Saint Seraphim of Sarov was the Russian Orthodox saint and forest hermit of Sarov who taught that acquiring a peaceful spirit could save thousands. What did this elder actually leave to the world when he spoke to a married landowner sitting in the snow, and how did his physical remains survive decades of Soviet confiscation?
The elder distilled his entire theology into a single instruction regarding the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. He delivered this teaching not behind monastery walls but to a married landowner named Motovilov in a winter clearing. From that moment, his instruction on ceaseless inner prayer and the experiential reality of theosis crossed every boundary, reaching Japanese Orthodoxy and Western theology. Even his physical body became a site of struggle, as Bolshevik workers confiscated his relics in 1920 before their rediscovery in a Leningrad museum seventy-one years later. The reader is left standing before the canonical icon of the saint, ready to receive the light of his enduring presence.
- The distilled teaching: an examination of his master sentence and its demand to acquire a peaceful spirit.
- Radical democratization: how he gave the Jesus Prayer and the goal of theosis to laypersons rather than reserving them for monks.
- Prophetic foresight: a look at his foresight concerning the trials of Diveyevo and the suffering of the Russian imperial house.
- Delayed glorification: the story of the seventy years before his canonization and the role of Tsar Nicholas II in demanding it.
Book Three of The Wonderworker of Sarov: A Life in Three Books completes the arc of the elder's life. It follows He Is of Our Lineage, which details his boyhood in Kursk and his years as a novice, and My Joy! Christ Is Risen!, which recounts his solitary asceticism in the forest and his emergence as a spiritual father to multitudes.
Readers seeking the elder's instructions on ceaseless inner prayer, his conversation with Motovilov regarding the Holy Spirit, and the fate of his physical remains under Bolshevik rule.
