Serafim Vyritsky biography brief

The brief life of the Monk Seraphim of Veritsky. In holy baptism, he was called Vasily in honor of the Monk Vasily the New Confessor. When the youth was ten years old, his father died, and Vasily, thanks to the help of a pious fellow villager, went to St. Petersburg to earn money, where he then worked as a shooting man who improvised the clerk, the clerk and then the senior clerk in the shops of Gostiny and the Apraxine of the courtyards.

However, in the soul of the boy there was a cherished dream - to go to the monastery. At the age of fourteen, he receives a prophetic blessing from the perspicacious old man of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra: to remain in the world, to do charitable deeds, to create a pious family, to educate children and to devote further life to a monastic feat with his wife.

Having accepted the word of the Lavra elder as God's blessing, Vasily lived all his subsequent life, as the Lord determined him. It was a feat of obedience, which lasted more than forty years for almost 20 years, Vasily Muravyov was under the frying of the elder of the Gethsemane wanderer of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra of the Monk Varnava Merkulov, and this allowed to lay the spiritual basis on which the further increase in his as a great ascetic of piety took place.

In everyday matters, in the treatment of people, in prayers, the basis of him was three main commandments: truth, love and good, which he subsequently bequeathed not only to his spiritual children, but also to everyone in his help. His favorite reading was the creations of St. Ignatius Bryanchaninov, by which he advised to learn holiness to all his spiritual children. The abilities given from the Lord helped Vasily in his writings.

So, working in a merchant shop, he independently learned literacy, mastered the history of the Fatherland and, possessing good mathematical abilities, at the age of seventeen became a senior clerk. Vasily sent all his salary to his sick mother. For about a year, he married Olga Ivanovna Naydenova, who also came from the peasants of the Rybinsk district of the Yaroslavl province.

Since the adolescence, she secretly dreamed of monasticism, but received the blessing of the Schimonakhini of the Iversky monastery of the Moscow province of Pelagia to live in the world, marry a pious person, give birth and educate children, and only, by mutual agreement, to accept tonsure. The Lord blessed their marriage by the son of Nicholas and daughter Olga, but the girl died in infancy, after which the couple lived by mutual agreement as a brother and sister.

In the year, Vasily Nikolaevich, thanks to the support of his owner, opens his own business and becomes a merchant of the 2nd guild. Over time, his office on the harvesting and sale of fur enters the international market. In the year, V. Muravyov becomes a valid member of the society to disseminate commercial knowledge in Russia, the purpose of which was to fully assist the sovereign of the Emperor and the government in the field of national economic development, and in the year ends the highest commercial courses in society.

Living in the world and becoming a very rich man, he never forgot the blessings of the Lavra Elder, tried to do good, helped those in need, sacrificed most of his income but the needs of monasteries, temples and almighty. It is known that in the year V. Muravyov was presented for awarding for his charitable affairs. In the same year, the pious merchant became a full member of the well -known Yaroslavl charitable society throughout Russia, which included many famous pastors and public figures of that time, including the holy righteous John of Kronstadt.

After the death of St. Barnabas, the spiritual mentors of Vasily Nikolaevich are Bishop of the Yamburg Feofan Bystrov and the future holy martyr, Bishop of Petrograd and Gdovsky Veniamin Kazan. The last confessor of the elder Seraphim was Archpriest Alexy Kibardin, who served as the rector of the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Vyritsa.

The year has come. Many wealthy acquaintances of the Muravyevs transfer their capital abroad and leave Russia, hoping to survive vague times abroad. Vasily Nikolaevich decides differently: with the beginning of the February Revolution, he covers his commercial enterprise and gives the condition to the needy employees. He sacrifices a significant part of him for the needs of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and the Voskresensky Novodevichy Monastery, as well as the Iversky Vyksunsky and Holy Assumption Pyukhtitsky monasteries and finally prepares himself for the adoption of the monasticism of the ants of the ants of Alvksandro-Nevsky Lavra, and he writes to the spiritual cathedral of the Lavra about the adoption of it in the spirit of its adoption.

The number of brethren, to which the first obedience receives a positive answer - is the Ponomarsky. Already on October 26, the Metropolitan of Petrograd and Gdovsky Benjamin blesses the tonsure of the novice of Vasily simultaneously with his wife, who entered the St. Petersburg Novodevichy Monastery and accepted tonsure with the name of Christina in the schema of Seraphim.

Soon he was ordained in hierodeacon, and on September 11 - in Hieromonk.During the years, the father of Barnabas carries a number of responsible and difficult obedience: the head of the cemetery office of the laurel, the main candlestick, and then the treasurer of the monastery. At the end of the year, he accepts the Great Schima with the name Seraphim and is elected by the fraternity of the confessor of Lavra.

A great many spiritual children gather under his pastoral nationwide - laity, monks, priests and bishops, among them outstanding hierarchs: Bishop Grigory Lebedev, Metropolitan Seraphim Chichagov, Bishop Nikolai Yarushevich, Archbishop Alexy Simansky. About three years, Father Seraphim was in the field of the confessor of Lavra. With fatherly love and heartfelt the warmth of prayer, he helped to get rid of the worst sins, human hatred and fratricide.

From the adoption of a daily eight -hour confession, the elder began to experience constant pains in the legs. At the beginning of the year, the disease finally riveted him to bed and, according to the recommendation of doctors and, at the insistence of Metropolitan Serafim Chichagov, he moved to Zeritsa - a village eighty kilometers from St. Petersburg. Here, on the bed of a serious illness, for almost twenty years he carried a feat of senile nourishing, taking several hundred visitors on some days.

But his visitors were not only looking for their salvation. In the period from years several times at night, representatives of the authorities conducted searches from him. In one of these searches, the elder who did not get out of bed called one of the NKVD employees. He looked with his kind and affectionate eyes at the man who was entrusted with all the severity to fulfill the order, asked his name, took his hand, stroked his hand, then put his hand to his head and said: “May your sins, God's servant, delivered the illness of hatred and cruelty and the rest of the search.

In January, he was arrested, and in September the son of Father Nikolai was shot. Four years later, the shimonachin Serafima naked. Great sorrow entered the heart of the priest. During the war, the elder Seraphim, in addition to a strict post and the constant cell prayer, took on a special feat: everybody, standing on a stone in front of the icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov, with his hands he prayed for Russia, imitating the feat of his heavenly patron.

During the war years, only one house was destroyed in Vyritsa, the owners of which the priest said in the first days of the war: "You need to leave the outskirts." According to his prayers, the Germans, occupying the village, stationed the Romanian Orthodox part in it, so that not a single person in the village was injured, and the church continued to act. After the war, hundreds of people, wanting to learn about the fate of their loved ones, rushed to the priest.

And he accepted them, saying one: “Your husband is alive, it is already sitting on the train”, and others: “He will not come, pray for repose.” The words of the old man always came true. The time of the senile ministry of the Vyritsky ascetic was during the period of the bloody god -border, the Great Patriotic War, the post -war devastation and revival. All these years, the priest testified to Christ with his life, fulfilling the covenant of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov: "Save yourself and thousands will be saved around you." Many of his deeds are marked by obvious miracles, which is evidence of eyewitnesses.

The elder predicted: “The time will come when it is not a persecution, but the money and charms of this world will disperse people from God, and it will die much more souls than in the times of open God. On the one hand, the crosses will be erected and dome, and on the other, will come the kingdom of lies and evil. It will be scary to live to these times. ” Shortly before the death, the Monk told his cell of the revelation to his cell: “I visited many countries.

I did not find better than my country and did not see better than our faith. Tell everyone so that no one will depart from Orthodoxy. ” The righteous soul of the old man went to the Lord on March 21 of the year. After his death in the outskirts for several days, fragrance was felt in the air, he said about himself: “After my death, come to my grave as a living, and talk with me as living, and I will always help you.” For more than 50 years, since the elder’s blissful death, his popular veneration has not stopped.

Now a chapel is erected over his grave. At the anniversary bishop's cathedral in August, Elder Seraphim was ranked to the Holy of the Saints of the Russian Sertain Church. To this day, the holy elder with his heavenly representation does not leave the mourning and suffering, flowing to the place of his earthly repose. Rev. Father Seraphim, pray to God for us!