A very powerful experience of grace

A contemporary righteous man, an academic genius and humble servant of Christ's Church, born on American soil and a prophet of our times, who, as early as the 70s of the last century, raised an alarm about the times of material prosperity but spiritual depletion that we are living through, The Venerable Father Seraphim Rose (†September 2, 1982) has just been canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

A long-awaited event, which we also celebrate by publishing an interview in which the current abbot of the Platina Monastery, Father Damascene Christensen, recounts the years he knew Father Seraphim and, through him, came to faith and received Orthodox baptism.(A.S.)

-Father Damascene, how did your encounter with Father Seraphim Rose influence you?

Ever since I first attended Orthodox services, I felt the unworldliness, the antiquity, the mystical reality of the Orthodox Church and its worship. And, even though I had had these experiences, still, meeting Father Seraphim and attending his conferences hit me like a ton of bricks, in the sense that at that moment I finally decided to become Orthodox.

After I met Father Seraphim, there was no turning back. I knew. In fact, on the night I attended the first conference, when I met him for the first time, I remember how I ran to a friend on campus and told him: “This is the man!”.

I tell you all this so you understand what a profound impact Father Seraphim had on me. Several things about him overwhelmed me.

First of all, he was a sacrificial person, a self-sacrificing servant. Everything he did was to share Christ with others. He was a man wholly consecrated to Christ. I had already had spiritual searches, so you can imagine I had seen a lot of religious teachers of all kinds. I had met Sufis, Tibetan Buddhists… But Father Seraphim was special – and he was special even compared to other Christians, he had something very distinct.

The second thing I felt about him was that he had this extraordinary wisdom, this penetrating discernment that I had not encountered in anyone else before. He, somehow, saw through everything and gave you a clear, profound answer. He had no extremisms.

I felt he had received that wisdom from God. I felt he was very intelligent, very learned, but he didn't seek to show off with his intelligence and knowledge. He was very humble, presenting things very clearly and very simply, so everyone could understand. I felt he was as intelligent, even more intelligent than any professor I had ever had, but the spiritual wisdom he possessed I had never encountered before.

-Do you think that, from an intellectual point of view, he was a genius?

-Yes, I would certainly say he was a genius. In fact, that's what he was called in high school – his classmates nicknamed him “Eugene the Genius.” In the graduation yearbook, someone wrote to him: “Don't give Einstein too much competition!” His academic results so far surpassed those of others that he alone should have been given a perfect score of 10, if the grading scale were to be maintained.

He was a genius, but the amazing thing was that when he became Orthodox, as he himself says, he crucified his mind:“When I became a Christian, I crucified my mind, and all my sufferings became only a source of joy. I lost nothing, and I gained everything.”

Especially when he wrote for “The Orthodox Word,” he wrote for everyone, at a level everyone could understand, and he avoided any academic or pompous writing style.

-A difficult question: can you share what it was like to lose such a significant personality?

-It was, for me, an overwhelming experience. But it wasn't just sorrow. It was, at the same time, a great exploration of grace.

I had just been baptized. Then I went to the hospital, where Father Seraphim was hospitalized. He was lying on the bed, unable to speak. He had tubes in his mouth and a breathing machine. And tubes were coming out of his body, and he was tied to the bed due to painful convulsions. He saw me coming in my white baptismal shirt and smiled at me and squeezed my hand.

For me, it was very significant that he recognized me as a baptized Orthodox Christian and learned my new name – Damascene. At one point, due to medication, his eyes blurred, but at that very moment, he was lucid and saw, he looked clearly at me.

It was something very powerful also because, in those days, we were celebrating the Liturgy at the hospital. It was as if all the heavens had opened. Everyone crowded into that small chapel and sang the Liturgy by heart, then Father Seraphim received Holy Communion. They held the Gospel above his head, and Father Seraphim gathered his last strength to rise. As I told you, he had convulsive pains, but he rose to kiss the Gospel.

He could only lie there, with tears streaming down his face. He looked up to heaven and prayed. It was very impressive. People stood around the bed and cried, and prayed, and sang hymns of the Church.

It was a very powerful experience. We were filled with sadness, but it was a communal sadness: we had each other. We were all together. Not just those from the monastery – all the spiritual children of Father Seraphim were there, having come from miles away. Archbishop Antony had also arrived, and Bishop Nectarios... Everything was a very powerful experience of grace. It was my Baptism, and communion every day that followed. It was something like a cataclysm, yet at the same time full of grace.

For me, Father Seraphim was an example, my model – even after he died. And, of course, my heavenly intercessor. We began to ask for Father Seraphim's prayers after he died. In fact, our bishop at the time, the monastery's spiritual father, Vladyka Nectarios, was the one who encouraged us to do so. At Father Seraphim's funeral, he told Mother Brighida, the abbess of the nuns' skete: "You pray now for Father Seraphim, but you should also pray to him!". He then wrote the same thing to our monastery. Afterwards, another spiritual Father, Archimandrite Spyridon, a disciple of Saint John Maximovitch, encouraged us to do the same.

I also remember that at Father Seraphim's forty-day memorial service, which I attended, Bishop Nectarios gave a sermon and said: "Father Seraphim was a righteous man, even a saintly man...". The translator stopped and asked him: "Should I say saint?". Vladyka Nectarios replied without hesitation: "Saint."

From an interview conducted by Kevin Allen for "Ancient Faith Radio" (August 2007), republished by "Familia Ortodoxă" (September 2014)

Translation by Radu Hagiu