Hieromonk Seraphim Rose was an American Orthodox monk of the Platina monastery who brought the patristic tradition to the West. How does a student of Chinese philosophy descend into nihilism before finding his spiritual father in a holy wonderworker?
The account begins in the Protestant world of San Diego, where Eugene Dennis Rose feels an acute sense that something essential is missing. His search drives him through an academic career at the University of California, Berkeley, where his thesis on the Tao Te Ching becomes a mirror of his own spiritual emptiness. The intellectual game turns dangerous in San Francisco, leading him from the fluid Eastern philosophy of Alan Watts into the abyss of nihilism. The decisive turning point arrives when he meets Gleb Podmoshensky and his future spiritual father, Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco, who anchor his restless mind in the living joy of Orthodox Christianity. The volume leaves Eugene as a chrismated son of the Church, opening a bookstore on Geary Boulevard to share the faith he has found.
- Early spiritual hunger: how a young man encounters classical music and natural beauty that point him beyond his Protestant upbringing.
- The Beat generation: why the synthesis of Eastern religion and Western psychology offered by Alan Watts failed to answer his existential despair.
- A holy encounter: what happened when a searching philosopher met Archbishop John Maximovitch and entered the waters of holy chrismation.
- First missionary steps: the dismantling of intellectual pride and the founding of the Brotherhood of Saint Herman of Alaska.
Book One of The Monk of Platina: A Life in Three Books. The Fire That Does Not Consume chronicles his ascetic labors in the mountains as he builds a brotherhood and guides his spiritual children; It Is Later Than You Think examines his theological worldview, his critique of secularism, and his call to embrace the ancient faith.
Readers seeking a companion to the philosophical questions of Eugene Dennis Rose and a way into his encounter with Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco.
