03 — Eldership at the Lavra
The 1920s at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra: the new monk Seraphim’s emergence as a confessor and spiritual father just as the Soviet state was systematically dismantling the Church around him, and the assault on the Lavra itself — the arrests, the seizures, the closures — that drove him at last to retire to Vyritsa. These files set his early eldership against the historical reality of the Church’s destruction in the first Soviet decade.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (20th-c. elder; Soviet period)
The eldership for which Seraphim of Vyritsa is remembered did not begin at Vyritsa. It began at the Lavra in the 1920s, in the role of confessor — and it began in the worst possible circumstances, as the Renovationist schism, the show-trials of clergy, the famine-relief confiscations, and the steady administrative strangulation of the Church convulsed Russian Orthodoxy. This section treats two intertwined realities: his work as a spiritual father to the faithful and clergy who came to the Lavra, and the Soviet assault that was simultaneously crushing the monastery and would finally close it.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Spiritual Father in the Time of Terror | Seraphim’s role as confessor and spiritual father at the Lavra in the 1920s, as the Church was being crushed; the beginnings of the eldership; the people who came to him. |
| The Lavra under Assault | The Soviet assault on the Alexander Nevsky Lavra — the 1922 confiscations, the Renovationist seizure, the arrests of clergy, the pressure that drove monks out and finally closed the Lavra. |
See Also
- The Alexander Nevsky Lavra — the monastery and his tonsure there
- Retirement to Vyritsa — where the pressure and his failing health drove him
- Orthodoxy: Soviet Persecution — the persecution of the 1920s in full
- Orthodoxy: Spiritual Direction — the tradition of eldership he stood in
References
- Filimonov, Valentin P. Вырицкий старец преподобный Серафим [Vyritsa Elder St. Seraphim]. St. Petersburg, 1990s–2000s.
- Pospielovsky, Dimitry. The Russian Church under the Soviet Regime, 1917–1982. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1984.
- Ellis, Jane. The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.