My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God, and Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
On the 2nd of January, Our Holy Orthodox Church Commemorates
Our Righteous Father SERAPHIM OF SAROV.
Apolytikion (Dismissal) Hymn of the Righteous One. Fourth Tone
Thou didst love Christ from thy youth, O blessed one, and ardently
desiring to work for Him alone, thou didst struggle in the wilderness
with constant prayer and labor; and having acquired love for Christ
with compunction of heart, thou didst prove to be the beloved favorite
of the Mother of God. Wherefore, we cry to thee: Save us by thy
prayers, O Seraphim, our holy Father.
Kontakion of the Righteous One. Second Tone
Having left the beauty of the world and what is corrupt therein, O
Saint, thou didst settle in the Monastery of Sarov. And having lived
there an angelic life, thou wast for many the way unto salvation.
Wherefore, Christ hath glorified thee, O Father Seraphim, and hath
enriched thee with the gift of healing and miracles. And so we cry
to thee: Rejoice, O Seraphim, our holy Father.
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SAINT SERAPHIM was born in the town of Kursk in 1759. From tender childhood he was under the protection of the Most Holy Mother of God, who, when he was nine years old, appeared to him in a vision, and through her holy icon of Kursk, healed him from a grave sickness from which he had not been expected to recover. At the age of nineteen he entered the Monastery of Sarov, where he amazed all with his obedience, his lofty asceticism, and his great humility. In 1780 the Saint was stricken with a sickness which he manfully endured for three years, until our Lady the Theotokos healed him, appearing to him with the holy Apostles Peter and John. He was tonsured a monk in 1786, being named for the holy Hieromartyr Seraphim, Bishop of Phanarion (December 4th), and was ordained Deacon a year later. In his unquenchable love for God, he continually added labors to labours, increasing in virtue and prayer with titan strides. Once during the Divine Liturgy of Holy and Great Thursday, he was counted worthy of a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who appeared encompassed by the heavenly Hosts. After this dread vision, he gave himself over to great labours.
In 1794, Saint Seraphim took up the solitary life in a cell in the forest. This period of extreme asceticism lasted fifteen years, until 1810. It was at this time that he took upon himself one of the greatest feats of his life. Assailed with despondency and a storm of contrary thoughts raised by the enemy of our salvation, the Saint passed a thousand nights on a rock, continuing in prayer until God gave him complete victory over the enemy (Satan). On another occasion, he was assaulted by robbers who broke his chest and his head with their blows, leaving him almost dead. Here again, he began to recover after an appearance of the Most Holy Theotokos, who came to him with the holy Apostles Peter and John, and pointing to Saint Seraphim, uttered those awesome words, "THIS IS ONE OF MY KIND."
In 1810, at the age of fifty, weakened with his more than human struggles, Saint Seraphim returned to the Monastery for the third part of his ascetical labours, in which he lived as a recluse, until 1825. For the first five years of his reclusion, he spoke to no one at all, and little is known of this period. After five years, he began receiving visitors little by little, giving counsel and consolation to ailing souls. In 1825, the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to the Saint and revealed to him that it was pleasing to God that he fully end his reclusion; from this time the number of people who came to see him grew daily. It was also at the command of the Holy Virgin that he undertook the spiritual direction of the Diveyevo Convent. He healed bodily ailments, foretold things to come, brought hardened sinners to repentance, and saw clearly the secrets of the heart of those who came to him. Through his utter humility and childlike simplicity, his unrivalled ascetical travails, and his Angel-like love for God, he ascended to the holiness and greatness of the ancient God-bearing Fathers and became, like Saint Anthony of Egypt, the physician for the whole Russian land. In all, the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to him TWELVE TIMES IN HIS LIFE. The last was on Annunciation, 1831, to announce to him that he would soon enter into his rest. She appeared to him accompanied by twelve virgins–Martyrs and Monastic Saints–with Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Theologian. With a body ailing and broken from innumerable hardships, and an unspotted soul and shining with the Light of Heaven, the Saint lived less than two years after this, falling asleep in peace on January 2, 1833, chanting Paschal hymns. On the night of his repose, the Righteous Philaret of the Glinsk Hermitage beheld his soul ascending to Heaven in light. Because of the universal testimony to the singular holiness of his life, and the seas of miracles that he performed both in life and after death, his veneration quickly spread beyond the boundaries of the Russian Empire to every corner of the earth.
On July 19th our Holy Orthodox Church commemorates the uncovering of the Holy Relics of Our Righteous Father Seraphim of Sarov. The uncovering of the holy relics of Saint Seraphim of Sarov on July 19, 1903 was attended by many thousands, among them the foremost of the clergy and royalty; the holy Tsar Nicholas II, was one of the bearers of the holy relics in procession, and the Grand Duchess Elizabeth wrote an eyewitness account of the many miracles that took place. Not only had the Saint foretold the coming of the Tsar to his glorification, and that from joy they would chant "Christ is Risen" in summer, but he had also left a letter "for the fourth sovereign, who will come to Sarov." This was Nicholas II, who was given the letter when he came in 1903; the contents of the letter are not known, but when he had read it, the Tsar and future Martyr, though not a man to show his emotions, was visibly shaken. [Source: The Great Horologion]
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"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomoas
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With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George
The Eastern Orthodox Christian Ethos 