Seraphim of Sarov is among the best-loved saints of the Russian Orthodox Church: a monk and hermit whose gentleness, long prayer and counsel drew crowds to a forest monastery in the last years of his life.
He was born Prokhor Moshnin in Kursk, into a merchant family, in 1754 (some accounts give 1759). As a young man he went on pilgrimage to the Kiev Caves Lavra and was directed to the monastery of Sarov, which he entered in 1778. He was tonsured a monk in 1786, taking the name Seraphim, and was ordained deacon and then, in 1793, priest.
Hermit and elder
From the mid-1790s he lived alone in a cabin in the forest near Sarov, praying, fasting and keeping the services by himself. In 1804 robbers beat him nearly to death; he refused to have them punished, and walked bent for the rest of his life. Tradition holds that he then prayed for a thousand days and nights kneeling on a rock.
In 1810 he returned to the monastery and spent years in strict seclusion. From about 1825 he opened his door, and thousands came to him for counsel. He greeted each of them, whatever the season, with "My joy, Christ is risen!" He also guided the community of nuns at nearby Diveyevo.
The aim of the Christian life
His best-known teaching comes from a conversation recorded by a layman, Nicholas Motovilov, and published in 1903: that the true aim of the Christian life is the acquiring of the Holy Spirit, for which prayer, fasting and good works are means, not ends. "Acquire the Spirit of peace," he is remembered as saying, "and thousands around you will be saved."
He died on 2 January 1833 (14 January by the modern calendar), found kneeling in prayer before an icon of the Mother of God. The Russian Orthodox Church canonised him in 1903.