of St. Seraphim and his significance for the religious life of the people, print and present to the Emperor than and the will of the Reverend, transmitted to me in a categorical form by Pasha, will be fulfilled. This decision was further supported by the consideration that the royal family, gathering for evening tea, read aloud books of theological content, and I hoped that my book would be read. Thus, the idea of the Chronicle was born.
The spring of 1898 was the time when Father Leonid made the final decision about his future fate. Leaving his four daughters in the care of several trustees, on April 30, 1898, Father Leonid received his resignation from the Presbyter of the military and naval clergy and in the summer of that year was enrolled in the brethren of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Of particular importance for the newly tonsured hieromonk was the naming of him at the vows in the mantle on August 14, 1898, the name "Seraphim".
On August 14, 1899, by decree of the Holy Synod, he was appointed rector of the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery with the elevation to the rank of archimandrite. The abbot at the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery was another glorious and at the same time full of great life difficulties page of St. Seraphim's church service. Having shown the firmness of a church administrator, the practicality of a zealous owner, and the paternal love of a true pastor, Archimandrite Seraphim, during his five years as abbess, managed to transform both the economic and spiritual life of the once majestic but decaying monastery.
During this period of his life, he had a wonderful vision, about which he told: “After finishing the Chronicle, I sat in my room in one of the Diveyevo buildings and rejoiced that I had finally finished the most difficult period of collecting and writing about the Monk Seraphim. At that moment, the Monk Seraphim entered the cell, and I saw him as if alive. I never thought for a moment that this was a vision - everything was so simple and real. But what was my surprise when Father Seraphim bowed to my waist and said: “Thank you for the chronicle. Ask me whatever you want for her." With these words, he came close to me and put his hand on my shoulder. I clung to him and said: “Father, dear, I am so happy now that I don’t want anything else but to always be near you.” Father Seraphim smiled in agreement and became invisible. Only then did I realize that it was a vision. There was no end to my joy."
Constantly feeling the spiritual support of the Monk, Archimandrite Seraphim decided to take what seemed to some of his brothers in the clergy an audacious step in order to finally raise the question of the canonization of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov in the Holy Synod.
Metropolitan Seraphim presenting the Chronicle to Tsar Nicholas At the insistence of the Sovereign in August 1902, a commission headed by Metropolitan Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Moscow, which included Archimandrite Seraphim, carried out a preliminary examination of the relics of St. Seraphim. On November 29, 1902, by the Highest command, “the management of all preparatory measures for the construction of premises for the shelter of that mass of pilgrims, which, in all likelihood, will rush to the place of glorification” was entrusted to Father Seraphim”; he had to take on most of the organizational and economic activities associated with the canonization of the Reverend.
In October 1902, the Sovereign sent as a gift to the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery a lampada to the icon of the Mother of God "Tenderness" located in the Trinity Cathedral, in front of which Father Seraphim died in prayer. The lampada, at the command of His Majesty, was delivered to the monastery by Archimandrite Seraphim. On Sunday, October 20, after the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in the cathedral church, Fr. Seraphim solemnly placed a lamp before the image of the Mother of God and lit it to the great joy of the sisters.
On January 29, 1903, the solemn opening of the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov took place. The Holy Synod adopted the act, on the basis of which the Sarov elder Seraphim was ranked among the saints of the Russian Orthodox Church. On July 17-19, 1903, celebrations took place in Sarov connected with the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov.
By the providence of God, Father Seraphim was prepared for a new church service. On April 28, 1905, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, he was consecrated Bishop of Sukhumi. From that time until the end of his days, for St. Seraphim, the hierarchal service was inextricably linked with the courageous stand for the purity of the Orthodox faith and the unity of the Russian Church, which the Hieromartyr Seraphim, being the successor of the military glory of his valiant ancestors, already carried out as a soldier of Christ on the field of spiritual battle .
On February 6, 1906, Saint Seraphim was sent to the Oryol cathedra, where he was to prove himself as a zealous organizer of diocesan life. It was at the Oryol cathedra that Saint Seraphim came to the conviction, which became decisive for all his further archpastoral activity, that the full-blooded development of diocesan life is possible only on the basis of active parish communities.
After the Oryol see, the Holy Synod entrusted St. Seraphim with the administration of the diocese, in which church affairs were in an even more difficult situation, and on September 16, 1908, a decree was adopted appointing him to the Kishinev see. Again, as had already happened more than once in the life of St. Seraphim, having successfully begun another church act, he did not have the opportunity to directly participate in its completion. The three-year creative activity of St. Seraphim at the Kishinev see not only led to a genuine transformation of the diocese, but also received the highest appreciation both in the Holy Synod and the Sovereign.
Archbishop Seraphim (Chichagov). 1912 In 1912, the ministry of Archbishop Seraphim at the Kishinev see was coming to an end, he received a new appointment - to the Tver see.
When in the March days of 1917 the abdication of the Sovereign called into question the very existence of the monarchy, and the Holy Synod considered it necessary to support the Provisional Government as the only legitimate body of supreme power in the country, St. Seraphim, continuing to obey the highest church and state authorities, did not hide his negative attitude to the changes that have taken place in Russia. December 28, 1917. The religious department of the Tver Provincial Executive Committee of the Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies issued an order to expel Archbishop Seraphim from the Tver Governorate. Desiring to save the saint from the outrageous reprisals of the Bolsheviks, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon appointed Vladyka Seraphim to the Warsaw and Privislensky cathedra, located on the territory free from the power of the Bolsheviks in Poland. But the growing civil war and the subsequent Soviet-Polish war made it physically impossible for Vladyka Seraphim to leave for the diocese entrusted to him, and until the end of 1920 the saint remained outside of it. In the spring of 1921, the organs of the Cheka accused Bishop Seraphim of being in Poland “as an emissary of the Russian Patriarchate” he would “coordinate - against the Russian working masses - abroad the front of the overthrown Russian landlords and capitalists under the flag of the “team of friends of Jesus”. On September 21, 1921, he was arrested and placed in the Taganka prison. A few months later he was released and sent to two "at the disposal of the Arkhangelsk provincial department for moving into a place of residence, as an administrative exile for a period of June 24, 1923."
After spending about a year in exile in Arkhangelsk, Saint Seraphim returned to Moscow, which, in connection with His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon's being under arrest and the Renovationists' temporary seizure of the highest church administration, was going through a period of internal turmoil. On April 16, 1924, he was again arrested by the GPU, who this time charged him with organizing the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov. The investigation of St. Seraphim had been going on for about a month, when in May 1924 His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon filed a petition with the OGPU for the release of the 68-year-old bishop. Vladyka Seraphim was released, but demanded to leave Moscow. He was received by Abbess Arsenia (Dobronravova) at the Resurrection Feodorovsky Monastery, located near Shuya. For several years, this monastery was destined to become his last quiet monastic refuge.
At the end of 1927, Vladyka Seraphim left the monastery that had given him hospitable shelter to take part in the activities of the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod. The support of such an authoritative church hierarch, known for his firmness and uncompromisingness, as St. Seraphim was, was extremely important for Metropolitan Sergius. It is significant that the metropolitan see, to which Vladyka Seraphim was appointed by the decree of the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius and the Provisional Patriarchal Synod of February 23, 1928, was located in the Leningrad diocese, from where Metropolitan Sergius was most loudly reproached for his loyal attitude to the Soviet authorities.
In the conditions of cruel and comprehensive restrictions on church life by the state authorities, Vladyka Seraphim based his archpastoral service on the reverent celebration of Sunday and holiday services and inspired preaching in city and suburban churches. To resolve one of the most important tasks of his diocesan ministry - overcoming the "Josephite" schism, St. Seraphim set about gradually, explaining in his sermons the danger of this division for the canonical unity of the persecuted Russian Orthodox Church and entering into negotiations with some leading representatives of the "Josephite" clergy. On April 1, 1928, Vladyka Seraphim blessed in all the parish churches of the city to make a special prayer for the pacification of the Church.
Throughout his stay in the Leningrad diocese, courageously overcoming all sorts of obstacles and threats emanating from state bodies, and humbly enduring the blasphemy and slander spread from among the supporters of Metropolitan Joseph, Saint Seraphim consistently strove to preserve the spiritual and canonical unity of church life in the entrusted to him by Metropolitan Sergius diocese. By the end of his tenure at the Leningrad cathedra, only two officially registered "Josephite" parish churches remained in the diocese.
By 1933, bodily infirmities and the ever-increasing hatred of the state authorities in Leningrad for him, which made it very likely that St. Seraphim would soon be arrested, prompted Metropolitan Sergius and the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod on October 14, 1933, to issue a decree on his retirement. On October 24, having served the Divine Liturgy in the church of his youth - the Transfiguration Cathedral - Saint Seraphim forever left his native city, in which he became a deeply believing Orthodox layman and to whom he gave his last strength as an Orthodox during the most difficult period for the church life of the city. saint.
He found his last refuge in two rooms of a country cottage, located not far from the Udelnaya station of the Kazan railway. Here, in the silence of the village, in spiritual reflections on the theological and ascetic writings that accompanied the saint throughout his life, in prayerful vigils in front of the icons dear to him, Vladyka Seraphim had the happy opportunity to sum up the last life results and prepare himself for a meeting with Christ the Savior.
In November 1937, the bedridden 82-year-old saint was carried out of the house on a stretcher and taken to the Taganka prison. On December 11, 1937, he was shot at the Butovo training ground.
Hieromartyr Seraphim Chichagov was canonized by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church on February 18/23, 1997.
(The text is taken from the book "Lives of the Saints, New Martyrs and Confessors of the Nizhny Novgorod Land", the authors are Archimandrite Tikhon (Zatekin), O.V. Degteva).
Saint Seraphim (in the world Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov) was born on January 9, 1856 in St. Petersburg, into the family of artillery colonel Mikhail Nikiforovich Chichagov and his wife Maria Nikolaevna. The family of the future saint belonged to one of the most famous noble families of the Kostroma province, which contributed many remarkable pages to the annals of Russian history. The galaxy of outstanding ancestors of St. Seraphim included the brilliant nobleman of Catherine, the famous navigator Admiral V. Ya. Chichagov (1726 - 1809), who devoted his life to the exploration of the Arctic Ocean, and the Russian Minister of Marine Admiral P. V. Chichagov (1765 - 1849 BC), who became one of the most famous military and statesmen of the Alexander era. Due to the fact that the father of the future hierarch, Colonel M.N. Alexander Nevsky at the Mikhailovsky Artillery School. The fact that the place of entry of the future Saint Seraphim into church life was a temple that belonged to the military department turned out to be very symbolic for the whole future life of the saint. Indeed, like his ancestors, Saint Seraphim began his service to God as a service to the Tsar and the Fatherland on the battlefield, and it was this service of a warrior that became for him, as for his ancestors, the first experience of selfless service to God in the world. Following the blessing of his family, the lad Leonid, after several years of study at the First St. Petersburg Military Gymnasium, entered the Page Corps of His Imperial Majesty in 1870 and was enrolled on June 28 of the same year as a page to the Imperial Court.
Lieutenant Colonel Chichagov Leonid Mikhailovich, mid-1880s.
Years of stay in the Corps of Pages allowed Leonid Chichagov not only to receive a fundamental military and general education, but also to get to know the court high society with all its often illusory virtues and vices often covered with secular splendor. Despite the fact that on December 25, 1874, Leonid Chichagov was promoted to chamber-page, not the court, but military service with its inherent harsh, but full of sincerity and masculinity way of life, was the subject of dreams of the 18-year-old chamber-page. After many years, Saint Seraphim said: “The Corps of Pages is indebted to its mentors for its traditions, which have become established in it. We were brought up in the faith and Orthodoxy, but if we left the building insufficiently imbued with churchliness, we understood well that Orthodoxy is the strength, strength and treasure of our beloved homeland.”
On August 4, 1875, after graduating from the senior special class of the Corps of Pages, on August 4, 1875, Leonid Chichagov was promoted to second lieutenant by examination and in September of the same year he was sent to serve in His Majesty's First Battery of the Guards Horse Artillery Brigade.
The Russian-Turkish war, which began in 1876 and was accompanied by all-Slavic patriotic enthusiasm, already in the summer of 1876 brought Lieutenant L. M. Chichagov of the Guards into the army in the Balkans and at the same time became a serious life test for the future saint. Being a participant in almost all the main events of this bloody war, L. M. Chichagov, who was made on the battlefield in the guard lieutenant and was awarded several military awards, repeatedly (as, for example, was the case when crossing the Balkans and in the battle of Philippopolis) showed high personal heroism . However, not the heroism of the war and not even the mission of the Russian army, which liberated the Orthodox Slavic peoples from Turkish rule, the description of which was later devoted to the "Diary of the Tsar-Liberator's stay in the Danube Army in 1877" and a number of other remarkable historical and literary works of the future saint, became the main topics of reflection of the young officer during this period. The theme of the spiritual meaning of life and death, deeply felt for the first time by the youth Leonid after the untimely death of his father and put before him in all sharpness by the war, the theme of the moral meaning of suffering and self-sacrifice, revealed to him in the exploits of Russian soldiers who believed their souls for their Slavic brothers, finally , the theme of active love for his brothers in Christ, whom he taught to distinguish both under officer uniforms and under soldier's overcoats, after the war became the most important motivating principles for deep religious reflections of the future saint.
God's providence, which saved Lieutenant L. M. Chichagov from death and injury on the battlefield, led him soon after returning to St. Petersburg in 1878 to a meeting with the great pastor of the Russian Orthodox Church, St. Righteous John of Kronstadt, who resolved many spiritual issues of the young officer and became for all subsequent years an indisputable spiritual authority for the future saint, who from that time made many of his most important life decisions only with the blessing of St. Righteous John of Kronstadt.
An important event that marked the further spiritual development of 23-year-old L. M. Chichagov was his marriage on April 8, 1879 to the daughter of the chamberlain of the Court of His Imperial Majesty Natalia Nikolaevna Dokhturova. From the very beginning, this brilliant marriage, which gave birth to representatives of two well-known aristocratic families (Natalia Nikolaevna was the great-niece of the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, General D. S. Dokhturov), turned out to be very different from many high society marriages. Bearing in mind that Christian marriage is, first of all, a small Church, in which it is not pleasing each other, and even more so the prejudices of the big world, but pleasing God is the basis of family happiness, L. M. Chichagov managed to bring into the way of his young family the beginnings of the traditional Orthodox piety. It was these principles that formed the basis for the upbringing of four daughters, Vera, Natalia, Leonida and Ekaterina, who were born in the Chichagov family. The military career of L. M. Chichagov continued to develop successfully in peacetime. Having received in April 1881 the promotion to the rank of guard captain, L. M. Chichagov, as a recognized specialist in artillery, was sent to the maneuvers of the French army, where he was presented for awarding the highest order of the French Republic with the Cavalry Cross of the Order of the Legion of Honor. Having returned to Russia and published the military-theoretical work “French Artillery in 1882”, which was important for the rearmament of the Russian army at that time, Staff Captain L. M. Chichagov could count on further promotion through the steps of the military hierarchy, especially since by this time he was awarded 10 Russian and foreign orders. However, the desire to turn all the forces of his gifted personality to the service of God and neighbors outside the sphere of military service more and more manifested itself in the life of L. M. Chichagov during this period of time. Being an aristocratically integral and Christian sacrificial nature, L. M. Chichagov strove to carry out this ministry in concrete deeds addressed directly to God and neighbors. On October 31, 1881, having assumed the duties of the patron of the Sergius Cathedral of the entire Artillery Cathedral in the village of Klemenyev at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Staff Captain L.M. activities in this large military parish, in whose care were thousands of Russian soldiers.
Having learned in the war to deeply empathize with the physical suffering of wounded soldiers, L. M. Chichagov set himself the task of mastering medical knowledge in order to help his fellow men. Subsequently, a significant result of many years of medical experiments by L. M. Chichagov was the system he developed and tested in practice for treating the body with herbal medicines, the presentation of which took two volumes of the fundamental work “Medical Conversations”.
At the same time, systematic theological studies entered the life of L. M. Chichagov, as a result of which an officer who had not even received a seminary education would turn into an encyclopedically educated theologian, whose authority would eventually be recognized by the entire Russian Orthodox Church. The providence of God steadily led L. M. Chichagov to the decision prepared by all his previous development to accept the priesthood, having carried out which, he received the opportunity not only to fully fulfill the will of God, revealed to him then still secretly, but also to realize for the benefit of the Church the many-sided abilities of his extraordinary personality.
But it was on the eve of this providentially predetermined decision that L. M. Chichagov had to experience one of the most serious temptations in his life. His beloved wife Natalia Nikolaevna opposed her husband's decision to leave military service and devote herself entirely to serving God as a clergyman. The reasons that prompted this very pious woman to oppose the good will of her husband were rooted both in the entire spiritual structure of the high Petersburg society surrounding her, and in the very difficult everyday situation in which the Chichagov family was at that time. Brought up by her husband in the conviction to always strictly follow the fulfillment of her duty to the family, N. N. Chichagova at some point contrasted this duty to the family, which she understood too humanly, with the Providence of God about the calling of her husband.
Blessing L. M. Chichagov for the adoption of the holy dignity of St. Righteous John of Kronstadt, understanding the full complexity of the coming life change for the Chichagov family and very well representing the full burden of the mother’s burden of any true shepherd, considered it necessary in a personal conversation with N. N. Chichagova to convince her not to oppose the will of God and to agree to the adoption of the priesthood by her husband . The words of the wise Kronstadt shepherd and the blessing given to her to become a mother, as well as fidelity to her future priestly calling and her husband’s deep love for her, helped N. N. Chichagova overcome her doubts, and she agreed to share the burden of his new ministry with her husband.
On April 15, 1890, by the highest order, L. M. Chichagov was dismissed with the rank of captain of the guard and less than a year later, already in retirement, for the years of his past impeccable service and "for comparison with peers" was promoted to colonel. For L. M. Chichagov, the path to the priesthood became not only the path of ascent to God, but also the path of going to the people, in which, unlike the godless intellectuals of his time, as a pastor, and then as an archpastor, he had to educate not a rebel and an atheist, but faithful son of his Sovereign and his Church.
After his retirement, the family of L. M. Chichagov moved to Moscow in 1891, which remained the Orthodox capital of Russia during the synodal period. It was here, under the shadow of the Moscow shrines, that L. M. Chichagov began to reverently prepare for taking the priesthood. The one-and-a-half-year period of inspired prayerful reflections and languishing worldly expectations was destined to end on February 26, 1893, when L. M. Chichagov was ordained a deacon in the Moscow Synodal Church of the Twelve Apostles. The presbyter's ordination followed 2 days later on February 28 in the same church with a significant gathering of worshipers, among whom the rumor quickly spread about the unusual fate of this protege.
How difficult psychologically and morally it was for the family of L. M. Chichagov to break with their native military-aristocratic environment, just as difficult was the entry of the newly appointed priest Leonid Chichagov into the unfamiliar life and customs of the Russian clergy. Assigned by Metropolitan Sergius of Moscow to the Church of the Twelve Apostles, the 37-year-old priest Leonid Chichagov, instead of gradually entering the very difficult path of serving as a parish shepherd, which attracted all his thoughts, had to take on the burden of duties as a ktitor and benefactor of the church, which had not existed for many years, because it housed the Synodal sacristy, and in which Father Leonid nevertheless had to begin his parish ministry. Having achieved the transfer of the sacristy of their church of St. Apostle Philip in the premises of the World Ward and having carried out a thorough repair in this temple, Father Leonid was able to start his ministry there only in November 1893. rubles, he was forced to spend on his personal, by that time very limited, material resources, tearing them away from his family, who already had great difficulty putting up with the changes that had taken place in the life of his spouse and parent.
The first, very modest for his age, award received by Father Leonid already in the field of priestly service - the laying on him of a cuisse and a skufia - was given precisely "for diligent care of decorating the side church in the name of the Apostle Philip, which is under the Synodal Church of 12 apostles in the Kremlin" .
Priest Seraphim (Chichagov), photo, 1894
The trials of Father Leonid's first year of priestly service were exacerbated by the unexpected serious illness of his wife, Matushka Natalya, which led her to her untimely death in 1895, depriving her mother of four daughters, the eldest of whom was 15 and the youngest 9 years old. Father Leonid brought the body of the deceased wife to Diveevo and buried it at the monastery cemetery. Soon a chapel was erected over the grave, and next to the burial place of mother Natalia, Father Leonid prepared a place for his own burial, which, however, was never destined to receive the relics of the future holy martyr.
On February 14, 1896, priest Leonid Chichagov, by order of the Protopresbyter of the military and naval clergy, was "assigned to the church in Moscow for private institutions and institutions of the Artillery of the Moscow Military District." This decree of the hierarchy assumed not only the sending of a former artillery officer as a military priest to the environment of artillerymen of the Moscow Military District, which he knew well, but also the burden of material costs for the reconstruction of the closed church, in which he were to serve. Church of St. Nicholas on Stary Vagankovo, to which Father Leonid was appointed, belonged to the Rumyantsev Museum and has been closed for more than 30 years. Taking upon himself the work of restoring this temple, Father Leonid was aware that the military artillery officers, who were his main flock, due to their limited financial capabilities, would not be able to fully pay for the restoration work with their donations. Therefore, as in the case of the restoration of the church of St. Philip the Apostle, the donations of Fr. Leonid should have been a significant part of the money needed to equip the church of St. Nicholas.
Again, instead of contemplative liturgical prayer and inspired pastoral and educational activities, Father Leonid had to plunge into the whirlpool of petty household chores that are inevitable when restoring a church without significant help and support. By humbly fulfilling the parish obediences entrusted to him, which allowed him to fully recognize the hard lot of the Russian parish clergy, who often carried out their service with the indifferent attitude of not only the flock, but also the hierarchy, Father Leonid for the rest of his life acquired such an important for his future archpastoral ministry, the ability to live with the problems of the parish clergy and combine strict episcopal exactingness towards them with a sensitive attitude to the needs of their parish priests and their families. It is highly significant that later, already in his word at the time of his nomination to the bishop, St. Seraphim, speaking of his upcoming hierarchal service, considered it necessary to emphasize that the heart of the bishop should be close to the “needs, family burden ... of the rural clergy ... and countless sorrows junior members of the clergy whom the bishops are obliged to relieve."
What did Father Leonid consider as the basis of his spiritual life during these first five years of priestly service filled with pastoral difficulties hitherto unknown to him? Father Leonid spoke very expressively about the mindset that prevailed in his soul at that time in one of the sermons he delivered at that time in the parish church. “In ancient times, people preferred prayer to everything, and when they met, the holy fathers always asked each other about how prayer goes or works? The effect of prayer was a sign of spiritual life for them... Indeed, prayer is the mother and head of all virtues, for it borrows them from the source of all blessings - God, with whom the one who prays is in communion... Only prayer can reach Almighty God, for it there is a way to Him."
This deliberate focus on the life of prayer inevitably attracted Father Leonid to the walls of the monastery, especially since for several years Father Leonid considered the compilation of the “Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery” to be one of the most important obediences in his life, which revealed to him not only the history of one of the most remarkable monastic cloisters of the Russian Orthodox Church, but also the monastic deeds of one of the greatest ascetics of Holy Russia - St. Seraphim of Sarov. The birth of the idea of compiling this chronicle, which was of decisive importance for the entire future life of the future archpastor and marked from the very beginning by the miraculous manifestations of God's Providence about this work, Father Leonid described as follows. “When, after a rather long state service, I became a priest in a small church behind the Rumyantsev Museum, I wanted to go to the Sarov Hermitage, the place of the exploits of the Monk Seraphim, then not yet glorified, and when summer came, I went there. The Sarov desert made a strong impression on me. I spent several days there in prayer and visited all the places where St. Seraphim labored. From there I moved to the Diveevo Monastery, where I really liked it and much reminded me of St. Seraphim, who cared so much for the Diveevo sisters. The abbess received me very cordially, talked to me a lot and, among other things, said that there were three persons living in the monastery who remembered the monk: two old nuns and the nun Pelagia (in the world of Paraskeva, Pasha) ... I was taken to the house, Where did Pasha live? As soon as I entered her, Pasha, who was lying in bed (she was very old and sick), exclaimed: “It’s good that you came, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time: the Monk Seraphim ordered you to tell you to report to the Sovereign that the time has come the discovery of his relics, glorification. I answered Pasha that, due to my social position, I could not be accepted by the Sovereign and convey to him what she entrusted me ... To this, Pasha said: “I don’t know anything, I only conveyed what the reverend commanded me.” In embarrassment, I left the old woman's cell. After her I went to two nuns who remembered the monk. They lived together and took care of each other. One was blind, and the other was all twisted and could hardly move around the room ... the blind nun constantly prayed for the dead, while their souls appeared to her, and she saw them with spiritual eyes. She had something to say about the Reverend. Before leaving for Sarov, I visited Fr. John of Kronstadt, who, handing me five rubles, said: “They sent me five rubles and asked me to pray in private for a suicide: maybe you will meet some needy priest who would agree to pray for the unfortunate.” Arriving at the nuns, I read a note in front of the blind man, in which I invested five rubles given to me by Fr. John. In addition, I gave the name of my late mother and asked to pray for her. In response, I heard: "Come for an answer in three days." When I arrived at the appointed time, I received the answer: “I had your mother, she is so small, small, and an angel came with her.” I remembered that my younger sister had passed away at the age of three. “And here is another person for whom I prayed, he is so huge, but he is afraid of me, he keeps running away. Oh, look, is he suicidal? I had to confess that he really was a suicide and tell about the conversation with Fr. John. Soon I left the Diveevsky Monastery and, returning to Moscow, involuntarily pondered the words of Pasha ... and suddenly one day I was pierced by the thought that it was possible to write down everything that the nuns who remembered him told about St. about him, get acquainted with the archives of the Sarov Hermitage and the Diveevsky Monastery and borrow from there everything that relates to the life of the monk and the period following his death. Bring all this material into a system and chronological order, then print this work, based not only on memoirs, but also on factual data and documents that give a complete picture of the life and exploits of the Monk Seraphim and his significance for the religious life of the people, print and present to the Emperor than and the will of the reverend, transmitted to me in a categorical form by Pasha, will be fulfilled. This decision was further supported by the consideration that the royal family, gathering for evening tea, read aloud books of theological content, and I hoped that my book would be read. Thus, the idea of the Chronicle was born. In order to carry it out, I soon took a vacation and again went to Diveevo. There I was given the archive of the monastery, just as in the Sarov Hermitage. But first of all, I went to Pasha and began to question her about all the known episodes in the life of the monk, carefully wrote down everything that she passed on to me, and then read the notes to her. She found everything written down to be correct... At that time, the abbess of the Diveevsky monastery went to Nizhny Novgorod to the fair to buy a year's supply of fish for the monastery, and when I wished to visit Pasha in her absence, I found her completely sick and terribly weak. I decided her days were numbered. So, I thought, she fulfilled the will of the monk and now she is dying. I hastened to convey my impression to the treasurer's mother, but she replied: "Don't worry, father, without the blessing of mother abbess Pasha will not die." A week later, the abbess arrived from the fair, and I immediately went to report my fears about Praskovia ... Two days later we went together to Pasha. She was delighted to see the abbess. They remembered the old, cried, hugged and kissed. Finally, the abbess stood up and said: "Well, Pasha, now I bless you to die." Three hours later I served the first memorial service for Paraskeva. Returning to Moscow with the collected material about the Monk Seraphim, I immediately began my work.
The spring of 1898 was the time when Father Leonid made the final decision about his future fate. Leaving his 4 daughters, who had already grown up after the death of their mother, in the care of several trusted persons who were called upon to monitor their further education and upbringing, on April 30, 1898, Father Leonid received his resignation from the Presbyter of the military and naval clergy and in the summer of that year was enrolled in the number of the brethren of the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Of particular importance for the newly tonsured hieromonk was the naming of him at the vows in the mantle on August 14, 1898, the name "Seraphim".
Daughters of Metropolitan Seraphim: Vera, Leonida, Ekaterina, Natalia. Early 1900s
The final departure from the world behind the monastery fence did not become for Hieromonk Seraphim a departure from worldly trials, which, by the permission of God, fell upon him from the monastic brethren. The grace-filled joy that miraculously accompanied the adoption of monastic rank by Hieromonk Seraphim was overshadowed by envy and slander on the part of those who should have become fellow worshipers of the newly tonsured hieromonk. During this difficult time for Hieromonk Seraphim, when he repeatedly turned his prayers to the Monk Seraphim of Sarov, the great ascetic provided the spiritual support that Father Seraphim needed so much through one of his famous spiritual daughters, Natalya Petrovna Kireevskaya. Being the widow of the remarkable Russian Orthodox philosopher Ivan Vasilievich Kireevsky, who had once been returned by her with the blessing of St. Seraphim to the bosom of the Orthodox Church, N. P. Kireevskaya used all her considerable authority in the highest church circles to ensure that Father Seraphim, who experienced envy and slander, was given archpastoral consolation and hierarchical intercession by the highest church hierarchy. In her letter dated November 29, 1898, to Archbishop Flavian (Gorodetsky) of Kharkov, N.P. Kireevskaya gave the highest spiritual assessment of the personality of Father Seraphim and asked Vladyka for help to the persecuted hieromonk. Now, Vladyka, I turn to you with my last request,” wrote N. P. Kireevskaya. - Just as at the beginning of your monastic life the Lord helped me to serve you, and our ever-memorable Hierarch Metropolitan Philaret extended his paternal mercy and patronage to you, so now I beg you, Vladyka, to take under your patronage and in your paternal care my beloved Father Seraphim in the Lord (in the world of Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov), who suffered a lot from human malice, he endures all the slander raised against him with truly Christian humility, I have known him for many years and testify to you with my conscience that he is a true Christian and a person quite worthy ... Dying, Vladyko, I entrust Fr. Seraphim of your paternal love and protection.
In 1899, a change took place in the fate of Hieromonk Seraphim, who, even in this difficult time for him, enriched church literature with the remarkable chronicle essay “Zosimov Hermitage in the Name of the Smolensk Mother of God,” a change took place. On August 14, 1899, by decree of the Holy Synod, he was appointed rector of the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery, with subsequent elevation to the rank of archimandrite. The abbot at the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery was another glorious and at the same time full of great life difficulties page of St. Seraphim's church service. Having demonstrated the firmness of a church administrator, the practicality of a zealous host, and the fatherly love of a true pastor, Archimandrite Seraphim, during his 5 years as abbess, managed to transform both the economic and spiritual life of the once majestic, but by the time of the appointment of Father Seraphim, a monastery that had fallen into deep decline. In one of his letters, Archimandrite Seraphim presented a very expressive description of his activities in the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery. “My real monastery, the ancient Lavra, deprived of a millionth fortune, without any means, forgotten and abandoned, but first-class, was a huge ruined space with a fence of 1.5 miles and with 13 falling towers. The famous and terrible fortress, now called a spiritual prison, turned out to have not been overhauled for about 100 years and accommodated unfortunate, mentally disturbed clergymen, hungry and cold, partly innocently imprisoned and waiting for such a rector who, by his development, could cause the consideration of their cases. Less than 2.5 years of my abbotship had passed, and the monastery was completely revived, I raised up to 100 thousand for repairs, begged V. Sabler to give 6 thousand for the restoration of the prison, and now the Euthymius Monastery has been revived, the prison has turned into a skete, and the innocent are all set free. Thanks be to the Lord, I fulfilled my assignment.”
Through the pastoral efforts of Archimandrite Seraphim, who interceded before the Holy Synod, not only innocent prisoners were released, but also about 20 sectarians, of which 9 returned to the bosom of the Orthodox Church.
Archimandrite Seraphim found the time and strength not only to successfully carry out his pastoral service, but also to continue the preparation for the canonization of the great ascetic of the Russian Land, St. Seraphim of Sarov, which had become one of the main deeds of his life. In 1902, through the efforts of Archimandrite Seraphim, the Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery, first published in 1896, was republished. This second edition of the Chronicle was of particular importance for the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov, revealing to all of Russia the greatness of the blessed gifts of the Reverend, miraculously resonating in the lives of his many spiritual children. The "Chronicle" reverently immortalized all the spiritually significant events that occurred in the period from 1705 to 1895. in the monasteries of Sarov and Diveev, presented the first comprehensive biography of St. Seraphim of Sarov, captured the life paths and testimonies of the Reverend of such of his associates and spiritual children as Archpriest Vasily Sadovsky, M. V. Manturov, N. A. Motovilov, blessed Pelageya Ivanovna Serebrennikova.
And at this time, the ministry of Archimandrite Seraphim did not remain without the support of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov, who again miraculously testified to him of his heavenly patronage. Subsequently, St. Seraphim told his spiritual child Archpriest Stefan Lyashevsky about the miraculous vision revealed to him precisely in 1902. about Saint Seraphim. At that moment, the Monk Seraphim entered the cell, and I saw him as if alive. I never thought for a moment that this was a vision - everything was so simple and real. But what was my surprise when Father Seraphim bowed to my waist and said: “Thank you for the chronicle. Ask me whatever you want for her." With these words, he came close to me and put his hand on my shoulder. I clung to him and said: “Father, dear, I am so happy now that I don’t want anything else but to always be near you.” Father Seraphim smiled in agreement and became invisible. Only then did I realize that it was a vision. My joy knew no end."
Constantly feeling the spiritual support of the Monk, Archimandrite Seraphim decided to take what seemed to some of his brothers in the clergy an audacious step in order to finally raise the question of the canonization of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov in the Holy Synod. Realizing that not only the almighty chief prosecutor of the Synod. P. Pobedonostsev, but also some bishops were categorically opposed to the canonization of the Reverend, Archimandrite Seraphim decided to ask the Holy Synod to raise the issue of canonization directly to the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II, who, in accordance with the Basic Laws of the Russian Empire, was “the supreme protector and guardian of the dogmas of the dominant faith ". Knowledge of the highest St. Petersburg world, personal acquaintance with the Emperor allowed Archimandrite Seraphim to achieve an audience, and the piety of the Sovereign, the deep impression that the “Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery” made on him, led to the fact that. P. Pobedonostsev, who was soon summoned to an appointment with the Sovereign, was informed of the need to immediately raise the question of organizing the opening of the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov at a meeting of the Holy Synod.
The sincere participation of the Sovereign in the case presented to him by Archimandrite Seraphim not only saved the future saint from the punishments that the Chief Procurator would not fail to inflict on him, but also forced the latter not to interfere with the Holy Synod in studying the question of the canonization of St. Seraphim. Nevertheless, the authority of P. Pobedonostsev for the members of the Synod was so indisputable that only Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) of St. Petersburg decided to support the idea of opening the relics of the Reverend. And yet, at the insistence of the Sovereign, in August 1902, a commission headed by the future Hieromartyr Metropolitan Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Moscow, which included Archimandrite Seraphim, carried out a preliminary examination of the relics of St. Seraphim. On November 29, 1902, in pursuance of the Highest Command, which placed on Archimandrite Seraphim "the management of all preparatory measures for the construction of premises for the shelter of that mass of pilgrims who, in all likelihood, will flood to the place of glorification of Father Seraphim", he had to take on most of the organizational economic activities related to the canonization of the Reverend.
On January 29, 1903, an event occurred that at that time was awaited with impatience and hope not only by Archimandrite Seraphim and other participants in the solemn opening of the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov, but also by many faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church, who had already been honored to join in the prayerful veneration of the Monk, accompanied by numerous miracles. The Holy Synod adopted the act, on the basis of which the Sarov elder Seraphim was ranked among the saints of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Having taken an active part in various solemn events in connection with the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov on July 17-19, 1903 in Sarov, Archimandrite Seraphim made his final contribution to his glorification somewhat later, composing a wonderful akathist to the Monk, which enriched the Russian tradition of church hymnography. Thus ended one of the most significant deeds for Archimandrite Seraphim of his church service, in which the great ascetic and miracle worker of the Russian Church, the Monk Seraphim of Sarov, was glorified largely thanks to the prayerful and pastoral labors of the future hierarch of the Russian Church, Hieromartyr Seraphim.
In 1903, in connection with the forthcoming 500th anniversary of the death of the Heavenly Patron of the monastic monastery where Archimandrite Seraphim, Reverend Euthymius of Suzdal was rector, Father Seraphim happened to compose his life.
The clergy highly appreciated the merits of Archimandrite Seraphim both as rector of the Spaso-Evfimiev monastery revived by him, and as a remarkable hagiographer of ascetics of monastic piety, and on February 14, 1904, Archimandrite Seraphim was appointed rector of one of the seven stauropegial monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church - the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery. After spending only a year in the Resurrection Monastery, Archimandrite Seraphim sealed his abbess with the restoration of the famous Resurrection Cathedral.
However, by the Providence of God, Father Seraphim was prepared for a new church service, perhaps the most difficult for the clergy of the Russian Church in the time that came at that time and marked its beginning with an abundance of spiritual and historical troubles of the 20th century. On April 28, 1905, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, the future Hieromartyr Metropolitan Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Moscow, concelebrated by Bishops Trifon (Turkestanov) and Seraphim (Golubyatnikov), was consecrated another future Hieromartyr, Archimandrite Seraphim, to the position of Bishop of Sukhum. The day before, during the naming of a bishop, which took place in the Chamber of Peace, the building of which was associated with the first years of the pastoral ministry of Father Seraphim, the future saint uttered a word that contained a humanly sincerely felt and Christianly deeply meaningful description of his entire previous life path and at the same time, containing an almost prophetic insight about the meaning of his future episcopal ministry and the inevitability of his martyr's crown. “Unsearchable are the ways of God’s Providence” (Rom. 11:33), which predetermine the paths of man, said St. Seraphim. - ... Although I never forgot to prayerfully stretch out my hands to God in the hope of His mercy and forgiveness, could I imagine that my initial secular path, which seemed natural and quite consistent with my birth and upbringing, lasted so long and with such success, not the one that God intended for me? And how was I to be sure of this? Undoubtedly, through trials and tribulations. Having experienced orphanhood, helplessness from the age of eight, and convinced of the need to pave my way through my own work and many years of study, after graduating from my education, in my youth, I went through all the horrors of wartime, the exploits of self-sacrifice, but kept alive by the wondrous Providence of God, continued my original path, undergoing numerous and varied trials, sorrows and upheavals, which ended in a family misfortune - widowhood. Enduring so many sorrows, I am fully convinced that this world, which is so difficult to stop loving, becomes our enemy through them, and that a special thorny path is predetermined for me in my life ... Despite all the obstacles the world put me in, I fulfilled the holy obedience and first accepted the priesthood, and after widowhood - monasticism. For a long time I endured condemnation for these important steps in life and kept in the depths of my sorrowful heart the true reason for them. But, finally, the Lord Himself justified my monasticism in my immediate participation in the glorification of the great wonderworker St. Seraphim. Now, by the all-good will of God, I am called to a high service in the Church of Christ in the rank of bishop... The duties of a bishop and the sorrows associated with this rank are not unknown to me. Did not Jesus Christ, in the person of His Apostles, first of all say to the bishops: In the world you will be sorrowful, as if you are carrying from the world, but I have chosen you from the world, for this reason the world hates you? (John 16, 33) ... in our difficult and crafty days, the voice of the saints is drowned out by the voices and cries of the leaders of various sects, preachers of countless faiths, denials and new paths, and lately supporters of madness unparalleled in history, Christianity without Christ and philanthropy without the name of God. The modern spirit, hostile to the Church and the state, religion and morality, is so strong that the bishops are doomed to a relentless, many-sided struggle. Who is not horrified by the modern desire of an educated society to make the Orthodox Russian people indifferent to faith and eternal life and, thus, to impose on them a yoke worse than the Tatar one, which, as you know, hampered our faith, but did not destroy it? As then Russia was delivered from this heavy yoke by the prayers and deeds of the saints and saints, so I believe that even now no one else can save her from great sorrow, except for those appointed to pasture the Church of the Lord and God and obliged to speak, exhort and denounce with all authority. .
Archbishop Seraphim (Chichagov), photo, 1912
Already the first place of episcopal service of the Sukhumi Saint Seraphim, the ancient Orthodox Iberian land, became for him a place of trials in connection with the events that occurred as a result of the revolutionary turmoil that broke out in Russia. From that time until the end of his days, the hierarchical service for Saint Seraphim turned out to be inextricably linked with the courageous stand for the purity of the Orthodox faith and the unity of the Russian Church, which the Hieromartyr Seraphim, being the successor of the military glory of his valiant ancestors, already carried out as a soldier of Christ on the field of spiritual battle .
On February 6, 1906, Saint Seraphim was sent to the Oryol cathedra, where he was to prove himself as a zealous organizer of diocesan life. By the time St. Seraphim arrived in Oryol, the state of affairs in the field of diocesan administration and spiritual education in this diocese required significant improvement. In one of his letters, written shortly after his arrival in the Oryol diocese, Saint Seraphim gave the following very eloquent description of the problems he had to face in his new place of service: Kirion and his suspicious tactics that soon 2 months, working day and night, I can not cope with confused consequences, countless henchmen, and so on. I don't finish with papers before 3-4 o'clock in the morning every day. I serve 3-4 times a week on weekdays, just to let go of proteges... I heard that the Oryol diocese is one of the most difficult and unsettled, but I did not imagine that the central Russian diocese could be in such neglect and disorder in all respects.. But I would very much like to stay here for a long time and achieve the reorganization of the diocese. It is necessary to put the Russian province in order. It hurts to see this... For the first time I come into contact with the Seminary... They have no idea about education, pedagogy and influence on youth. There is no power, no directness, no independence in the bosses. Youth can never respect weakness, hypocrisy, secrecy and spinelessness.
It was at the Oryol cathedra that Saint Seraphim came to the conviction, which became decisive for all his further archpastoral activity, that the full-blooded development of diocesan life is possible only on the basis of active parish communities. Subsequently, the saint formulated this conviction as follows: “The spiritual ... revival of Russia is possible only in the way in which its spiritual birth took place. Namely: it is necessary to return to the church and social life of the Old Russian parish, so that the parish community is unanimously engaged not only in education, charity, missionary work, but also in the morality of its members, restoring the rights of elders over younger ones, parents over children, educating and guiding the younger generation.
Already in 1906, implementing the Decree of the Holy Synod of November 18, 1905 on the organization and revival of parish life, Saint Seraphim organized parish councils in the churches of his diocese, whose duties, along with providing conditions for the normal development of pastoral-liturgical and administrative -the economic life of the parishes should have included the resolution of the entire set of spiritual and educational and social and charitable tasks facing the parishes, and above all, the creation of hospitals, libraries, schools and other educational institutions. The consequences of this vigorous activity of St. Seraphim were not slow to manifest themselves in the life of the diocese entrusted to him under the archpastoral care, and soon after his appointment to the Oryol cathedra, in one of his letters he noted with satisfaction: “From February 1, from the day of my arrival in Orel, I Haven't had a good night's sleep yet. I sound the alarm, striving for the speedy revival of parish life. I conduct conversations with the world and the clergy in the cities and in the halls of the Duma. The consequences are wonderful. It is difficult to raise the clergy, but the world will help if the bishops will sacrifice themselves.”
That sacrifice of bishops, about which St. Seraphim wrote, was characteristic primarily of himself, therefore his activity both among the Oryol diocesan clergy and among the entire Russian episcopate met with increasing recognition and respect. Evidence of the ever-increasing authority of St. Seraphim as a diocesan bishop was his appointment in 1907 as a member of the Holy Synod present.
Bishops Germogen (Dolganov), Nazariy (Kirillov), Seraphim (Chichagov)
and Evfimy (Eliev) in the bishop's house.
However, the hopes of Saint Seraphim that his long-term stay in the diocese of Oryol, which he loved so much, would make it possible to carry out his plans for the revival of church life in it, was not destined to come true. The Holy Synod considered it necessary to entrust St. Seraphim with the administration of the diocese, in which church affairs were in an even more difficult situation than it was in the Oryol diocese by the time Bishop Seraphim arrived there, and on September 16, 1908, a decree was adopted appointing him to the Kishinev see . Again, as had already happened more than once in the life of St. Seraphim, having successfully begun another church act, he did not have the opportunity to directly participate in its completion.
Leaving the Oryol cathedra with deep spiritual pain, on October 28, 1908, Saint Seraphim arrived in the diocese of Kishinev, the condition of which exceeded the worst expectations of Vladyka. Here is how Saint Seraphim described in one of his letters the sad picture of diocesan affairs that appeared before his eyes in the new diocese: “I am upset by the southerners, how everything in their church has fallen, ritualism has disappeared, singing is still according to the notes of Bakhmetev and everything is distorted,” wrote Vladyka Seraphim . - The horror is that it is impossible for me to change, here the regent is the cathedral priest, the favorite of the whole city, who does not understand anything in singing, and he is a teacher in all educational institutions. There is only one bishop's choir in the whole city. The clergy of the cathedral of academicians-legalists. A cathedral without a parish, very poor, and I can’t do anything, so I don’t even have a keykeeper to help, for he is a teacher of the law. In a word, I have not seen such a situation anywhere in Russia and I am standing in a dead end, because there is absolutely no way out. The second problem is that the Moldovans in the villages do not speak Russian, in the monasteries - too, so it’s still terrible for me to travel to the dioceses, as it was in the Caucasus.”
The death in December 1908 of St. Righteous Father John of Kronstadt, who all these years continued to be the spiritual father of the saint. Pastoral instructions and prayerful intercession of St. Righteous John of Kronstadt during the entire period of the priesthood of St. Seraphim were the most important beginnings of his formation as a pastor, and then the archpastor of the Russian Orthodox Church, helped him overcome numerous spiritual temptations and worldly hardships, with which the life of everyone worthy of priestly service is abundantly filled. Only later, in the spring of 1909, did Vladyka Seraphim have a chance to "bow to the grave... of dear father Father John," who from that time on, like St. the Monk Seraphim of Sarov began to provide patronage to his spiritual child, standing before the Throne of the Most High in the heavenly world.
However, the sin of despondency was always overcome by St. Seraphim, who wonderfully combined the spiritual impressionability and sincerity of the heart so characteristic of Russian educated people with the courageous will and personal responsibility so unusual for Russian intellectuals. And the basis for overcoming this sin of despondency, which became a deep flaw in Russian spiritual and historical life in the 20th century, was the sincere Christian faith and prayerful life filled with spiritual sobriety. It is significant that at the turn of the difficult years 1908-1909 for him, having experienced the loss of people close to him and finding himself in almost complete spiritual loneliness in the outlying diocese, Saint Seraphim was able to draw new spiritual strength for himself in the active prayer and liturgical life that marked him. appearance in the Chisinau diocese, and in which the veneration of the miraculous Herbovets Icon of the Mother of God occupied a special place. During all the years of his stay in the Kishinev cathedra weekly services with akathists in front of the miraculous image of the icon famous in Bessarabia, Saint Seraphim not only caused a significant rise in prayerful enthusiasm in his flock, but also found for himself the spiritual peace and archpastoral inspiration.
Starting the restoration of church life in the diocese of Chisinau with the activity of reviving active parishes through the creation of parish councils, which had already justified itself in the Oryol diocese, St. Seraphim discovered that the desolation of parish life in Bessarabia was combined with the desire of the parish clergy to determine the direction of the activity of the diocesan bishop in a direction favorable to him. . “My predecessor,” wrote St. Seraphim, “accustomed the Bessarabian clergy to do without a bishop, so that they completely settled themselves autonomously, received an elective beginning, disposed of conciliarly in all institutions, and the bishop only signed their desires and thoughts set forth in journals.” Having pointed out to the representatives of the parish clergy that not the struggle for power in the diocesan administration, but the care of their parish flock was their main service, Saint Seraphim was forced to largely take upon himself the burden of spiritual and educational work in the parishes left by the parish priests. During all the years of his tenure at the Kishinev see, Vladyka Seraphim tirelessly visited practically all the parishes of his diocese, inspiring with his archpastoral example the parish clergy, who had plunged into the routine of fulfilling the demands and sometimes completely lost their liturgical piety.
The three-year creative activity of St. Seraphim at the Kishinev see not only led to a genuine transformation of the diocese, but also received the highest appreciation both in the Holy Synod and the Sovereign. And perhaps the best description of what Vladyka Seraphim did in the Chisinau diocese was the Supreme Decree of the Sovereign to the Holy Synod of May 16, 1912, addressed to the saint. “Your hierarchal service, marked by zeal for the spiritual and moral development of the flocks successively entrusted to you,” the Imperial Decree said, “is marked by special efforts to improve the Chisinau diocese. With your care and concern, church schools are multiplying in this diocese, the preaching activity of the clergy is intensifying, and the religious enlightenment of the Orthodox population of Bessarabia is rising. Your work on the device in the mountains deserves special attention. Chisinau Diocesan House and related educational and charitable institutions. In an expression of the Monarch's goodwill to such merits of yours, I ... recognized it as fair to raise you to the rank of Archbishop. Entrusting Myself to your prayers, I remain favorable to you. Nicholas."
Distinguished by the wonderful gift of preaching, Saint Seraphim found it possible to publish in Kishinev two books of his sermons, which he delivered throughout the entire period of his priesthood. Filled with high pastoral inspiration and addressed, as a rule, to the most pressing issues of the modern era of the saint, these sermons immediately after publication became an indispensable tool both for the preaching priests of the Kishinev diocese and for subsequent generations of Russian pastors.
The preaching activity of St. Seraphim, as well as all his archpastoral ministry, was directed not only to the arrangement of church life, but also to overcoming those destructive spiritual and social temptations with which Russian reality was filled at the beginning of the 20th century. Painfully experiencing the growing separation of the educated part of Russian society from the traditional spiritual and historical principles of Russian life based on the Orthodox faith, St. Seraphim severely denounced in his sermons the spiritual blindness of those who arrogated to themselves the right to act as new "leaders" and " prophets” for the Russian people who became alien to them. “Do we not see in our mediocre time,” said St. Seraphim, “new writers and publicists who are not capable of any serious, independent and talented work, but painfully striving to become at the head of the modern delusion of society, even if their extreme direction, completely immoral and irreligious. Using their imaginary right, supposedly universally recognized and quite authoritative, they are engaged in denunciations, even scourging with free printed word and judgments about things that are inaccessible to them, like religion, about Christianity, and especially about Orthodoxy and virtues ... In an attempt to please everyone, they bow even before the customs of the world, scientific errors and theoretical denials, and easily condescend to any lie, no matter how harmful and criminal it may be.
Belonging in his origin to the class that for centuries led the Russian people along the path of building the great Russian statehood, and being in his service a representative of the church hierarchy, which for centuries cultivated the ideal of Holy Russia in the people's soul, St. Seraphim perspicaciously saw in the godless revolutionary intelligentsia is only a destroyer of the Russian state and a corrupter of the Russian soul. “Those unbelievers who receive power, new rights and the greatest freedom from earthly kings, squander this wealth with even greater harm to themselves and, especially, to their neighbors, to their people. They squander the rights and power given to them for their planned struggle against religion, God-established authority, with the stubbornness of a people intact in the faith, with the old laws, with Christian concepts of property, freedom, duties to God, elders, parents and their neighbors. In the people, united by religion and devotion to the Anointed of God, they produce a split that penetrates into all institutions, schools, families, even into the streets, into the newspapers, the well-being of the people perishes, labor is depreciated, hundreds of thousands of needy, starving people are created, whom they greet with respect. , in their hypocrisy, the name "proletariat".
Having deeply survived the revolutionary turmoil of 1905-1907, which gave rise to numerous socio-political organizations that offered Russia the most diverse ways of its further development, Vladyka Seraphim considered it possible for himself to take part in the activities of the "Union of the Russian People", the program declarations of which were in the greatest consonance with the traditional ideals of Russian statehood, on which the future saint was brought up from childhood. Delivering a sermon on December 21, 1908 during the consecration of the banners brought by members of the Union of the Russian People to the Cathedral, Vladyka Seraphim clearly expressed his understanding of the political activities that this most influential socio-political organization in Bessarabia was supposed to conduct. "Beloved brothers! - said Saint Seraphim. - My heart is always filled with a joyful feeling when I see representatives of the “Union of the Russian People” marching with sacred banners and heading to churches for prayer ... After all, you brought here for blessing not swords necessary for people preparing for battle and enmity, and their sacred banners for sprinkling and consecration! And what is a banner? This is the banner of Christ's victory, which we are accustomed to seeing in the right hand of the Risen One from the dead, risen from the tomb and proclaim the victory over hell of the Son of God. This is the banner of victory not with a sword, but with truth and love ... Call the people to a peaceful struggle against the spread of evil in the Fatherland, to defend the Orthodox faith, to unite under the shadow of churches, and then on their mighty shoulders they will raise high the Anointed of God, the Russian Tsar , and the Russian power will shine again, having created a great state not with a numerous army, not with gold, but with the only strong faith in the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.
The last year of his stay at the Kishinev cathedra was marked for St. Seraphim by his participation in the very dramatic events taking place at that time in Optina Hermitage. As a recognized connoisseur and zealot of the traditions of monastic life, Vladyka Seraphim was instructed by the Holy Synod to investigate reports received by the Synod about alleged disturbances in the spiritual and economic life of the St. John the Baptist Skete of Optina Hermitage. Arriving at Optina Pustyn on December 30, 1911, and having served the Sunday Liturgy in the monastery church, Saint Seraphim spent the whole day at the John the Baptist skete in communion with the head of the skete, Elder Barsanuphius, who was mentioned in reports received by the Synod among the monks of the monastery who violated the monastic order. The details of the conversations of the future hieromartyr Bishop Seraphim with the future venerable abbot Barsanuphius, who were so similar to each other in the life path that preceded their entry into the path of priesthood, remained unnoticed. Although, of course, the question of the accusations that were raised against Elder Barsanuphius by his enemies in the face of the Holy Synod was one of the main topics of their many hours of communication, which took place both in the monastery church, where they served a moleben to St. where they had a solitary conversation. Being one of the spiritual children closest to Elder Barsanuphius, Father Vasily Shustin left the following description of the events that preceded the arrival of St. Seraphim at the skete and his participation in the investigation of these events. “There were people whom the wisdom of the priest did not allow to live, and the enemy did not doze off,” Father Vasily wrote. - A certain Mitya tongue-tied from the mountains settled in the skete. Kozelsk. He was a drunkard and secretly corrupted the monks. Batiushka could not stand this and evicted him from the skete. Now a whole legion has openly taken up arms against Batiushka ... One of the women of the St. Petersburg religious and political circle of Countess Ignatieva came to Optina and collected all the accusations that could be invented against Batiushka: that Batiushka is a freethinker, that he loves luxury, because he decorates his cell flowers, that he freely treats women, that he poorly manages the skete property, takes money from the pilgrims. Bishop Seraphim (Chichagov), who came to Optina, whitewashed Batyushka, but the matter of his recall from Optina had already been decided somewhere. Fr. Varsonofy had to leave the skete... Just by that time I had arrived in Optina. Batiushka greeted me with joy and told me about his circumstances.”
Having found out the groundlessness of the accusations leveled against Elder Barsanuphius by his ill-wishers, and highly appreciating the spiritual experience of the Optina skete chief, Saint Seraphim began to persuade the elder to accept the abbotship in one of the large monasteries, the spiritual life in which required the guidance of an experienced mentor. As Elder Barsanuphius himself recalled: “When Bishop Seraphim took it into his head to transfer me from Optina, he said that Fr. To give Barsanuphius a wider range of activities, otherwise he will completely turn sour in the skete. A few months later, Elder Varsonofy was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and sent as rector to the ancient Staro-Golutvin Monastery in the Moscow diocese.
At the same time, St. Seraphim, being a strict guardian of the traditions of ancient monastic piety, found it unacceptable for laymen to live permanently within the walls of the monastery, even if they had Optina elders as their confessors. In the spring of 1912, after Vladyka Seraphim's report, the Holy Synod adopted a synodal decree that regulated certain aspects of monastic life in Optina Hermitage and, in particular, did not allow laymen to live there permanently. The religious writer S. A. Nilus, who was forced to leave the monastery in connection with the synodal decree, was inclined to reproach St. Seraphim for excessive cruelty, who pointed out to S. A. Nilus that his residence in Optina Hermitage was unacceptable due to the circumstances of his family life that gave rise to temptation , which at one time served as the basis for Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) to refuse S. A. Nilus in priestly consecration. Striving to maintain the unquestioned authority of the Optina Hermitage, Saint Seraphim did not consider it possible to make an exception in the matter of the removal of the laity from the Optina Hermitage even for such a well-known religious writer who had powerful patrons at court as S. A. Nilus.
In 1912, the service of Archbishop Seraphim at the Kishinev See was coming to an end. However, a spiritually expressive indication of the place of the new service was given to the saint three years earlier, when on June 12, 1909, Vladyka Seraphim was present at the solemn restoration of the church veneration of St. Blessed Grand Duchess Anna Kashinskaya in the diocese of Tver. Having taken an active part in the preparation of the synodal decree on the restoration of the veneration of the great ascetic of the Russian Orthodox Church, Saint Seraphim reverently accepted the icon of St. Anna Kashinskaya with a particle of her relics and transported her to the Chisinau diocese, where the icon was placed in the temple of the Izmail Holy Dormition Monastery and became famous for repeated miracles. In 1912, the Tver diocese received for its archpastoral service precisely St. Seraphim, in whose spiritual life the Tver shrines had a special significance in those years, and who, by the decree of the Holy Synod, was appointed archbishop of Tver and Kashinsky.
The situation in the church life of the Tver diocese was much better than in all those dioceses in which St. Seraphim had to serve before. Therefore, the important experience of reviving parish life, which Vladyka acquired during the previous years of his episcopal service, could be fully realized in the Tver diocese, especially since the provision on the new parish charter adopted in 1914 by the Holy Synod largely corresponded to the basic ideas of St. Seraphim on the development of parish life. In this regard, it is highly significant that the epistle “On the Revival of Parish Life”, composed by Vladyka Seraphim as an appeal to the diocesan clergy, but in terms of the depth of its content more reminiscent of an essay on pastoral theology, was written by him precisely during his stay at the Tver cathedra.
Deeply convinced that all church transformations should begin with the transformation of the pastoral image of the church hierarchy, St. Seraphim emphasized in his epistle the responsibility of the parish clergy in the revival of parish communities. “To the extent that the revival of parishes requires the improvement of the morality of the people,” Vladyka Seraphim wrote, “so much it depends on the revival of the pastorate. First of all, this reform consists in the revival of consciousness, spirit and activity in pastors, without which nothing true, spiritual, grace-filled and moral can penetrate into the life of parishioners.
Not only knowing well as an archpastor, but also directly experiencing as a parish priest the social humiliation of the clergy, Vladyka Seraphim always sought to awaken in the parish clergy that sense of social dignity, which he perceived from childhood thanks to his truly aristocratic upbringing, and without which, in his opinion, the clergy were doomed to be on the sidelines not only of public, but also of parish life. “It’s a shame to hear that such an unfair feeling is hidden in the pastors, as if the poverty and humiliation of the clergy, the contempt of society for them ... drowns out noble feelings in the priest. I will never agree with this... Society despises only the unworthy. Finally, we must understand that society, the people, needs us, is looking for good shepherds, grieves when they do not find it, and it has the right to demand that the clergy be spiritual. And if it is not spiritual, then, of course, no one needs it ... in order to avoid the sad possibility of becoming outcasts of the world, we must say goodbye to our laziness, apathy and indifference, begin to be interested in urgent issues of the time; we must sensitively listen to them, illuminate them with bright rays of Christ's teachings, and in this illumination satisfy the natural inquisitiveness of our parishioners, who expect authoritative guidance from us in their spiritual life.
Having become an authoritative Orthodox theologian thanks to his constantly deepening theological self-education, and at the same time as a ruling bishop who directed several diocesan seminaries, Saint Seraphim knew perfectly well that the scholastic routine of provincial theological seminaries often hindered the formation of truly Orthodox pastors in them. “If the theological school,” Vladyka Seraphim wrote, “at one time did not have time to create from us experienced and sincere leaders in the religious and moral life of the people, if it made gaps on the way to this goal, then who or what prevents us from filling these gaps by one’s own work on one’s self-improvement, on acquiring broad experience, the necessary information and knowledge ... The path of self-education, the broad development of one’s spiritual strengths and abilities by reading books of religious and moral content, acquiring the spiritual experience and maturity necessary in our rank - this path is neither for whom it is not closed.
However, less than anyone in the church hierarchy, Saint Seraphim was inclined to share the prejudice that had spread among the rationalistically thinking clergy that a priest should act in his parish community only as a religious enlightener and organizer of parish charity. As a spiritual child of the great prayer book of the Russian Orthodox Church, St. Righteous John of Kronstadt and considering prayerful-liturgical piety as an ideal for all Orthodox Christians, Vladyka Seraphim considered prayerful-Eucharistic life to be the basis of the work of a parish priest. "Pray without ceasing" - this is the commandment of the Apostles and given not only to monks, but also to pastors, and to all Christians, stressed St. Seraphim. - ... The highest academy for a pastor is a corner in which an icon weighs and a lampada glows. In conversation with God, the shepherd will learn immutable truths and truth about both the present and the future life.
Formulating in detail and resolving in his message “On the Revival of Parish Life” the specific spiritual, moral, administrative and economic tasks facing both diocesan bishops and parish priests, Vladyka Seraphim emphasized the impossibility of solving these problems without actively involving them in this activity through parish advice from a wide range of Orthodox laity. “The parish council,” Vladyka Seraphim wrote, “is needed not for meetings about Christian truths, the conductor of which is the pastor, but for meetings about the application of well-known measures, under the given circumstances and conditions of life, having a great Christian task - to revive in the community the desire to observe the commandments of God and church regulations, to streamline the relationship of children to parents, rich and well-fed to the poor and hungry, to eradicate vices in members of the community and to enlighten people. These measures, thought out together with the parish council, the pastor can put into practice only with the help of the members of the council, and not alone.”
At the same time, Bishop Seraphim noted that in modern conditions, an active role for women in the life of parish communities is necessary. “A woman ... always responds to a good deed with great eagerness,” the saint pointed out, “so that not a single temple of God is built or decorated without the participation of a woman. They have always been and will be the first in this respect ... It is highly desirable for women to participate in the affairs of parish councils, where they could manage charitable affairs and carry out other duties that are most characteristic of them.
And yet, the main burden of work to restore both diocesan and parish life, in the opinion of St. Seraphim, should be taken on by the ruling bishop. “The beginning of the revival of parish life should come from the bishop,” Vladyka Seraphim emphasized. - If the latter does not unite with his assistant pastors, then they will not unite among themselves and the parishioners; if the bishop does not imbue this idea of the revival of the parish, does not himself talk with the pastors during the tour of the diocese, give them detailed practical instructions, does not correspond with complete selflessness with the perplexed priests, filially questioning the archpastor in their difficulties ... a revival will not occur and a new the vital principle will not penetrate our dead communities.”
The characterization of the duties of the ruling bishop, contained in the above words of the saint, perfectly corresponds to the archpastoral activity of Vladyka Seraphim himself throughout his ministry and, in particular, during his stay at the Tver cathedra. But, perhaps, this selfless service and strict archpastoral exactingness in relation to the parish clergy subordinate to the archbishop became the reasons for the difficult trials that Saint Seraphim had to endure during the revolutionary upheavals of 1917 on the Tver land that welcomed him so cordially.
For the saint, as well as for all of Russia, the trials of civil unrest were foreshadowed by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, to which Vladyka responded not only as an archpastor who knew how to alleviate the sorrows of people who suffered from the war, but also as a former Russian officer who was well aware of the needs of Russian soldiers who defended their Fatherland in the most difficult conditions of the most bloody of all wars known to mankind at that time. Sermons and collections of donations for the wounded and crippled soldiers, calling for steadfastness and at the same time for mercy, inspired prayers for the victory of the Russian army and participation in events to organize assistance to refugees and to equip hospitals and ambulance trains with the necessary means, and finally, calls for the diocesan clergy to join the ranks military clergy, and parish clerks not to evade military service - this is a far from complete list of the deeds of St. Seraphim during the entire period of the war.
Most of all, at that time, Vladyka feared that the war with external enemies, which would bring enormous material deprivation and moral suffering, would be aggravated by internal turmoil, which would undermine the foundations of that Orthodox-monarchical statehood, without which the continued existence of not only the Russian state, but also Russian Orthodox Church. Therefore, when in the March days of 1917 the abdication of the Sovereign called into question the very continued existence of the monarchy, and the Holy Synod found it necessary to support the Provisional Government as the only legitimate body of supreme power in the country, St. Seraphim, continuing to obey the highest church and state authorities, did not hide their negative attitude towards the changes that have taken place in Russia. This position of Vladyka Seraphim, combined with his reputation as a right-wing monarchist in liberal church and public circles, attracted the attention of the Chief Prosecutor of the Provisional Government V. N. Lvov, who, like the Chief Prosecutors of Imperial Russia, allowed himself to interfere in the affairs of the Holy Synod, demanding the removal from the episcopal chairs of church hierarchs who seemed disloyal to the authorities. Despite the fact that the Synod did not raise the issue of removing St. Seraphim from the Tver cathedra, his position in the diocese became complicated due to the desire of the archbishop's enemies from among the parish clergy to encroach on the power of the ruling bishop, who had fallen out of favor with the chief procurator.
In April 1917, on the initiative of Chief Prosecutor V.N. Lvov and with the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church, diocesan congresses began to take place with the participation of elected representatives, designed to consider the pressing issues of diocesan life and prepare for the convocation of the Local Council. Saint Seraphim developed the regulations and program for such a congress for the diocese he headed. But already in the process of electing participants in the congress, the principles of elections developed by the ruling bishop were violated, as a result of which the composition of the participants in the congress acquired the character of an arbitrarily composed assembly, in which laymen who often did not represent the parishes of the diocese predominated, and which was chaired by the priest, who was banned by the church court former priest of the Vyatka diocese of Tikhvin. Having opened its work on April 20, 1917, the Tver diocesan congress adopted a program of work not only different from the program approved by St. Seraphim, but which envisaged consideration as one of the main issues of the congress, which went beyond its competence, the question of the re-election of the diocesan bishop and the entire diocesan clergy. As a result of the furious agitation waged by Bishop Seraphim’s opponents, at the congress a completely uncanonical resolution was adopted by a majority vote of its participants, suggesting that St. Seraphim leave the Tver cathedra due to the fact that the congress “does not trust his church and social activities.”
The Synod sent Bishop of Samara Mikhail (Bogdanov) to the Tver diocese to investigate the actions of the participants in the diocesan congress. Due to the fact that Bishop Michael did not find any grounds in the activities of St. Seraphim to justify the decision of the diocesan congress to remove the ruling bishop from the chair, the Synod instructed Bishop Michael to preside over the Tver diocesan congress on August 8, 1917, with the aim of contributing to the restoration of the canonical authority of St. Seraphim in the Tver diocese. However, by this time revolutionary political passions were increasingly penetrating the participants in the diocesan congress, and the enemies of St. Seraphim, who represented a small group of clerics and clerks, tried to give the appearance of a struggle with a political reactionary to the renewal of social and church life in the diocese. As a result of these intrigues, the diocesan congress by a small majority of votes (142 against 136) passed a second non-canonical decision on the expulsion of Vladyka Seraphim. And yet, most of the diocesan clergy and the bulk of the Orthodox laity continued to venerate St. Seraphim as the only canonical ruling archpastor of their diocese.
Numerous letters from the parish clergy and parish councils, addressed both to Vladyka Seraphim and to the diocesan congress, testified to the desire of the diocese to keep their archpastor and insisted on the annulment of the decision of the diocesan congress. Particularly gratifying for Saint Seraphim was the unanimous support expressed to him by the Tver monastics, when the nuns and nuns of all 36 Tver monasteries demanded that the diocesan congress add their votes to those 136 votes of the participants in the congress that were cast in favor of leaving the saint on the Tver cathedra.
During this difficult time for Bishop Seraphim, the Holy Synod continued to regard him as the sole ruling bishop of the Tver diocese. Therefore, in the summer of 1917, Saint Seraphim, by decision of the Synod, was included among the members of the Local Council ex officio - precisely as the ruling bishop, the Archbishop of Tver and Kashinsky. Already in the summer, Saint Seraphim was actively involved in the work of the Local Council, heading the Cathedral Department “Monasteries and Monasticism”, so close to his heart.
Taking an active part in the work of the first session of the Local Council, which took place from August 16 to December 9, 1917, Vladyka Seraphim successfully led the work of the cathedral department entrusted to him, which developed draft definitions and resolutions of the Council, designed to create the most favorable conditions for the further development of the monastic and monastic life in the Russian Orthodox Church.
However, the intensification of revolutionary unrest in Russia in the autumn of 1917 and the seizure of power in Petrograd by the Bolsheviks had disastrous consequences for the development of events in the Tver diocese. Realizing that the majority of the clergy and laity of the diocese continued to remain faithful to St. Seraphim, some members of the diocesan council, elected on dubious canonical grounds back in April 1917, decided to resort to the help of the Bolshevik authorities in Tver, who at that time openly expressed their anti-God sentiments and did not hide their hatred for Vladyka Seraphim as "a church obscurantist and a Black Hundreds monarchist." On December 28, 1917, the Religious Department of the Tver Provincial Executive Committee of the Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies issued an order to expel Archbishop Seraphim from the Tver Governorate. Thus, one of the most firm and uncompromising church hierarchs in Russia, Saint Seraphim was the first victim of a blasphemous conspiracy of cassock apostates with the atheistic communist authorities; this conspiracy would subsequently form the basis of the struggle of the Renovationist clergy with the Orthodox church hierarchy, and for many decades would overshadow church life in Russia with the sin of denunciation and betrayal.
A copy of the directive of the Tver Provincial Executive Committee was sent to St. Patriarch Tikhon on January 18, 1918, but Vladyka Seraphim’s participation in the second session of the Local Council that had just begun made it possible for High Hierarch Tikhon, who boldly denounced the theomachist authorities in his Message of January 19, to refrain from immediately taking measures to restore the canonical the power of Archbishop Seraphim in the Tver diocese, which could lead to the reprisal of the Bolsheviks against St. Seraphim.
Desiring to save the saint from the outrageous reprisals of the Bolsheviks, a few days before the dispersal of the Local Council on September 17, 1918, St. Patriarch Tikhon managed to make a decision at a meeting of the Holy Synod to appoint Vladyka Seraphim to the Warsaw and Privislensky cathedra, located on the territory free from the power of the Bolsheviks in Poland.
Having received a new appointment, Saint Seraphim, with his characteristic archpastoral responsibility, assumed the burden of leading the diocese, devastated by the war and deprived of almost all the parish clergy and a significant part of the diocesan property, which were evacuated to Russia during the First World War. However, the very first actions taken by Vladyka Seraphim in his capacity as Archbishop of Warsaw met with fierce resistance from the Soviet government, which expressed itself in refusing to grant the request of St. Seraphim to leave him, together with the clergy subordinate to him, to the territory of Poland. The growing civil war and the subsequent Soviet-Polish war made it physically impossible for Vladyka Seraphim to leave for the diocese entrusted to him, and until the end of 1920 the saint remained outside his diocese, staying in the Chernigov skete near the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra and finding spiritual support in so consonant with him and for many years because of the episcopal service of the inaccessible prayerful and ascetic life of a monastery monk.
In January 1921, shortly after the end of the Soviet-Polish war, Vladyka Seraphim received a synodal order on the need to speed up the return of the Orthodox clergy and church property to the Warsaw diocese in connection with the plight of the Orthodox population of Poland, who had lost many churches during the war. Built at this time, St. Patriarch Tikhon, already in the rank of Metropolitan, Saint Seraphim applied to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, where he was told that the question of his departure to Poland could be considered only after the arrival of an official Polish representation in Moscow. However, soon after Vladyka Seraphim’s negotiations with Polish diplomats who arrived in Moscow in the spring of 1921, the Cheka authorities conducted a search of St. Seraphim, as a result of which letters were confiscated from him to the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, Cardinal Kapovsky, and to Archpriest who represented the interests of the Orthodox clergy in Warsaw Vrublevsky. These letters, after the interrogation of the saint by the Chekists on May 11, 1921, without any grounds, were taken as the basis for the absolutely fantastic accusations of Bishop Seraphim that, once in Poland "as an emissary of the Russian Patriarchate," he would "coordinate - against the Russian working masses - abroad the front of the overthrown Russian landowners and capitalists under the flag of the "team of friends of Jesus". As a result, on June 24, 1921, St. Seraphim, who did not suspect anything of the impending danger, was given the first official sentence in his life, adopted at a meeting of the judicial troika of the Cheka, which took place without the presence of the saint, and decided "to imprison citizen Chichagov in the Arkhangelsk concentration camp for a period of two years" . However, Bishop Seraphim, who was under the secret supervision of the Cheka, continued to remain at large, awaiting permission to leave for the Warsaw diocese, and was unexpectedly arrested only on September 21, 1921 and placed in the Taganka prison.
The request of the daughters of Vladyka Natalia and Ekaterina Chichagov to the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Kalinin for his release due to old age and ill health caused a resolution of the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the expediency of leaving the saint in a Moscow prison "for about half a year", and on January 13, 1922, the head of the secret department of the Cheka Rutkovsky, on behalf of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, drew up a new conclusion on the “case” of Vladyka Seraphim: “With the strengthening of the position of the revolutionary Soviet power in the current conditions, c. Chichagov is powerless to do anything tangibly hostile against the RSFSR. Moreover, taking into account his senile age, 65 years old, I believe that the decision on expulsion for 2 years should be applied conditionally, releasing c. Chichagova L. M. from custody. On January 16, 1922, by order of the Presidium of the Cheka, the already seriously ill saint left the Taganka prison.
Having overcome his illness only by the beginning of spring, Saint Seraphim, who already clearly understood the impossibility for him to go to the Warsaw diocese because of the opposition of the Soviet authorities, was attracted by St. Patriarch Tikhon as a member of the Holy Synod to resolve issues of higher church administration. Vladyka Seraphim’s great ecclesiastical administrative experience, his firm archpastoral will, despite his advanced years and endured trials, made his presence in the Synod highly undesirable for the Bolshevik authorities, who at that time were preparing the arrest of St. Patriarch Tikhon and the seizure of the highest church administration by their proteges from among renovation clergy. Therefore, on April 22, 1922, in the 6th department of the Cheka SO, another conclusion was prepared on the never-ending "case" of Metropolitan Seraphim. “Taking into account,” this conclusion said, “that Belavin, together with the Synod, is still pursuing a reactionary policy against the Soviet government, and that in the presence of the well-known reactionary Chichagov in the Synod, the clergy loyal to the authorities do not dare to openly show their loyalty because for fear of reprisals from Chichagov, as well as the fact that the main reason for the subsequent release of Chichagov from his punishment, an allegedly acute painful condition, does not find an excuse after his release and does not in the least prevent Chichagov from dealing with the affairs of the administration of the clergy, I believe ... Chichagova Leonida Mikhailovich ... to detain and send in stages to the disposal of the Arkhangelsk Gubernia Department for moving into a place of residence, as an administrative exile for a period of June 24, 1923. On the basis of this conclusion, the judicial board of the GPU, chaired by Unshlikht, on April 25 sentenced Bishop Seraphim to exile in the Arkhangelsk region.
Arriving in Arkhangelsk in May 1922, the saint found himself fraught with the need to go through interrogations again, connected this time with an unprecedented campaign of the authorities against the Orthodox clergy on charges of resisting the seizure of church valuables. Being chained to a hospital bed as a result of an illness aggravated during the transfer to Arkhangelsk, Vladyka Seraphim was forced to give written testimony, which, of course, could not suit the investigators of the GPU. “Living aside from the church administration and its orders,” wrote the saint, “I only observed the events from a distance and did not participate in the issue of removing valuables from churches to help the starving population. Everything written in the modern press accusing the bishops and clergy of being unsympathetic to the donation of church valuables for the needs of the people filled my heart with cruel resentment and pain, for my many years of service experience, close acquaintance with the clergy and the people testified to me that in Orthodox Russia there can be no believer a Christian, and even more so a bishop or priest, who cherishes dead values \u200b\u200band church decorations, metal and stone more than living brothers and sisters, suffering from hunger, dying of exhaustion and disease.
Deprived of his bishopric and languishing under conditions of severe northern exile, Saint Seraphim continued to be a sympathetic archpastor, not only praying for his many spiritual children, but instructing them in his letters even when his own trials and sorrows seemed insurmountable. Remarkable is the letter of the saint, sent by him from the Arkhangelsk exile to one of his spiritual sons, later to the priest Alexei Belyaev. “We are all people, and it is impossible that the sea of life does not foam with its shame, the dirt does not float up and this does not cleanse the depth of the whole element. You, however, be only with Christ, the one Truth, Truth and Love, and with Him everything is beautiful, everything is clear, everything is pure and comforting. Move away with your mind and heart, thoughts from the evil that rules over the graceless, and take care of one thing - to keep in yourself, by faith, divine grace, through which Christ and His peace dwell in us. It is impossible not to see this evil; but it is quite possible not to allow it to distract from God's truth. Yes, it exists and is terrible in its manifestations, but how unfortunate are those who obey it. After all, we do not refuse to study the truth and listen to smart people, because there are crazy people among us in the hospital and at large. Such facts do not turn one away from life; therefore, we should not be led astray from the path of truth and goodness by the fact that at times the force of evil manifests its earthly might. God cannot be mocked, but what a man sows, that he will also reap. Learn inner prayer so that it is not noticed by your appearance and does not embarrass anyone. The more we are occupied with inner prayer, the fuller, more reasonable and more rewarding our life in general. And the time passes more imperceptibly and faster. For this, the Jesus Prayer and your own short sayings “help me, Lord” or “protect and strengthen me” or “teach” and so on are especially useful. The one who prays inwardly looks at everything external indifferently, distractedly, for this prayer is not mental, but heartfelt, separating from the surface of the earth and bringing it closer to the invisible Heaven. Learn to forgive everyone their shortcomings and mistakes due to their submission to evil power, and, undoubtedly, an abnormal state of mind. Say to yourself: "Help him, Lord, for he is spiritually ill!" Such a consciousness will prevent condemnation, for only one who is perfect and does not make mistakes, knows everything, and most importantly, knows for sure that a person does not act according to the circumstances that have developed around him, but according to his own will, according to his passion, can judge.
After spending about a year in exile in Arkhangelsk, St. Seraphim returned to Moscow, which, in connection with the arrest of St. Patriarch Tikhon and the temporary seizure by the Renovationists of the highest church administration, was going through a period of internal turmoil. Vladyka Seraphim temporarily withdrew from active church activity, maintaining prayerful Eucharistic communion with the clergy and brethren of the St. Danilov Monastery, in which the confessor Archimandrite Georgy (Lavrov) served and in which Archbishop Theodore (Pozdeevsky) of Volokolamsk, whose ecclesiastical position was in this time is closest to St. Seraphim. However, on April 16, 1924, Vladyka was again arrested by the GPU, who this time charged him with organizing the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov in 1903. The investigation of St. Patriarch Tikhon filed a petition with the OGPU for the release of the 68-year-old bishop, in which he vouched for his loyal attitude to the existing government. At first ignored by the head of the 6th branch of the secret department of the OGPU Tuchkov, this petition, two months later, nevertheless contributed to the release of St. Seraphim, who, nevertheless, at the request of the authorities, soon had to leave Moscow.
At this time, the saint had to endure a new test, which this time fell upon him not from the side of the persecutors of the Church, but from the side of the abbess of the Diveevsky monastery so dear to his heart, Alexandra (Trokovskaya), whose election as abbess more than 20 years ago was facilitated by St. Seraphim himself. After Vladyka, expelled from Moscow by the authorities, turned to Abbess Alexandra with a request to give him shelter in the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery, the abbess refused the persecuted confessor. The reason for this severe refusal, in all likelihood, was the conflict that took place many years ago between Abbess Alexandra and Bishop Seraphim, related to the fact that the abbess, contrary to the blessing of the Monk Elder Seraphim on the place of laying a new temple, which Vladyka repeatedly reminded her of, built a temple in another place. Subsequently, this temple, for reasons inexplicable from a human point of view, was never consecrated, and St. Seraphim from that time on did not visit the Diveevo Monastery.
Rejected by the monastery, near which the saint had hoped to find his last rest for more than 30 years since the burial of his wife Natalia Nikolaevna there, Vladyka Seraphim, together with his daughter Natalia (seraphim in monasticism), was received by Abbess Arsenia (Dobronravova) at the Resurrection Feodorovsky Monastery, located near Shuya . For several years, this monastery was destined to become the last quiet monastic refuge for the 70-year-old saint who had been walking along the thorny path of confession for almost 10 years. The performance of Sunday and holiday services and spiritual guidance to the nuns of the monastery, classes with the monastery choir, to which, being a great connoisseur of church singing, Vladyka Seraphim paid much attention, and the continuation of work on the second part of the Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery, which was not allowed to print before the revolution censorship and was subsequently seized during the next KGB search - these were the main obediences assumed by the saint during the years of his stay in the Resurrection Feodorovsky Monastery.
But at the same time, these were years of deep reflections of St. Seraphim about the fate of the Church in Russia and about the ways of his own service to the Church in the era of historical timelessness that came in these years. It seemed that imperial Russia, which St. Seraphim served as an Orthodox warrior for 15 years, and under whose crowned patronage his service to the Orthodox Church as a clergyman, continued for a quarter of a century, had irrevocably gone. In place of Orthodox-monarchical statehood, there came an atheistic power, unprecedented in Russian history, which proclaimed one of its main goals the destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church. The confessional death of St. Patriarch Tikhon and the subsequent removal from church life 8 months later of the future Hieromartyr Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky) of Krutitsy led to the beginning of perhaps the most difficult stage in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century. It was during these years, with the ever-increasing persecution of the Church by the communist state and the incessant attempts of renovationist schismatics to destroy church life, that dangerous contradictions began to arise among the clergy and laity faithful of the Orthodox Church, connected with the understanding of the canonical powers of the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of Nizhny Novgorod and with various ideas about the future prospects for the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church, as seeking official recognition from the state or as going into the catacombs. At this fatal turning point in Russian church history, having come to the conclusion that the Orthodox Church must openly carry out its ministry in Russia, even having lost the patronage of Orthodox sovereigns, St. Seraphim courageously made his final spiritual choice and took the side of that part of the church hierarchy that recognized Metropolitan Sergius as the only legitimate successor to the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter, equal to him in his canonical powers, and supported his policy of upholding the official recognition of the Orthodox Church as state power.
At the end of 1927, having said a touching farewell to the nuns of the Resurrection Feodorovsky Monastery, Vladyka Seraphim forever left the monastery that had given him a hospitable refuge to take part in the activities of the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod. The support of such an authoritative church hierarch, known for his firmness and uncompromisingness, as St. Seraphim was, was extremely important for Metropolitan Sergius, who at that time was increasingly reproached by his opponents from among the Orthodox episcopate for unacceptable concessions to state power. And it is very indicative that the metropolitan see, to which Vladyka Seraphim was appointed by the decree of the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius and the Provisional Patriarchal Synod of February 23, 1928, was in the Leningrad diocese, from where Metropolitan Sergius was most loudly reproached for these unacceptable concessions.
The Leningrad diocese in 1928 represented one of the most full of intra-church contradictions among the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church. Having turned out to be the cradle of the God-fighting Bolshevik regime, which gathered its first bloody harvest among the Orthodox clergy precisely in the Petrograd diocese, the "city on the Neva" in the early 1920s. thanks to the intrigues of the state authorities and the infirmities of some part of the diocesan clergy, it turned into a stronghold of renovationism. It was in this city, where the theomachic nature of the Bolshevik government manifested itself especially fiercely and sophisticatedly, that a church movement became possible, in which the eschatological understanding of the current stage of Russian church history prevailed, and which, because of this, refused to recognize the spiritual justification of the policy of Metropolitan Sergius, aimed at preserving through the inevitable compromises with the state power of the officially existing church hierarchy. Having accepted as its authoritative head Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovs), who in the autumn of 1927 opposed Metropolitan Sergius after his transfer from the Leningrad see to the Odessa diocese, and in connection with this received the name "Josephian", this church movement, in which several vicar bishops and a significant part of the clergy of the Leningrad diocese in 1928 embraced 61 of the 100 Orthodox parishes operating in Leningrad and cut them off from prayerful and canonical communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.
It was to this diocese, which turned out to be split not so much as a result of the intrigues of the authorities, but as a result of the loss of spiritual unity between Orthodox clergy and laity, that on March 8, 1828, Saint Seraphim arrived as the new ruling bishop. Vladyka Seraphim was well known among the Orthodox Christians of the former Russian capital, not only because the bright secular half of his 72-year life passed in his native city, but also because, even after leaving St. Petersburg in 1891 after becoming a clergyman, St. Seraphim all subsequent years he regularly visited his hometown and participated in its church life. The personality of St. Seraphim could not but arouse respect even among members of the "Josephite" parishes, for being in his past, first a St. Petersburg aristocrat and guards officer, and then a strictly Orthodox church hierarch known for his monarchism, Vladyka Seraphim personified that Orthodox-monarchical Russia, the collapse of which evoked a feeling of the impending end of the world, characteristic of many participants in the “Josephite” movement, when church life inevitably had to go into the catacombs.
After his arrival in the diocese, Vladyka Seraphim settled in the former hegumen's quarters of the Voskresensky Novodevichy Convent, which also housed the Leningrad Diocesan Council, formed in November 1927, whose chairman in 1928 was Bishop Nikolay (Yarushevich), who remained faithful to Metropolitan Sergius.
Metropolitan Seraphim in the abbot's chambers of the Resurrection Novodevichy Convent,
Leningrad 1928-1933
Saint Seraphim marked his stay in the diocese by the fact that in the conditions of cruel and all-round restrictions on church life by state authorities, he made the reverent celebration of Sunday and holiday services and inspired preaching in city and suburban churches the basis of his archpastoral service. Vladyka Seraphim celebrated the first Divine Liturgy in the new diocese at the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior, dear to his heart, which he often attended as a Guards officer, and where on April 8, 1879, he was married to his wife Natalia Nikolaevna.
At the same time, Saint Seraphim strove in every possible way to support the desire of many Orthodox Christians, discovered by him in the parish churches of the diocese, in this time filled with incredible suffering and deprivation for them to approach the Holy Mysteries of Christ as often as possible. This is how one of his contemporaries described the liturgical sermon of Vladyka Seraphim and the vicar bishops who supported him. “The bishops, in particular, Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov) of Petrograd, even now convincingly call their flock to the Liturgy and communion of the Holy Mysteries, as the surest and most powerful means against spiritual evil and the onslaught of infidels in our Motherland. As long as the Divine Liturgy is being served, while people are approaching Divine Communion, until then one can be sure that the Orthodox Church will stand and win, that the Russian people will not perish in the evil of sin, godlessness, malice, materialism, pride and impurity, that our Motherland will be reborn and saved. Therefore, Metropolitan Seraphim convinces the clergy and flock, above all, think about the preservation, celebration and continuous service (daily, even multiple on different thrones) of the Liturgy. If she will, there will be both the Church and Russia.”
Warming up the prayerful spirit of his flock, since June 4, 1928, every Tuesday in the Church of the Sign near the Moscow railway station, where there was a chapel in honor of St. Seraphim of Sarov, Vladyka Seraphim served with an akathist to the Monk, which had once been compiled by the saint himself and read by heart during the service .
To resolve one of the most important tasks of his diocesan ministry - overcoming the "Josephite" schism, St. Seraphim set about gradually, explaining in his sermons the danger of this division for the canonical unity of the persecuted Russian Orthodox Church and entering into negotiations with some leading representatives of the "Josephite" clergy. On April 1, 1928, Vladyka Seraphim gave his blessing in all the parish churches of the city to make a special prayer for the appeasement of the Church.
Significant help in the polemic with the "Josephite" schismatics was rendered to Saint Seraphim by Bishop Manuel (Lemeshevsky) of Serpukhov, who arrived in Leningrad at his invitation at the end of April 1928. Deeply respected by many Orthodox Christians of the city for his selfless struggle against the Petrograd renovationists in the early 1920s. Bishop Manuel urged his many admirers, both among the flock of Bishop Seraphim and among the "Josephites" to maintain church unity under the omophorion of Metropolitan Sergius. Of particular importance for the unity of church life in the city was the Divine Liturgy celebrated on April 29, 1928 by St. Seraphim in concelebration with Bishop Manuel at the Trinity Izmailovsky Cathedral, at which both bishops, recalling the devastating consequences for the Church of the Renovationist schism in the Petrograd diocese, urged not to allow new division among Orthodox Christians.
However, despite the return of some of the “Josephite” parishes to the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Sergius, the leaders of this movement were not inclined to restore church peace in the diocese and, as conditions for their return to the bosom of the Moscow Patriarchate, put forward demands unacceptable to Metropolitan Sergius, which implied a complete revision of church policy by him. and his renunciation of those powers in the field of higher church administration, which were assigned to him by the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter. The irreconcilability of the leaders of the "Josephite" clergy forced Saint Seraphim to take more decisive measures towards the schismatics. In an effort to preserve the Holy Trinity-Alexander Nevsky Lavra in canonical communion with Metropolitan Sergius, Vladyka Seraphim in May 1928 succeeded in removing Bishop Grigory (Lebedev) of Shlisselburg from the Lavra’s deputies, who was becoming more and more close to the “Josephites”. However, in November 1928, the latter went on to organize a schism even among the Lavra clergy, as a result of which 5 of the 7 churches of the Lavra, despite the fact that most of their parishioners remained faithful to St. Seraphim, began to commemorate Metropolitan Joseph at divine services.
Feeling the ever-increasing support of the majority of Orthodox Christians in the city and recognizing the need to act within the framework of Soviet legislation, Vladyka Seraphim called on his flock of laity to join the "twenty" "Josephite" churches and, achieving a "numerical majority" there, replace the "Josephite" clergy for the clergy who were in canonical communion with Metropolitan Sergius. The return of the “Josephite” parishes to him, which was outlined as a result of these actions of St. Seraphim, prompted the constant stressing of their independence from the godless power of the Josephites to turn to the help of the relevant state authorities in order to preserve parish churches for their supporters. Metropolitan Joseph, in their statement to the registration desk of the Volodarsky District Council they wrote: “We bring to your attention that believers ... from November 1 of this year. officially joined and entrenched in the prayerful communion of our beliefs with Met. Joseph in the person of Ep. Demetrius. Thus, they renounced the ecclesiastical authority of M. Sergius imposed on us. Attached, notifying you, in a timely manner 4 clergymen. In order to avoid possible craftiness on the part of M. Seraphim (Chichagov), we ask you to leave the number of twenty as has been practiced until now.
Thus, the anti-church nature of any canonical schism forced the sincere in their Orthodox faith "Josephites" to follow in the footsteps of the Renovationists, who often trampled on the foundations of the Orthodox faith in search of the patronage of the theomachy power, and Vladyka Seraphim, who cared for the unity of Orthodox Church life, again became more and more objectionable to the Bolshevik authorities, who sought to use even so alien to them "Josephites" for the destruction of church life.
The saint was well aware that his successes in restoring church peace among the diocesan clergy and laity would be fraught for him with an inevitable clash with the godless communist state, especially since the repressions against the Church throughout the country in the late 1920s. intensified significantly. And yet, throughout his entire stay in the Leningrad diocese, courageously overcoming all sorts of obstacles and threats emanating from state bodies, and humbly enduring the blasphemy and slander spread from among the supporters of Metropolitan Joseph, Saint Seraphim consistently strove to preserve the spiritual and canonical unity of Church life in the entrusted to him by Metropolitan Sergius of the diocese. The result of Vladyka Seraphim’s efforts to overcome the “Josephian” schism in the Leningrad diocese was the significant fact that in 1933, the last year of his stay at the Leningrad cathedra, only 2 officially registered “Josephite” parish churches remained in the diocese. Of course, like the parishes that remained faithful to St. Seraphim, many “Josephite” parishes were closed by order of the state authorities, and yet a significant part of them were returned to prayer-canonical communion with the Moscow Patriarchate by St. Seraphim.
During the years of Vladyka Seraphim's service in the Leningrad diocese, his archpastoral authority constantly increased. Expressive evidence of this was the creation by Orthodox Christians of the city in September 1930 of the "Society of Metropolitan Seraphim" at the Trinity Izmailovsky Cathedral.
But no matter how self-sacrificing Vladyka Seraphim's work as a diocesan bishop was, he could not in everything resist the sharp increase in the whole country in the early 1930s. repressive state policy towards the Russian Orthodox Church. In the Leningrad diocese, as well as throughout the country, at that time the best representatives of the Orthodox clergy were arrested, and parish churches were systematically closed, and St. Seraphim tried to do at least what was in his power in these difficult conditions. Thus, after the closure of the Isidore Church in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in 1931, the saint, having applied to the state authorities, was able to achieve the reburial at the cemetery of the Lavra of the remains of his two predecessors at the St.
However, two years earlier, Saint Seraphim happened to take part in the burial of yet another bishop, who was not connected by his archpastoral service with the Petersburg diocese, but who was destined to be connected with Vladyka Seraphim himself by the common ties of confessional service and martyrdom. On December 28, 1929, one of the most prominent church hierarchs of the 20th century, Archbishop Illarion (Troitsky) of Vereya, died of typhus in the Leningrad prison hospital, whose body was handed over to relatives in a rough coffin. Taking upon himself the organization of the funeral and burial of St. Hilarion, Vladyka Seraphim saw in the coffin an emaciated prisoner, into whom Archbishop Hilarion's 6-year imprisonment had turned, so reminiscent of his noble appearance of St. Seraphim at the beginning of his hierarchal service. Having dressed Saint Hilarion in his own white episcopal robes and placing his miter on his head, Vladyka Seraphim, concelebrated by six bishops, solemnly buried the confessor and buried him next to his residence in the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent. Giving his episcopal vestments to the deceased Confessor Archbishop Hilarion, Saint Seraphim seemed to foresee that he himself would not be destined to accept the episcopal burial according to the church order, and that after his martyr's death, without vestments in the episcopal vestments, he would be thrown into a mass grave with many others. unknown victims of the executioners of the God-fighting state.
In 1933, having given all his strength to the Leningrad diocese, the 77-year-old Saint Seraphim was approaching the end of his archpastoral service as the ruling bishop. Vladyka's bodily infirmities and the ever-increasing hatred towards him of the state authorities in Leningrad, which made it very likely that St. Seraphim would soon be arrested, prompted Metropolitan Sergius and the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod on October 14, 1933, to issue a decree on the dismissal of Vladyka into retirement. On October 24, having served the Divine Liturgy in the church of his youth - the Transfiguration Cathedral - Saint Seraphim forever left his native city, in which he became a deeply believing Orthodox layman, and to whom he gave his last archpastoral powers during the most difficult period for the church life of the city as an Orthodox saint. The providence of God again gave his faithful servant several years of peace, so that Saint Seraphim could prepare for his last, most important church service - martyrdom for Christ.
After returning to Moscow and briefly living in the residence of Metropolitan Sergius on Baumanovskiy Lane, in 1934 Saint Seraphim found his last refuge in two rooms of a country dacha, located not far from the Udelnaya station of the Kazan railway.
Here, in the silence of the village, in spiritual reflections on the theological and ascetic writings that accompanied the saint throughout his life, in prayerful vigils in front of the icons dear to him, Vladyka Seraphim had the happy opportunity to sum up the last life results and prepare himself for a meeting with Christ the Savior, Divine The face of which the saint contemplated on the large image of the Savior in a white chiton painted by him. Currently, this image is in the temple of Elijah the Ordinary.
However, all this time Saint Seraphim was by no means alone: next to him were his two faithful cell-attendants, the nuns of the Resurrection Feodorovsky Monastery, Vera and Sevastiana, who had accompanied Vladyka with the blessing of their abbess Arsenia for more than 7 years, around him were his numerous spiritual children, whom Saint Seraphim provided paternal care throughout his forty years of pastoral and archpastoral ministry and, of course, his daughters were with him, two of whom were destined to become monks. Often, representatives of the church hierarchy also visited Vladyka Seraphim, especially Metropolitan Alexy (Simansky) and Arseniy (Stadnitsky), who discussed with the saint, highly experienced in matters of church administration, seemingly insoluble questions that arose before the Holy Synod at this difficult time for the Church.
Metropolitan Seraphim in the Resurrection Feodorovsky Monastery, near the town of Shuya. Photo 1928
Vladyka Seraphim, more clearly than many of his contemporaries, realized the catastrophic nature of the epoch for the Russian Orthodox Church and foresaw that the measure of redemptive suffering prepared for Orthodox Christians in Russia had not yet been fulfilled, but deep faith in the inevitable and immutable triumph of the Orthodox Church never left the saint. It was during these years, which seemed hopeless to many, that St. Seraphim exhorted his spiritual children with such truly prophetic words, both in relation to the fate of the Russian Orthodox Church and in relation to his own fate, with the words: “The Orthodox Church is now going through a time of trials. then he will now remain faithful to the holy apostolic Church - he will be saved. Many are now departing from the Church because of persecution, others are even betraying it. But it is well known from history that there were persecutions before, but they all ended in the triumph of Christianity. So it will be with this persecution. It will end, and Orthodoxy will triumph again. Now many are suffering for the faith, but this is gold being refined in the spiritual crucible of trials. After that, there will be as many holy martyrs who suffered for the faith of Christ as the entire history of Christianity does not remember.”
The clearer and firmer, wiser and more perspicacious the spirit of Saint Seraphim became, the weaker his body became. The hypertension that had been developing for many years was joined by a heart disease that caused dropsy, as a result of which Vladyka almost lost the ability to move, and almost never left the house. Increasingly, only church hymns, sung by him on the harmonium, resounding in the evenings in the rural silence from the house of St. these terrible years, he lived and suffered in tormented Russia.
As for many other New Martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church, the last feature of the earthly existence of St. Seraphim was bloodily outlined in 1937, which marked the beginning of a five-year period of mass destruction of Orthodox Christians incomparable in world Christian history. However, even in this series of many tens of thousands of martyrdoms, the death of Vladyka Seraphim turned out to be full of special ascetic greatness and dignity. Arrested by the NKVD in November 1937, the bedridden 82-year-old saint was carried out of the house on a stretcher and taken to the Taganka prison because of the impossibility of transporting him in the prisoner's car in an ambulance. The terrible death of Vladyka Seraphim was already a foregone conclusion, but the satanic spirit, which inspired the bloody deeds of the executioners of the God-fighting power, moved them to force Orthodox Christians to renounce, if not directly from Christ, then from their Christian moral dignity, recognizing the most unthinkable accusations , which were ingeniously imposed on them by their torturers during the investigation. For several weeks, the physically helpless, dying elder, with the grandeur of a Christian first martyr, resisted the new persecutors of the Church, and did not admit any of the accusations that were imposed on him. On December 7, 1937, the Troika of the NKVD in the Moscow Region, which had already passed several dozen death sentences that day, adopted a resolution on the execution of Metropolitan Seraphim. Nearly 50 sufferers sentenced to death were shot over the course of several days in the village of Butovo, not far from Moscow, in which an oak grove surrounded by a blank fence was to become an unnamed cemetery for many thousands of victims of communist terror. On December 11, 1937, the Hieromartyr Seraphim was also shot with the last group of those condemned.
Shortly before his death, the spiritual father of St. Seraphim, St. Righteous John of Kronstadt, blessing his spiritual son for the last time, uttered a word that predetermined the entire future holy martyr service of Vladyka Seraphim. “I can die in peace, knowing that you and Reverend Hermogenes will continue my work, will fight for Orthodoxy, for which I bless you.” Both saints fully fulfilled the blessing of their spiritual father, although unlike Saint Hermogenes, who was already martyred on June 29, 1918, Hieromartyr Seraphim came to his martyr's death on December 11, 1937, after 20 years of confessional archpastoral service. Many Russian Orthodox Christians were destined to walk together with Hieromartyr Seraphim along the Calvary path of Christian martyrdom, on which the Orthodox Church was once erected and from now on and forever will stand in the world below, having in the world above in the host of its holy intercessors and intercessors before the Throne of the Most High Hieromartyr Metropolitan Seraphim.
Information taken from the site http://krotov.info/history/19/1890_10_2/1856_chichagov.htm
FROM Hieromartyr Seraphim, Metropolitan of Leningrad (in the world Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov) was born in 1856 in St. Petersburg, into the family of artillery colonel Mikhail Nikiforovich Chichagov, who belonged to an eminent noble family. After graduating from the Imperial Corps of Pages, Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov participated in the Balkan War of 1876-1877. Then he served in the military department and, with the rank of lieutenant of the guards artillery, participated in the Turkish campaign of 1877-1878. Knight of St. George, hero of Plevna. Among other things, he was awarded foreign orders: the Bulgarian "For Civil Merit", Alexander of the second degree with a star and the French Order of the Legion of Honor.
Upon returning from the front to St. Petersburg, he met the righteous John of Kronstadt and became his spiritual child.
In 1879, Leonid Mikhailovich married the daughter of the chamberlain of the Court of His Imperial Majesty, Natalia Nikolaevna Dokhturova.
Bearing in mind that Christian marriage is, first of all, a small Church, in which not pleasing each other, and even more so the prejudices of high society, but pleasing God is the basis of family happiness, Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov managed to introduce the principles of traditional Orthodox piety into the way of his young family. It was these principles that formed the basis for the upbringing of four daughters - Vera, Natalia, Leonida and Ekaterina, who were born in the Chichagov family.
In 1891, Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov retired from military service with the rank of Colonel of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment and moved to Moscow, where he began to prepare for church service. In 1893, with the blessing of St. John of Kronstadt, he took the priesthood and served in various churches in Moscow.
In 1895, the wife of his father, Leonid Natalya Nikolaevna, died. At this time, priest Leonid Chichagov began work on the Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery. In 1898 he took monastic vows with the name Seraphim. Soon he was appointed rector of the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimievsky monastery. In 1903, on the basis of his presentation and with the active assistance of Emperor Nicholas II, St. Seraphim of Sarov was glorified. Archimandrite Seraphim (Chichagov) compiled an akathist to St. Seraphim of Sarov.
In 1905, Archimandrite Seraphim was consecrated Bishop of Sukhumi. From 1906 to 1912 he was Archbishop of Oryol, Kishinev and Tver. At the Local Council of 1917-1918, Vladyka headed the Monasteries and Monasticism department.
On December 28, 1917, the Religious Department of the Tver Provincial Executive Committee of the Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies issued an order to expel Archbishop Seraphim of Tver and Kashin from the Tver Governorate.
Desiring to save the saint from the outrageous reprisals of the Bolsheviks, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, a few days before the dispersal of the Local Council, on September 17, 1918, managed to make a decision at a meeting of the Holy Synod to appoint Vladyka Seraphim to the Warsaw see, located on the territory free from the power of the Bolsheviks in Poland.
But he never arrived at the place of service in connection with the hostilities that took place there. In 1921, already in the rank of metropolitan, Vladyka Seraphim was exiled to the Arkhangelsk region.
After spending about a year in exile in Arkhangelsk, Saint Seraphim returned to Moscow. However, in 1924, Vladyka was again arrested by the GPU, this time he was charged with organizing the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov in 1903. The investigation of St. Seraphim, who ended up in the Butyrka prison, lasted about a month. His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon filed a petition with the OGPU for the release of 68-year-old Vladyka Seraphim, in which he vouched for his loyal attitude to the existing government. At first ignored by the head of the 6th branch of the Secret Department of the OGPU Tuchkov, this petition, two months later, nevertheless contributed to the release of St. Seraphim, who, nevertheless, at the request of the authorities, soon had to leave Moscow.
At this time, the saint had to endure a new test, which befell him this time not from the side of the persecutors of the Church, but from the side of the abbess of the Diveevo monastery, so dear to his heart. After Vladyka, expelled from Moscow by the authorities, turned to Abbess Alexandra (Trokovskaya) with a request to give him shelter in the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery, the abbess refused the persecuted confessor. Rejected by the monastery, near which the saint had hoped to find his last rest for more than 30 years since the burial of his wife Natalia Nikolaevna, Vladyka Seraphim, together with his daughter Natalia (seraphim in monasticism), was received by Abbess Arsenia (Dobronravova) at the Resurrection Feodorovsky Monastery, located not far from Shui.
At the end of 1927, after taking a touching farewell to the nuns of the Feodorovsky Monastery, Vladyka Seraphim forever left the monastery that had given him a hospitable refuge to take part in the activities of the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod. Metropolitan Sergius (Stargorodsky), Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens, appointed Metropolitan Seraphim to the Leningrad cathedra.
Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov) supported Metropolitan Sergius in his church policy. He said that “as long as the Divine Liturgy is being celebrated, while people are approaching Divine Communion, until then one can be sure that the Orthodox Church will stand and win, that the Russian people will not perish in the evil of sin, godlessness, malice, materialism, pride and impurity, that the Russian people will be reborn and our Motherland will be saved.
In 1933, having given all his strength to the Leningrad diocese, the 77-year-old Saint Seraphim was approaching the end of his archpastoral service as the ruling bishop. Vladyka's bodily infirmities and the ever-increasing hatred of the state authorities for him, which made it very likely that St. Seraphim would soon be arrested, prompted Metropolitan Sergius and the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod to retire Vladyka. Having served the Divine Liturgy in the church of his youth at the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior, Saint Seraphim left his native city forever.
After returning to Moscow, in 1934, Saint Seraphim found his last refuge in two rooms of a country cottage, located not far from the Udelnaya station of the Kazan railway.
In 1937 began a five-year period of mass extermination of Orthodox Christians, incomparable in world Christian history. The 82-year-old Saint Seraphim, who was living out the last months of his toilsome, ascetic and glorious life, retired from church affairs, was arrested by the NKVD in November 1937. He was carried out of the house on a stretcher and taken to the Taganskaya prison.
On December 7, 1937, the "troika" of the NKVD in the Moscow region, which had already passed several dozen death sentences that day, adopted a resolution on the execution of Metropolitan Seraphim as well. Almost 50 sufferers sentenced to death were shot for several days in the village of Butovo, not far from Moscow. On December 11, 1937, the Hieromartyr Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov) was shot with the last group of those sentenced.
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