Abbot Damascene Interview: Video 6 of 6

On September 1, 2017September 2, 2017 By zosimasIn Monastic Calling, Spirituality, Video5 Comments

“‘Pray for us!’ is the message that comes from the people from the USA to the Greek Orthodox Christians. ‘Orthodox Christians hold your faith!’ With these words ends the interview of Archimandrite Damascene, abbot of St. Herman’s of Alaska monastery in California, in this last part.”

September 2 marks the 35th anniversary of the repose of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) of Platina. To honor his commemoration, I will be posting a variety of media and articles of interest.

Source: Pemptousia

Abbot Damascene Interview: Video 5 of 6

On August 26, 2017September 2, 2017 By zosimasIn Monasteries, Theology, Video5 Comments

“The teaching of Father Seraphim Rose about the patristic view of the creation of the world and its impact to the life of the modern man and Christian is the subject of this part of interview to Pemptousia, given by father Damascene, Abbot of the Monastery of St. Herman of Alaska in California.”

September 2 will mark the 35th anniversary of the repose of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) of Platina. In the weeks leading up to this date, I will be occasionally posting a variety of media and articles of interest.

Source: Pemptousia

Abbot Damascene Interview: Video 4 of 6

On August 21, 2017September 2, 2017 By zosimasIn Monasteries, Spirituality, Video5 Comments

Abbot Damascene of St. Herman of Alaska Monastery, Platina CA, in this part of his interview to Pemptousia, talks about the worth of social media to the lives of modern Christian, highlighting at the same time their spiritual dangers.

Source: Pemptousia

Abbot Damascene Interview – Video 3 of 6

On August 10, 2017September 2, 2017 By zosimasIn Monasteries, Video5 Comments

“Athos is the motherland of orthodox monasticism in the world!”

In this third part of his interview to Pemptousia, Archimandrite Damascene, abbot of St Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina, California, talks about his pilgrimages to Mount Athos. He also reflects on encountering such sincere veneration of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) by the monks of the Holy Mountain, especially meaningful as monasticism in America is so young by comparison.

Source: Pemptousia

Abbot Damascene of St Herman of Alaska Monastery – Video 2 of 6

On July 28, 2017September 2, 2017 By zosimasIn Missions, Monasteries, Video5 Comments

In this second of a six-part video interview, “Father Damascene, abbot of St. Herman of Alaska Monastery, talks to Pemptousia about the history of the brotherhood of the Monastery and how the brotherhood turned from missionary to monastic. He is mentioning some important spiritual words of Father Seraphim Rose and he is describing the situation of Orthodoxy in USA today.”

Source: Pemptousia

Abbot Damascene of St Herman of Alaska Monastery – Video 1 of 6

On July 22, 2017September 2, 2017 By zosimasIn Monasteries, Video5 Comments

In this first of a six part interview to Pemptousia, Archimandrite Damascene, Abbot of St Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina, California, speaks about his acquaintance with Father Seraphim Rose and the influence of his presence on Fr Damascene’s Christian life.

Source: Pemptousia

Books for Monastic Seekers: ‘Letters to a Beginner on Giving One’s Life to God’

On July 19, 2017 By zosimasIn Monastic Calling, Monastic Writings2 Comments

For the first of a new series of blog posts, I would like to share a thin but extremely weighty and important book which was recommended to me several years ago when I was preparing to test the monastic life:

Letters to a Beginner on Giving One’s Life to God

by Abbess Thaisia of Leushino, St Herman of Alaska Press:

Description:

“The work of success in your monastic life—the work of your salvation, is, so to speak, in your own hands; and would it not be a shame, would it not be sad, to lose it from your hands irretrievably?”

—excerpt from LETTERS TO A BEGINNER

This book was so popular and beneficial for those leading a spiritual life in pre-Revolutionary Russia that it was reprinted several times and distributed to all monasteries, sketes, and many parishes. It was a key guidebook for women monastic aspirants, giving them a right understanding of how to dedicate their lives to God.

Continue reading “Books for Monastic Seekers: ‘Letters to a Beginner on Giving One’s Life to God’” →

St. Herman Press publishes new installment for ‘The Northern Thebaid, Vol. II’

On July 10, 2017 By zosimasIn Monastic SaintsLeave a comment

The detailed Life of St. Cornelius of Komel presented in the newly published The Orthodox Word #311 provides fresh inspiration for Orthodox monastics and seekers, as well as for a certain pilgrim with a camera…

From the announcement on the St. Herman Press website (emphasis added):

Vol. 52, No. 6 (311) November-December, 2016
The Life of St. Cornelius of Komel

This issue of The Orthodox Word features a new chapter of the second volume of The Northern Thebaid: Monastic Saints of the Russian North.

St. Cornelius of Komel (†1538) was a great monastic founder of the Vologda region of Russia, about 250 miles to the northeast of Moscow. Like the renowned St. Sergius of Radonezh a century and a half before him, St. Cornelius was the spiritual father of many disciples who became founders of yet more monasteries.

This Life, based on the original Slavonic version, is rich in historical details and appears here in English for the first time. St. Cornelius’ monastic Rule is one of the only four surviving written testaments of that era of Russian spirituality; his introduction to that Rule is included in this Life.

Order the print version here, digital version here, subscribe (choose print or digital) here.

Beautifully illustrated by full color icons of St. Cornelius on the front and back covers, and numerous illustrations, icons and photographs accompanying the text (some in full color in the digital edition), this issue of The Orthodox Word points to the eventual publication of a worthy successor to The Northern Thebaid, originally published over forty years ago.

Continue reading “St. Herman Press publishes new installment for ‘The Northern Thebaid, Vol. II’” →

‘Souls to Match the Mountains!’

On September 3, 2016September 3, 2016 By zosimasIn Monastic Calling, Monastic Saints, Monastic Writings, SpiritualityLeave a comment

Fr. Seraphim Rose and the call for a North American Thebaid

Two brief passages from Fr. Seraphim’s monastic life and writings make clear how he longed for an American Thebaid to flourish in his homeland, as it had in Orthodox lands in preceding centuries:

As at the beginning of his monastic path he had drawn inspiration from the phenomenon of desert-dwelling in northern Russia, so now was he to do so from an identical phenomenon in the land of his forefathers. The flight of God-seeking men and women into the Jura Mountains of ancient Gaul was in fact an exact precursor of the movement that began in Russia almost a millennium later. “The Jura monasteries,” wrote Fr. Seraphim in 1976 to a young monastic aspirant, “are especially interesting to us because they are a forested desert, very close to the spirit of the Northern Thebaid (or to the American Thebaid that could be if there were souls to match the mountains!).”

Excerpt From: Hieromonk Damascene. “Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works.” iBooks edition, p. 1963.

The second excerpt comes from the Epilogue Fr. Seraphim wrote for The Northern Thebaid itself, and shows how his monastic inspiration was always connected with the real examples of earlier desert-dwelling men and women who serve as spiritual trailblazers, showing us the way:

Continue reading “‘Souls to Match the Mountains!’” →

Nurtured by the Holy Fathers: Lessons from the life and works of Fr. Seraphim Rose

On September 3, 2016 By zosimasIn Monastic Saints, Monastic Writings, Spirituality1 Comment

“In these days of the feast of the Dormition of the holy Mother of God, we come here to this holy place to venerate and give honor to another dormition, of the ever-memorable hieromonk Seraphim Rose. The holy Mother of God bore for all of us her Son and God our Savior, and is blessed by all generations. Fr. Seraphim also contributed to my life and to all of ours here, and to those of many more people, and we come here to give due love and to receive his blessing…” —Bishop Daniil (Nikolov)

Presented at the retreat in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of his repose, 2012

Pravoslavie, September 2, 2016:

For the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the repose of Fr. Seraphim Rose on Sept. 2, 2012, hundreds of faithful pilgrims convened upon St. Herman’s Monastery in Platina, CA to remember Fr. Seraphim and offer prayers both for him and to him. The faithful gathered were a microcosm of the greater Orthodox world, with pilgrims representing the Russian, Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Georgian Orthodox Traditions, among others. Several moving talks were offered throughout the weekend by those who had known Fr. Seraphim personally, and those whose life were impacted by the testimony of his life and works.

His Grace Bp. Daniil (Nikolov), Vicar of the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canadana and Australia spoke after the Saturday morning Liturgy on the eve of the anniversary of Fr. Seraphim’s repose, recalling how important and influential he was for young Bulgarians returning to the Church after the fall of Communism in the early 1990’s, and how much he appreciated Fr. Seraphim’s insightful critiques of the lie of our modern age. The following day a number of personal reminiscences of Fr. Seraphim were offered, before which Fr. Damascene (Christensen), who is now the abbot of St. Herman’s Monastery, offered a reflection on Fr. Seraphim’s recently-discovered spiritual journal, highlighting his relentlessness in combating sin, and his emphasis on nourishing himself with the writings of the Holy Fathers. Fr. Damascene was introduced by then-abbot Fr. Hilarion.

His Grace Bp. Daniil (Nikolov), Vicar of the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canada and Australia:

In these days of the feast of the Dormition of the holy Mother of God, we come here to this holy place to venerate and give honor to another dormition, of the ever-memorable hieromonk Seraphim Rose. The holy Mother of God bore for all of us her Son and God our Savior, and is blessed by all generations. Fr. Seraphim also contributed to my life and to all of ours here, and to those of many more people, and we come here to give due love and to receive his blessing.

When I was making my first steps into the Church in the middle of the ’90’s of the previous century in the years after Communism, Fr. Seraphim was very popular among the new Bulgarian converts who were entering the Church for the first time. It was very unusual and surprising to hear from this place, where Western culture flourishes, someone who has a sober view, and who warns us of the dangers of this consumer society, and raising our children in such a way that they become small princes and kings, in whose hearts the passions are rooted from early childhood. And all this not from a psychological point of view, but the Orthodox point of view—that the modern world makes the Chrisitan life more difficult and is so dangerous for the salvation of our souls. He was the very presence of Christ.

Continue reading “Nurtured by the Holy Fathers: Lessons from the life and works of Fr. Seraphim Rose” →