On March 29, the Russian Orthodox Church honors the memory of St. Serapion, Archbishop of Novgorod.
St. Serapion was born in the fifteenth century in the village of Pekhorka1 near Moscow into a family of ordinary villagers. His religious parents nurtured their son’s love of the Lord from infancy and taught him to read and write at the age of six.
One day young St. Serapion said to his parents:
“Dear father and mother, I want to go to a monastery and become a monk.”
Icon of St. Serapion, Archbishop of Novgorod But his parents did not give the blessing to their son, saying:
“We are old. So, dear son, take care of us. We also want you to get married. We have already found a kind and hardworking maiden for you. And if prayer and service of God are very dear to you, then become a priest after getting married. We give you our parental blessing for this.”
As an obedient son, St. Serapion did everything as they told him. He married and soon was ordained priest. But a year later St. Serapion’s young wife suddenly died. His parents no longer hindered their son’s desire to become a monk. And St. Serapion took monastic vows. However, his parents begged him:
“Son, for our peace, serve us until we die—stay in our house for now. And after we depart to the Lord, do as your heart tells you, but according to God’s will.”
An obedient and considerate son, St. Serapion stayed in his parents’ house and took care of his elderly father and mother until their deaths, continuing to serve in the Church of the Protecting Veil of the Most Holy Theotokos in his native village.
When his parents passed away, St. Serapion distributed all his possessions among the poor and gave freedom to all his servants. Then he went to the Dubna Holy Dormition Monastery, which was situated on an island bordered by the Dubna and Bistrica Rivers.2 St. Serapion labored hard at this monastery, erecting new monastic buildings. He became so famous for his monastic labors that soon the monastery was nicknamed, “Serapion’s Pustyn” (a common name for small isolated communities of monks).
St. Serapion did not cease his spiritual labors; he longed to devote more time to divine contemplation. He decided to move to the 
The Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, Where Fates are DecidedNow many churches and monasteries have been restored and opened, but the Lavra was, is and will be the heart of Orthodoxy in Russia. It has a special mission.
“>Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, whose abbot at that time was St. Simon (Chizh), who later, in 1495, became Metropolitan of Moscow at the behest of Grand Prince Ivan III Vasilyevich (1460–1505). So the Grand Prince appointed St. Serapion Abbot of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra.
The Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra
Highly esteeming Abbot Serapion for his monastic feats, Grand Prince Ivan Vasilyevich always heeded his opinion, and once pardoned three women boyars sentenced to death. They had been slandered by some wicked people before him, which resulted in the innocent women being charged with witchcraft.
Abbot Serapion prayed for a long time to the Most Holy Trinity, the Mother of God and St. Sergius of RadonezhUndoubtedly, the most outstanding establisher of the truly selfless “life equal to the angels” in fourteenth century Russia is St. Sergius of Radonezh, the founder of the famous Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery, which embodies in its historical legacy his blessed precepts, and gradually became a kind of spiritual heart for all of Orthodox Russia.
“>St. Sergius of Radonezh, and then went to the Grand Prince to intercede for the innocent sufferers:
“O Grand Prince! Pardon these women boyars and do not put them to death. They are not guilty of the crime they are being charged with.”
Touched and amazed by such a request, the Grand Prince ceased his wrath and ordered the women boyars to be freed. Such an act of intercession for the innocent brought Abbot Serapion the fame as a defender from troubles.
Abbot Serapion took great care of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra; he was an assiduous administrator, and cherished the monastery lands. At the Council of 1504, he defended the church and monastery estates, which were a powerful means of charity for the monasteries.
The wisdom and thrift of Abbot Serapion led to his appointment to an episcopal cathedra. On January 16, 1506, by the decision of the Council of Hierarchs he was consecrated Archbishop of Novgorod. Thus St. Serapion went to serve in Veliky Novgorod.
Veliky Novgorod had not had an archpastor for over two years. For the third year, the city’s population had been dying of a terrible plague epidemic. In the autumn of 1508 alone almost 16,000 people were killed by it. In the same year, 1508, several thousand people perished in a devastating fire in Veliky Novgorod. Archbishop Serapion, who had just arrived in the city, ordered the bodies of those who had died in the fire to be collected throughout the city and celebrated a memorial service for them.
The Novgorod Kremlin
St. Serapion, who came to serve in Veliky Novgorod at a tough time for the city, prayed incessantly to the Lord to remove all the troubles, organized cross processions, ordered the construction of a church in honor of the icon, “Praise of the Most Holy Theotokos”, in the Novgorod Kremlin within one day, October 15, and consecrated it. During those days, through Archbishop Serapion’s prayers, three seriously ill people were healed. And after the healing of a blind man, a paralytic, and a demoniac, the plague in Veliky Novgorod stopped.
Meanwhile, trials in the life of St. Serapion in Veliky Novgorod continued. On learning that the monastery of Volokolamsk near Moscow had passed to the possession of the Grand Prince, he excommunicated its abbot, St. Joseph of Volokolamsk. And after this the Grand Prince confined St. Serapion to St. Andronicus’ Monastery of the Icon of the Savior, “Not-Made-by-Hands”, in Moscow. In 1509, the Council forgave Abbot Joseph, but Archbishop Serapion remained incarcerated at the monastery.
Meanwhile, the people of Novgorod lamented, remembering their archpastor, Archbishop Serapion, because within a short span of time he had become a beloved and respected mentor. After that Veliky Novgorod would have no archbishop for seventeen long years.
Grand Prince Ivan III Vasilyevich Two years later, in 1511, the metropolitan made peace with St. Serapion, invited him to visit, gave him his blessing, and personally apologized. In the same year, St. Joseph of Volokolamsk and St. Serapion were reconciled as well. Grand Prince Vasily III Ioannovich (1505–1533) tempered justice with mercy and allowed St. Serapion to return to the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, where the elder lived until his death in humility, unceasing prayer and fasting.
Shortly before his repose, St. Serapion received the schema, bade farewell to the monastery brethren, and took Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. At the last minute of his earthly life, he said:
“Lord, into Thy hands I commit my spirit.”
It happened on March 16/29, 1516. The monks who had gathered around the newly reposed saint noted that his face was illuminated with great joy at that moment.
St. Serapion, Archbishop of Novgorod, was buried at the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra next to the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity on the south side of the Holy Trinity Cathedral, where St. Sergius of Radonezh’s cell used to stand. In 1517, Archbishop Serapion’s incorrupt relics were uncovered.
Holy Father Serapion, pray to God for us!
Source: Orthodox Christianity
