Selections from Seminary

For those of us coming from a Protestant background, especially from the "Evangelical" realm, we might be tempted to think of "saved" as 'made it into heaven', and thus accidentally read into St. Seraphim's saying a meaning something to the effect of, '...and thousands of people around you will accept Christ and become Christians as a result'. Though that meaning might be included in what St. Seraphim meant, it certainly is not the primary meaning, because that is not a traditionally Christian understanding of the word "saved". Without delving into the deep end of trying to fully understand "saved" in a more Orthodox manner, I will try to hone in on the one important aspect I see at work, to help us understand this quote. Think of the many places in the New Testament which speak of those "being saved"...well, that is not totally fair, because our translations do not always make that so clear in English. Search aroun...

St. Seraphim’s guidance in the spiritual life was focused on acquiring the grace of the Holy Spirit, and, as you will see, his use of the word “acquire”, a money and business term, is no accident: "Prayer, fasting, vigil, and all other Christian practices, however good they may be in themselves, do not constitute the aim of our Christian life, although they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this end. The true aim of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God." "'Acquiring is the same as obtaining,' he replied to me. 'You understand, of course, what acquiring money means. Acquiring the Spirit of God is exactly the same. You know well what it means in a worldly sense, your godliness, to acquire. The aim of life of ordinary worldly people is to acquire or make money, and for the nobility it is in addition to receive honors, distinctions, and other rewards for their services to the government. The acquisition of God's ...

As mentioned in the first of these posts about St. Seraphim, this may feel like a rabbit trail, but after establishing the authenticity of St. Seraphim's message and its connection to the fathers of old (in this post), then moving on to his primary teaching about the spiritual life (in the next post), we will finally be able to accept the understanding of his most famous quote for what it is: a condensed version of everything he lived and taught. The Little Russian Philokalia, in covering the life and teachings of St. Seraphim of Sarov, reminds us that “there is nothing whatever that is new in the spiritual face of St. Seraphim; all is from the Holy Fathers, of whom he is a most faithful disciple, appearing in the latter times like some great desert father of antiquity, like a new St. Macarius the Great.” The author goes on to say: "His spiritual instructions like his celebrated conversation with Motovilov on the acquisition of the Holy Spirit contain no new teaching, but sim...

These different variations of St. Seraphim's famous quote can carry slightly different emphases, but there seems to be another issue with this quote and how it challenges our understanding of salvation and “missions” in the Orthodox Church. There seems to be a thread of anti-monastic sentiment among Orthodox Christians today, as if the monastic life is something different than “normal” Christian life, and especially seeing monastics as anti-evangelical. This is theologically problematic, to be sure, but here, I will focus only on the desired re-interpretation of St. Seraphim’s quote. One respected source of Orthodox missions thinking today, a statement I heard with my own ears, suggested that Frederica Mathewes-Green was right in suggesting we have a misunderstanding of this quote, that is, the monk going out in the “desert” does not “save” anybody. I could not confirm any place that Frederica Mathewes-Green suggested this. Instead, she writes: "Being a saint is not a private ...

One of the most common patron saints American converts choose is St. Seraphim of Sarov. He has an obvious appeal. He, somehow, sums up Americans’ desire for conservative and traditional Christianity, while living out a beautifully “wild” and zealous life. He personifies the depths of spiritual life that so many of us yearn to possess. What more could we say about St. Seraphim than what our own enlightened, clairvoyant, and wonderworking San Franciscan saint, John Maximovitch, said of him in a homily, when he was still Hieromonk John, a seminary teacher in Serbia: "Thus, despite the changes that have taken place in the world, the memory of St. Seraphim not only does not fade, but it remains a lamp that shines ever brighter to humanity. … He was wholly occupied with the acquisition of 'the one thing needful'. ...The Lord gave us to see Himself in those like unto Him, in His saints. And so, one of these likenesses was St. Seraphim. In him we see restored human nature, freed ...