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Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, né Eugene Dennis Rose (August 13, 1934-September 2, 1982) was a hieromonk of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in the United States, whose writings have helped spread Orthodox Christianity throughout modern America and the West and are also quite popular in Russia. Although not formally canonized, he is (prematurely) celebrated by some Orthodox Christians as a saint in iconography, liturgy, and prayer.
Early life
Born to Frank and Esther Rose in San Diego, Eugene was raised in California, where he would remain for most of his life. He was baptized in the Methodist faith when he was fourteen years old, but later became an atheist, losing all belief in God. Rated at genius level in formal IQ testing, in San Francisco he entered a beatnik phase in his life and practiced Buddhism.
During his junior year at college, Eugene began pursuing a secret relationship with Finnish-born Jon Gregerson, through whom he came into initial contact with the Orthodox faith. Eugene came out as homosexual to his closest friends after his mother discovered letters penned between her son and Gregerson. Eugene shed his identity as a gay man as he slowly accepted Orthodoxy, eventually ending his long relationship with Gregerson.[1]
Orthodoxy
While studying under Alan Watts at the American Academy of Asian Studies after graduating from Pomona College in 1956, Eugene discovered the writings of René Guenon. Through Guenon's writings, Eugene was inspired to seek out an authentic, grounded spiritual faith tradition. Gregerson, a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian at the time, introduced Eugene to Orthodoxy. Just as Gregerson was choosing to abandon his Orthodoxy, Eugene was inspired to learn more about the faith. This culminated in Eugene's decision to enter the Church through chrismation in 1962.
Eugene joined a community of Orthodox booksellers and publishers called the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood. The community eventually decided to flee urban modernity into the wildrness of northern California to become monks in 1986. At his tonsure in 1970, Eugene took the name "Seraphim" and studied for the priesthood during his first years in his rustic cell.
Following his ordination as hieromonk, Fr. Seraphim began writing several books, including God's Revelation to the Human Heart, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, and The Soul After Death. He also founded the magazine The Orthodox Word, still published today by the Brotherhood. The collective body of work that Fr. Seraphim published was quickly proliferated throughout America upon Fr. Seraphim's death and later in Russia and Eastern Europe upon the fall of atheist Communism in those countries.
As a monk, Fr. Seraphim developed a close relationship with St. John Maximovitch, then bishop of San Francisco for the Russian Church Abroad.
Teachings
Fr. Seraphim, as a convert and eventually a hieromonk in the Russian Church Abroad, is regarded by many as a bastion of sound Orthodox teaching in a time when many American jurisdictions, and even factions within the Russian Church Abroad itself, were allegedly introducing new and/or erroneous teachings or practices. In Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, Fr. Seraphim highlighted what he and others saw as dangerous trends in both the secular and ecclesiastical worlds—namely, modernism and ecumenism (though the book mainly deals with religious movements invading America and outside Orthodoxy).
It was during this time also that Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Brookline, Massachusetts) began to distort the official positions of the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad. Fr. Seraphim with his fellow monastic, Fr. Herman (Podmoshensky), used their own tiny printing press to transmit the uncompromised teachings of the Church on a number of issues such as evolution, life after death, pre-Schism western saints, etc.
One major issue of contention between Fr. Seraphim and Holy Transfiguration Monastery was the presence of grace within the allegedly Soviet-compromised hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate. Fr. Seraphim refuted the extremist views of this monastery and consistently affirmed that Moscow, though ailing, still had grace.
Throughout his life, Fr. Seraphim stressed an "Orthodoxy of the heart," which he felt was absent in much of the ecclesiastical life in America.
One of his more controversial books is The Soul After Death, which includes the promulgation of the so-called Aerial Toll-Houses doctrine regarding the soul's journey after its departure from the body. This teaching has drawn much criticism from others within the Orthodox Church, often describing it as "gnostic."
Death
After feeling acute pains for several days while working in his cell in 1982, Fr. Seraphim was taken by his fellow monks to a hospital for treatment. When he reluctantly arrived at Mercy Medical Center near the town of Platina, he was declared in critical condition and fell into semi-consciousness. After exploratory surgery was completed, it was discovered that a blood clot had blocked a vein supplying blood to Fr. Seraphim's intestine, which had become a mass of non-functioning dead tissue. Fr. Seraphim slipped into a coma after a second surgery. Hundreds of people came to visit the hospital and celebrated the liturgy regularly in the chapel, praying for a miracle to save their beloved father's life. Reaction from throughout the world was great, with thousands of prayers said for the ailing hieromonk. He died on September 2, 1982.
After being dead for several days and while lying in repose in a pauper's coffin at his wilderness monastery, visitors claimed that Fr. Seraphim did not succumb to decay and rigor mortis. His body remained supple while several claimed he smelled of roses. A cause for canonization was begun after Fr. Seraphim's burial. He eventually informally attained the title of Blessed after several miracles were attributed to him and now he awaits canonization into sainthood by an Orthodox synod.
Books
By him
- God's Revelation to the Human Heart. Platina: Saint Herman Press, 1988. (ISBN 0938635034)
- Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age. Platina: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1994. (ISBN 1887904069) (as Eugene Rose)
- Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future. Platina: Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1975. (ISBN 188790400X)
- The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church. Platina: Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1983. (ISBN 0938635123)
- The Soul After Death: Contemporary "After-Death" Experiences in the Light of the Orthodox Teaching on the Afterlife. Platina: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1988. (ISBN 093863514X)
About him
- Christensen, Hieromonk Damascene. Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works. Platina: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2003. (ISBN 1887904077) (greatly revised edition of Not of This World)
- Christensen, Monk Damascene. Not of This World: The Life and Teaching of Fr. Seraphim Rose. Platina: St. Herman Press, 1993. (ISBN 0938635522)
External links
- Father Seraphim Rose Foundation
- Biographical article from Pomona College Magazine
- Father Seraphim Rose: Biography and Online Bookshop
- Photos of Fr. Seraphim Rose
Criticism & debate
- The Toll-House Myth: The Neo-Gnosticism of Fr. Seraphim Rose, by Fr. Michael Azkoul
- The Debate Over Aerial Toll-Houses, Extract from the Minutes of the Session of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside or Russia (1980)
- On the Question of the "Toll-Houses": Our War is not Against Flesh and Blood, by Fr. Michael Pomazansky
- The Return of the Tollhouses, by Fr. Michael Azkoul