FOR THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REPOSE OF FATHER SERAPHIM ROSE

Father Seraphim at his last Paschal service in Platina.

Father Seraphim suffered intensely from a rare illness of the colon an entire week before his death. He was hospitalized during that time, and the doctors did all they could to save his life, but the disease had progressed too far before he felt the need for medical help, having always been accustomed to bearing fatigue and physical discomfort as a true ascetic. His spiritual children and his co-struggler, Father Herman, the abbot of the St. Herman Brotherhood at the time, kept constant vigil at his hospital room, and one of the sisters of St. Xenia Skete, a monastic community for women Father Seraphim had started for his spiritual daughters, was the last person to see him in this world.

Those close to him would feel this great loss for perhaps the rest of their lives, but Father Seraphim seemed to reach out to them even on his deathbed, and beyond. One of these was his close friend, Mrs. Helen Kontzevitch, who was living two hundred miles away in Berkeley, California. On the morning of Father Seraphim's death she had a dream. “I was in the company of a priest unknown to me…. Together we entered a large, palatial hall. At the end of this hall a man was standing on a raised platform and singing. It was difficult to see him well because of the distance. In a most beautiful voice he was singing the magnification hymn [to the Mother of God], ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord…’ The singer was a tenor with a voice like Father Seraphim’s, whose singing I had heard years ago in the San Francisco Cathedral. That had been in the early 1960’s when, standing in the kliros, he alone had sung the Matins service from beginning to end. Never in my life had I heard more prayerful singing. My soul had been uplifted to the heights…. Now in my dream, I heard that same incomparable singing. It was the same voice, but it sounded like that of an angel, a dweller of Paradise. This was heavenly, unearthly singing. Waking up, I understood that there was no hope for Father Seraphim’s recovery.” It is interesting to note that Father Seraphim died during the after-feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God.

Father Seraphim’s old friend Alison, now a widow living in Kansas, was also given a mysterious indication of Father Seraphim’s impending death. She did not previously know about his illness. In a dream she saw him tied to a bed (as in fact he was due to the unbearable pain), and she saw terrible physical agony in his eyes, such that it was painful even for her, a nurse by profession, to behold. She saw that he was unable to speak. She immediately wrote to the monastery to find out if anything was wrong, but received an answer only after he had passed away.

It is generally accepted in the Orthodox Church that there are righteous people filled with the grace of God in this life whose bodies show little or no signs of corruption after their death. As Father Seraphim’s unembalmed body lay in state in the monastery church in Platina for three days before his burial, it never stiffened, nor did it show any signs of decay, although the heat in that locality is still considerable in early September. His skin was soft and of a literally golden color, as those around him remember. He looked younger than he was before his illness, and he was smiling blessedly as an innocent child in sleep. As people who were there recall, the atmosphere around his coffin was so devoid of any deathly dread that even little children crowded around unwilling to leave it.

The church was filled to overflowing, and all felt an incredible outpouring of grace. It was more like a solemn and joyous feast than a funeral service. The sorrow of those there turned to joy, when at the lowering of the coffin into the grave, all spontaneously began to sing the victorious Paschal hymn, “Christ is Risen from the dead!”


source