America Has A Saint: Fr. Seraphim Rose!

by  +Chrissie Apollonia Nicolles

Newsflash: ROCOR is canonizing Fr. Seraphim Rose of the USA!

He is the first American-born saint of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The well-known Hieromonk Seraphim Rose of ROCOR (born Eugene Dennis Rose) was an American priest and hieromonk; he co-founded Saint Herman of Alaska Monastery in California, translated many Eastern Orthodox Christian texts, and authored several books, most notably Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future. His writings have spread like wildfire in the West, including in Russia. My late spiritual father, Hilarion, had a special fondness for him, but rather opposed his “toll house teaching,” which I heard sometimes led Fr. Rose into some contentious conflict among the Orthodox…

Nonetheless, many Eastern Orthodox Christians look up to him big time today; he’s already venerated in iconography, which is why he’s a legend!  My “spiritual brother,” Fr. David Hovik from the Northwest, a former Protestant minister, is a big fan, always bringing him up and texting me his pithy YouTube videos, which have influenced millions around the world.

Father Rose was raised Methodist but later rejected Christianity, studying Oriental philosophies under British American Alan Watts, who popularized Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism to the West in the 1950s…but eventually he dismissed Watts as a “pseudo” teacher who only offered a shallow, bohemian version of spirituality —instead of the mystical depth of Orthodoxy – where he found refuge. (The infamous Alan Watts later died an unhappy drunk)…

As well, he studied Hinduism’s Vedanta under some famous, monastic Hindu gurus, as did I …before finding it lacking a personal God, and we ultimately discovered Orthodoxy. He brought many of us born and baptized Orthodox back from our fascination with Indian guru trips, like me. So did Mother Gabrilia of Greece while living in India. He argued that many Westerners got led astray, that the only way to personal enlightenment was found in Theosis — the cross of Jesus Christ.

In fact, Fr. Rose utilized his intellectual, discerning knowledge of these figures to critique Western spiritual seekers to renounce them in his popular books, especially the one called:

“Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future”… he referred to these Eastern paths as lacking in solid, theological foundation … + called them out as “spiritual deceptions that lured people away from the personal God of Christianity. They reject a Savior outside of themselves — they are all delusions outside of Jesus Christ.”

I’m happy to learn that Hieromonk Rose considered ‘St. John of San Francisco + Shanghai, his spiritual father, thought him to be a living saint. I read St. John’s biography long ago and was left mesmerized by his countless miracles in life and after death!  In the 1960’s, Fr. Rose became a spiritual son of Archbishop John Maximovitch, who authorized him to write sermons in English for his cathedral bulletin, with a focus on the lives of the saints.

During the unfair slander of Archbishop John and the lawsuits he faced in San Francisco, Seraphim Rose defended his elder; his innocence was proven. Later, he wrote on the earliest accounts of St. John’s healings/miracles, and translated and published the ‘Orthodox Word’. Unlike others, he recognized his mystic elder, John, was actually a “Fool for Christ”.

Hieromonk Seraphim lived in the wilderness of Northern California, in a remote primitive cabin with no electricity on a mountainside (like his favorite St. Seraphim of Zarov), but not in Russia, in Northern California, near St. Herman monastery, where he died and is buried on the spot of his last talk in 1982. Curiously, he never traveled much except to visit Jordanville, NY, and never visited Greece’s holy Mount Athos – but monks at Vatopedi Monastery considered him a “new Chrysostom” due to his theological writings. In fact, many Athonite monks + Greek pilgrims venerated him, and there’s plenty of artwork depicting his image.

The British writer/poet and Orthodox convert Paul Kingsnorth has written about Seraphim Rose’s influence on him…he views him as a “patron saint” for lost Americans — and says only America could’ve made him. Especially for environmental freaks + tech-obsessed souls, relating his own journey from radical atheism to Orthodoxy. He’s now married + baptized in the Romanian Orthodox Church, living in Ireland.

Both men underwent an intensive spiritual quest before finding their metanoia in Eastern Orthodoxy; he points to Fr. Rose’s critique of modern nihilism and materialism, which remains more relevant today than when he died in 1982. In his essay in The Free Press, Kingsnorth describes Fr. Rose as a radical monastic figure who felt the “ache” of the modern world but found the “other world” through Christ.

Important to note, the original “Eugene Rose” before his spiritual monastic sojourn was homosexual – describing that period as “deep personal Hell” + advocated complete abstinence  + repentance; but he “renounced even himself” according to his sister Alison. Truly, he was an example of Metanoia – a prodigal son – like St. Mary of Egypt, he transformed into a ‘new man in Christ’.

He was firm against the justification of sexual deviancy that today’s modern world normalizes, including the liberal clergy in mainline Christian churches – even some in Orthodoxy.

In his journal 1961, he wrote:

   “Christ is the only exit from this world; all

                other exits – sexual rapture, political utopia,

                financial freedom, are but blind alleys where

                corpses rot of the many who tried them.”

Towards the end of his life, he spoke in prophetic terms, warning “Apocalypse is now,” emphasizing the urgency of spiritual life in a collapsing, de-Christianized world. He warned of intense dark times ahead and urged spiritual preparation through Orthodox tradition rather than secular/worldly security. Look for signs of the end… such as globalism, moral decay, the disappearance of authentic spiritual leaders, and the coming of the AntiChrist. A must-read is his book Nihilism: The Root Of The Revolution of Modern Age.

My favorite books of Saint Seraphim Rose are The Northern Thebaid, Monastic Saints of the Russian North — also

Blessed John the Wonderworker + The Philokalia.

May his memory be eternal now that he’s counted among the saints. AXIOS!