For my History of Theology course, we were required to read a text which focused on the teachings of a Russian Orthodox monk known as St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759-1833). After living much of his live as a hermit and then in seclusion in a monastery, towards the end of his life, he opened his doors to all who needed help, comfort and advice. He was a very spiritual individual and believed that the main purpose of human life is to acquire the Holy Spirit.
I want to share a few sections from the text that we read: A CONVERSATION OF ST. SERAPHIM OF SAROV WITH NICHOLAS MOTOVILOV CONCERNING THE AIM OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE ((Treasury of Russian Spirituality, ed. George P. Fedotov (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1948), 266-79, 496-97)). There are some very insightful teachings in this that I think LDS readers, especially, will appreciate. This post is decidedly more “spiritual” than many of my posts, as this text is not only of academic value, but also “inspirational.” Besides being of inspirational and also apologetic interest, I hope that these passages serve to emphasize the number of common perspectives that can be seen between LDS and Orthodox traditions. I do believe that St. Seraphim and Joseph Smith (they were contemporaries) could have had some very nice conversations if they had had the chance.
The text is presented as a conversation between Seraphim and Nicholas Motovilov, a friend who often went to the monk for religious instruction and advice. The main focus is on how a Christian can gain access to the Holy Spirit and how they can recognize it when they do. Latter-day Saints will recognize the importance of such a conversation, not only for those engaged in teaching and preaching, but also for our daily lives.
The first section I will present involves a discussion of how staying close to the Lord and his Word can allow us to see God and the workings of the Holy Spirit. Leading up to this passage, Motovilov has been struggling to understand why, if having the Spirit is so important to the Christian, how can one know if He is present or not? We can see good deeds, but can we see the Holy Spirit? Seraphim responds that seeing God and feeling the presence of the Spirit is very possible and real, and the only reason why we don’t have the same experiences as those recorded in the Bible is because we are so far removed from communion with God.
“At the present time,” the elder replied, “thanks to our almost universal indifference to the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and thanks to our inattentiveness to the working of His Divine purpose in us and of the communion between man and God, we have come to this, that one might say we have almost entirely departed from the true Christian life. Those words seem strange to us now that the Spirit of God spake by the lips of Moses: And Adam saw the Lord walking in paradise; or those words which we read in the Apostle Paul: We went to Achaia and the Spirit of God came not with us, we returned to Macedonia and the Spirit of God came with us. More than once in other passages of Holy Scripture is told the story of God’s appearance to men. Some people say these passages are incomprehensible; could men really see God? But there is nothing incomprehensible here. This failure to understand comes about because we have wandered from the spacious vision of early Christians. Under the pretext of education we have reached such a darkness of ignorance that now to us seems inconceivable what the ancients saw so clearly that even in ordinary conversation the notion of God’s appearance did not seem strange to them. Men saw God and the grace of His Holy Spirit, not in sleep or in a dream, or in the excitement of a disordered imagination, but truly, in the light of day. We have become very inattentive to the work of our salvation, whence it comes about that many other words also in the Holy Scriptures we do not take in the proper sense; and all because we do not seek the grace of God, because in the pride of our minds we do not allow it to enter our souls, and therefore we have no true enlightenment from the Lord, which is sent into the hearts of men, to all who hunger and thirst in heart for God’s truth.
For St. Seraphim, seeing God and having the noticeable presence of the Holy Spirit with you were realities that the early Christians realized that have now been obscured through unbelief, misunderstanding, inattentiveness, and pride. The Scriptures testify of these things, but we do not believe them.
Next, I would like to share a passage that comes towards the end of the text, where, after trying several different ways of teaching Motovilov how to acquire and recognize the Spirit, Seraphim points out to his student that they are, at that moment, experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit. This section is very instructive, and although full of “mystical” motifs, should ring familiar to LDS readers. We should pay close attention to the “fruits” of the Spirit that Seraphim and his friend experience.
I (Motovilov) replied: “Nevertheless I do not understand how I can be firmly assured that I am in the Spirit of God. How can I myself recognise His true manifestation?”
Father Seraphim replied: “I have already told you, my son, that it is very simple and have in detail narrated to you how men dwell in the Spirit of God and how one must apprehend His appearance in us. What then do you need?”
“My need,” said I, “is to understand this well!”
Then Father Seraphim took me very firmly by the shoulders and said: “We are both together, son, in the Spirit of God! Why lookest thou not on me?”
I replied: “I cannot look, father, because lightning flashes from your eyes. Your face is brighter than the sun and my eyes ache in pain!”
Father Seraphim said: “Fear not, my son; you too have become as bright as I. You too are now in the fulness of God’s Spirit; otherwise you would not be able to look on me as I am.”
Then, bending his head towards me, he whispered softly in my ear: “Give thanks to the Lord God for His ineffable mercy! You have seen that I did not even cross myself; and only in my heart I prayed mentally to the Lord God and said within myself; Lord, vouchsafe to him to see clearly with bodily eyes that descent of Thy Spirit which Thou vouchsafest to Thy servants, when Thou art pleased to appear in the light of Thy marvellous glory. And see, my son, the Lord has fulfilled in a trice the humble prayer of poor Seraphim. Surely we must give thanks to Him for this ineffable gift to us both! Not always, my son, even to the great hermits, does the Lord God show His mercy. See, the grace of God has come to comfort your contrite heart, as a loving mother, at the intercession of the Mother of God herself. Come, son, why do you not look me in the eyes? Just look and fear not! The Lord is with us!”
After these words I looked in his face and there came over me an even greater reverential awe. Imagine in the center of the sun, in the dazzling brilliance of his midday rays, the face of the man who talks with you. You see the movement of his lips and the changing expression of his eyes, you hear his voice, you feel someone grasp your shoulders; yet you do not see the hands,
you do not even see yourself or his figure, but only a blinding light spreading several yards around and throwing a sparkling radiance across the snow blanket on the glade and into the
snowflakes which besprinkled the great elder and me. Can one imagine the state in which I then found myself?
“How do you feel now?” Father Seraphim asked.
“Unwontedly well!” I said.
“But well in what way? How in particular?”
I answered: “I feel a calmness and peace in my soul that I cannot express in words!”
“This, my son,” said Father Seraphim, “is that peace of which the Lord said to His disciples: My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you [Jn 14:27]. If ye
were of the world, the world would love its own; but because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you [Jn 15:19]. But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world [Jn
16:33]. So to them that are hated of the world but chosen of the Lord, the Lord gives that peace which you now feel, the peace which, in the words of the Apostle, passeth all understanding [Phil
4:7].
“What else do you feel?” asked Father Seraphim.
“An unwonted sweetness!” I replied.
He continued: “This is that sweetness of which it is said in Holy Scripture: They shall be satisfied with the plenteousness of Thy house, and Thou shalt give them drink of Thy sweetness as out of the
river [Ps 36:8]. See, this sweetness now overflows and pours through our veins with unspeakable delight. From this sweetness our hearts melt and we are filled with such blessedness as tongue
cannot tell. What else do you feel?”
“An unwonted joy in all my heart!”
Father Seraphim continued: “When the Spirit of God descends to man and overshadows him with the fulness of His outpouring, then the human soul overflows with unspeakable joy, because the Spirit of God turns to joy all that He may touch. This is that joy of which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world. In the world ye shall be sorrowful; but when I see you, your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one taketh away from you [Jn 16:21–22]. Yet however comforting may be this joy which you now feel in your heart, it is nothing in comparison with that of which the Lord Himself said by the
mouth of His Apostle that this joy neither eye hath seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the good things which God hath prepared for them that love Him [1 Cor 2:9].
The earnest of that joy is given to us now, and, if from this there is sweetness, well-being and merriment in our souls, what shall we say of that joy which has been prepared in heaven for them that weep here on earth? You too, my son, have had tears enough in your life; see now with what joy the Lord consoles you while yet here! What else do you feel, my son?”
I answered: “An unwonted warmth!”
“But why warmth, my son? See, we sit in the forest, the winter is out and about, the snow is underfoot, there is more than an inch of snow on us and still the snowflakes fall. What warmth
can there be?”
I answered: “Such as there is in the bath-house, when they pour the water on the stone and the steam rises in a cloud.”
“And the smell?” he asked me. “Is it the bath-house smell?”
“No!” I replied. “There is nothing on earth like this fragrance. When in my dear mother’s lifetime I was fond of dancing and used to go to balls and parties, my mother would sprinkle me
with scent which she had bought at the best fashion-shops in Kazan. But those scents did not give out such fragrance!”
Father Seraphim, smiling kindly, said: “My son, I know it just as you do, and I purposely ask you whether you feel it so. It is the very truth, my son! No pleasure of earthly fragrance can be compared with that which we now feel, for the fragrance of God’s Holy Spirit surrounds us. What earthly thing can be like it? Mark, my son! You have told me that around us it is warm as in the bath-house; but look, neither on you nor on me does the snow melt, and above us it is the same. Of course this warmth is not in the air but in us. It is that very warmth about which the Holy Spirit in the words of the prayer makes us cry out to the Lord: Warm me with the warmth of Thy Holy Spirit! Warmed therewith the hermits have not feared the winter frost, being clad, as in warm coats, in the cloak of grace woven of the Holy Spirit. So in very deed it must be, for the grace of God must dwell within us, in our heart, because the Lord said: The kingdom of God is within you. By the kingdom of God the Lord meant the grace of the Holy Spirit. See, this kingdom of God is now found within us. The grace of the Holy Spirit shines forth and warms us, and, overflowing with many and varied odours into the air around us, regales our senses with heavenly delight, as it fills our hearts with joy inexpressible. Our present state is that of which the Apostle says: The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace in the Holy Spirit [Rom 14:17]. Our faith consists not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. In this condition we now find ourselves together. Of this condition the Lord said: There are some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God coming in power [Mt 9:1]. Of such unspeakable joy, my son, the Lord God has now thought us worthy! This is what it means to be in the fulness of the Holy Spirit, about which St. Macarius of Egypt writes: I too was in the fulness of the Holy Spirit. With this fulness of the Holy Spirit the Lord now has filled us to overflowing, poor as we are. Come now, there is no more need to ask, my son, how men may be in the grace of the Holy Spirit! Will you remember this manifestation of God’s ineffable mercy which has visited us?”
“I know not, father,” I said, “whether the Lord will grant me always to remember this mercy of God as vividly and clearly as now I feel it.”
“I think,” Father Seraphim answered me, “that the Lord will help you always to retain it in your memory, since other wise His goodness would not have bowed so instantly to my humble
prayer and would not so readily have anticipated hearkening to poor Seraphim; the more so that not for you alone is it given to understand this, but through you to the whole world in order that
you yourself might be confirmed in God’s work and might be useful to others. The fact, my son, that I am a monk and you are a layman need not keep us. God requires a right faith in Himself
and His Only-Begotten Son. For this the grace of the Holy Spirit is given abundantly from above. The Lord seeks a heart filled with love of God and neighbour: this is the throne whereon He
loves to sit and whereon He appears in the fulness of His heavenly glory. My son, give me thine heart, He says; and all the rest I Myself will add unto you. For the Kingdom of God is in the
human heart. The Lord is nigh unto them that call upon Him in truth, and there is in Him no respect of persons; for the Father loveth the Son and will give all things into His hands, if only
we too love our Heavenly Father truly as sons. The Lord hears equally the monk and the simple Christian layman, so be they are both right believers, and both love God from the depth of their
soul, and both have faith in Him, if only as a grain of mustard-seed [cf. Lk 17:6; Mt 17:20]; and they both shall move mountains…”
This is a wonderful passage. When I read this, I felt like Seraphim was one of my MTC instructors teaching me how to recognize the Spirit! Although some aspects are unfamiliar, like the “fragrance” attached to the presence of the Spirit; or quite astounding, like Seraphim being described as having lightning flashing from his eyes, I believe this dialogue to be very comparable to how Mormons would describe their beliefs and experiences on the subject. As far as the smell of the Spirit goes, this is not an aspect that we generally notice or speak of today, but the sweet fragrance of the Spirit is an important component in the ancient temple and mystical tradition. The sense of smell as a part of religious experience has long been deemphasized in our culture. As for the lightning and brightness of individuals who are under the influence of the Holy Spirit, this aspect, while perhaps not so common, is well attested in LDS tradition, and is a common description of the Prophet Joseph Smith when he was receiving revelation or otherwise speaking under the influence of the Spirit. The other qualities of joy, warmth, sweetness, wellness (and even memory retention), are very commonly associated with the fruits of the Spirit. Even the way that Seraphim helped his friend recognize those feelings is incredibly familiar: “How do you feel now?” and “What else do you feel?” Who gave Seraphim a copy of Preach my Gospel?
I hope this post has been both educational and inspirational. It is interesting to see how the Holy Ghost has been sent by God in all times and in all places to those who earnestly seek Him and are willing to open their hearts to let him in.
[I apologize for the formatting quirks in this post -- the system decided to give me a hard time. I hope that it is still easy enough to follow and not too aesthetically unpleasing!]
One Comment
Wow. This was a great post. Thank you.
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