Seraphim Vyritsky

Early years

He was born in a peasant family on March 31, 1866 in the village of Vakhromeevo, Arefinsky volost, Rybinsky district of the Yaroslavl province (now a natural boundary ^[2] in the Arefinsky rural settlement of the Rybinsky district of the Yaroslavl region ^[3] ), in the family of Nikolai Ivanovich and Khioniya Alimpievna Muravyev. He was baptized with the name Vasily. When he was 10 years old, his father died, and the boy was forced to leave for St. Petersburg to earn money.

Secular career

Arriving in St. Petersburg in 1876, he became a messenger in one of the shops of Gostiny Dvor . Later he found a confessor in the person of the elder Gethsemane monastery of the Holy Trinity St. Sergius Lavra, hieromonk Barnabas (Merkulov) .

In 1882 he became a clerk. In 1890 he married Olga Ivanovna Netronina ^[4] (according to other sources, this happened in 1894 ^[5] ). In 1892, he opened his own business, becoming a very large mechanic dealer, a merchant of the 2nd guild. Having extensive experience and strong trading ties, he organized an office for the procurement and sale of furs . A significant part of the goods was delivered abroad: to Germany, Austria-Hungary , England, France and other countries.

In 1895 he became an active member of the Society for the dissemination of commercial knowledge in Russia and entered the Higher Commercial Courses organized by the company. From 1900 to 1906, the Muravyovs lived in house 56 on Gorokhovaya Street ; since 1905 - a full member of the Yaroslavl charity.

In 1906, he acquired a large two-story cottage in the picturesque village of Tyarlyovo , located between Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk , which until 1920 became the main refuge of Vasily and Olga - it was extremely dangerous to remain in the capital.

I went abroad, annual income averaged 90,000 rubles.

Monasticism

On September 13, 1920, he petitioned the Ecclesiastical Council of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to accept him as a brotherhood, to which he received consent, was accepted as a novice and received the obedience of a sexton . The deputy of the Lavra at that time was Archimandrite Nikolai (Yarushevich) . At the same time, the novice of the Voskresensky Novodevichy Convent was the wife of Vasily Nikolaevich - Olga, who took the name of Christina ^[5] . All available Muravyov donated to the needs of the cloisters. Only in the Lavra Vasily Nikolayevich transferred 40,000 rubles in gold coins. October 29, 1920 was tonsured a monk with the name of Barnabas.

On September 11, 1921, Metropolitan Benjamin (Kazan) was ordained a hieromonk .

At the end of 1926, Barnabas’s father accepts a schema under the name of Seraphim (in honor of Seraphim of Sarov) and becomes the confessor of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra ^[6] .

Presumably in the spring of 1930, on the recommendation of doctors and with the blessing of Metropolitan Serafim (Chichagov) , he left his cell in the Feodorov building of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and settled in Popovka , at the cottage of the rector of the Trinity-Izmailovsky Cathedral Leonid Bogoyavlensky (Kolpinskaya street, 378 - house not preserved) ^[5] . Doctors diagnosed Serafim with rheumatism , obstruction of the veins of the lower extremities, intercostal neuralgia ^[4] In Popovka, prot. Leonid Epiphany Seraphim lived in a small house-cell, at the far end of the summer cottage. There he spent about two years ^[7] .

Vyritsky period

In 1933 he moved to the village of Vyritsa , where he lived until his death ^[6] . The first address of Seraphim in Vyritsa was house 16 on Olgopolskaya street ^[7] . All this time about. Seraphim was seriously ill, serious illnesses caused him unbearable suffering. The legs were especially worried. However, the elder courageously endured these tests ^[8] . His ex-wife moved to the old man, who accepted the monastic feat (she died in 1945).

Soon a stream of pilgrims from Vyritsa, the northern capital and other cities rushed to the old man for comfort, blessing, advice. Father Seraphim, despite his illnesses, carried the feats of prayer, fasting and vigil. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I didn’t take any food, and sometimes I didn’t eat anything for several days in a row. Since 1935, for 10 years, the Monk Seraphim prayed on a stone in the garden of a house on Pilny Avenue, 7 in Vyritsa ^[8] . Since 1935, the Muravyov family was helped by the rights of a housekeeper by the nun John (Vera Shikhobalova, 1869-1944) ^[5]

In August 1941 , in the very first days of the German occupation , a temple of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was opened in Vyritsa, a parishioner of which was Jeroskhimon Seraphim; he continued to live in the Tomberg house on Pilny Avenue, 7, where he received visitors. The rectors of the church during the years of occupation (1941-1944) were Prot. Vladimir Bogdanov, hierom. Lin (Nikiforov), prot. Mikhail Nozdrin, about. John Molchanov. After the advance of the Red Army, the last abbot was arrested.

During the war, Rev. Seraphim continued the feat of pillar-making on a granite boulder in the garden of house 7 on Pilny Prospekt, praying for the salvation of Russia from enemies - sometimes for several hours in a row. The elder prayed in front of the icon of Seraphim of Sarov , which was attached to the apple tree . To the place of prayer he was led or carried in his arms. This went on every day, in any weather ^[8] .

In 1945, the elder lived for a short time in the Smirnovs house (Pilny pr., 24) before moving to the house of L. G. Efimova on Maysky Prospekt (d. 39), which became the last place on earth's shelter for the old man (here Serafim rented several rooms) in 1945-1949 ^[8] . At the end of his life, the elder was assisted by the cell-maker Seraphim. Before his death, he was honored with a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who in radiance pointed him with her right hand to heaven. The elder read the akathist to the Mother of God, received communion from the hands of Father Alexy and said:

He died on March 21 ( April 3 ) (according to the Julian calendar ) of 1949 , on the 4th Week of Great Lent , on the day of memory of St. John Climacus .

The wife of Seraphim Vyritsky was Olga, who became the nun Khristina in the Novodevichy Convent, but then reunited with her husband in Vyritsa.

Serafim Vyritsky (Vasily Muravyov), before the adoption of the schema, had two children, Nikolai and Olga. Olga died in infancy. Nikolay, born on January 30, 1895, he converted to Catholicism in 1914 , dropped out of law at St. Petersburg University , became a corporal of the 1st Aviation Company; contusion led to the fact that in 1916 he was forced to leave military service, treatment was in the Nikolaev hospital. In 1917, Nikolai married a bourgeois from Moscow Jews - Evgenia Ivanovna Lyubarskaya; the couple settled in Rybinsk , where was the home of his maternal grandfather Ivan Netronin. The couple had a daughter Margarita (the granddaughter of Seraphim Vyritsky), who, after the divorce of the couple in 1921, began to live in the care of her grandmother Olga. Nikolai married a second time to Maria Kuzmina, from whom his daughter Olga was born (the second granddaughter of Seraphim Vyritsky). In 1924, Nikolai was arrested for communication with the White Guards and speculation, but a year later he was released. In 1925, he married for the third time to Antonina Gornostaeva, from whom his son Alexander (grandson of Seraphim Vyritsky) was born. In 1934, Nikolai visited his father in Vyritsa. Then in 1935 he entered into a civil marriage with Anna Baranova and began to live in the village of Kremeno , where in 1938 his illegitimate son Ermingeld was born. On the eve of the war, Nikolai was arrested for communication with the French Catholic priest Florent, accused of espionage in favor of France and, subsequently, was shot on September 4, 1941 in Sverdlovsk ^[5] .

Most of the prophecies of Seraphim Vyritsky recorded by Valery Filimonov in the book “Prophecies of St. Seraphim Vyritsky” ^{[9] [10] [11]} .

About the Church

• The time will come when not the persecution, but the money and charms of this world will turn people away from God, and many more souls will perish than during the time of open deity. On the one hand, crosses will be erected and the domes gilded, and on the other, the kingdom of lies and evil will come. The true Church will always be persecuted, and salvation will only be possible through sorrow and disease, while persecution will take on the most sophisticated, unpredictable character. It will be terrible to live to these times.

About the world

• Jerusalem will become the capital of Israel. And over time, he should become the capital of the world. For there is the true center of the Earth, the Savior of the world was crucified and resurrected there.
• Salvation of the world is from Russia, and Petersburg will become the spiritual center of the country.
• When the East gains strength, everything will become unstable: the number is on their side, but not only that - sober and hardworking people work for them, and we have such drunkenness.
• The war, which is described by the Holy Scriptures and prophets speak, will cause the unification of mankind. People will understand that it is impossible to live this way, otherwise all living things will perish, and they will choose a single government - this will be on the eve of the accession of the Antichrist.

About Russia

• The Lord himself determined the punishment for sins for the Russian people, and until the Lord Himself has mercy on Russia, it makes no sense to go against His holy will. A gloomy night will cover the Russian land for a long time, many of us are waiting ahead of suffering and sorrows. Therefore, the Lord teaches us: save your souls with your patience.
• If the Russian people do not come to repentance, it may happen that a brother rebels against his brother again.
• The time will come when there will be a spiritual flourishing in Russia. Many churches and monasteries will open, even non-believers will come to us to be baptized on such ships. But this is not for long - about fifteen years, then the Antichrist will come.
• Those who were sinners, drunkards before, fill the temples, feel a great thirst for spiritual life, many of them will become monks, monasteries will open, churches will be full of believers.
• Vyritsa will be a place of pilgrimage, and a monastery will be opened here.
• Many countries take up arms against Russia, but it will survive, having lost most of its land.
• The time will come when Russia will be torn to pieces. First, it will be divided, and then they will begin to plunder wealth. The West will make every effort to contribute to the destruction of Russia and, in time, will give its eastern part to China. The Japanese will take over the Far East, and the Chinese will take over Siberia, who will move to Russia, marry the Russians, and ultimately take the territory of Siberia to the Urals by cunning and cunning. When China wants to go further, the West will resist and will not allow it.

Orthodox Church Attitude

Answering a reader’s question about the prophecies of St. Seraphim Vyritsky, Archpriest Maxim Kozlov writes:

Let us remember that only certain prophecies are unconditional - these are the prophecies that we read in Scripture. And, first of all, those indications of the final destinies of the world that are in the words of the Savior himself and which are told to us by the Book of Revelations of the Evangelist John the Theologian. Yet other prophecies are either limited, or private, or conditional. And it is clear that if God were pleased to discover something undoubtedly important for the whole of Russia about the fate of our Fatherland, then the Lord would reveal this in a way in relation to which there would be no doubt and no need to even ask any questions ^[12] .

Priest Georgy Murzin, answering a question about the prophecies of Seraphim Vyritsky, schema-monk Nila and the elder Lavrenty of Chernigov, writes:

Of course, the Lord can open the future to people leading a holy life. As for the saints of God whom you named, they really shared their thoughts about the last times with their relatives, who then left notes on these conversations. What is true in them, and what is the fruit of fiction and fantasy - this lies with the conscience of the authors. In any case, I would not advise you to get involved in prophecies, especially stated on behalf of the primary source through second and third parties ^[13] .

The monk did not write books. Several poems have been written ^[14] and “ It Was From Me ” (there are disputes about authorship or co-authorship with Metropolitan Manuel (Lemeshevsky) ).

In the words of Bishop Benjamin Rybinsky (Likhomanov) : “Many years before the glorification of Seraphim Vyritsky in the Yaroslavl diocese, photographs of an old man and the prayer“ It Was From Me ”were already in use. But then I did not know that he was ours, Rybinskiy - for me he was for a long time a revered old man in Vyritsa ” ^[3] .

Glorified at the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000 ^[15] .

The rite of worship in the St. Petersburg diocese was performed on October 1, 2000 . The service was led by Metropolitan Vladimir of St. Petersburg and Ladoga (Kotlyarov) , who was served by the Archbishop of Simbirsk and Melekess Proclus (Khazov) and about 30 clergymen. A solemn Divine Liturgy and a prayer service to the newly glorified saint were served in the Kazan church of the village of Vyritsa, Leningrad Region ^{[16] [17]} .

In 2000, over the grave of St. Seraphim was erected a wooden chapel . Next to the Monk Seraphim, his ex-wife, the nun Seraphim, is buried ^[18]

In 2005, Archpriest Andrei Kasitsyn to the former village of Vakhrameevo, where the Monk Seraphim was born and established a birch cross. In 2006, he, together with Archpriest Gennady Belovolov from St. Petersburg, assistants and a former resident of Vakhrameev, Vitaly Grigoryevich Voronin, determined the place of the Muravyov’s hut, and also established 8 worship crosses in Arefinsky district ^[3] .

On December 12, 2016, on the facade of house 20 on Apraksin Lane in St. Petersburg , where the merchant Vasily Muravyov lived from 1914 to 1917, a memorial plaque was installed ^{[19] [20] [21]} .

• Filimonov V.P. Jeroskhimonakh Seraphim Vyritsky and Russian Golgotha. SPb., 1999.
• Filimonov V.P. HIS PRAISE IS EXPECTED BY RUSSIA. About the elder Seraphim Vyritsky .
• Filimonov V.P., Kudryashova L.P. To the Monk Seraphim in Vyritsa. Satis Publishing House. SPb. 2008, 191 p.
• Elder Hieroskhimon Seraphim Vyritsky. Publishing House of the Brotherhood of St. Alexius. Moscow. 1999, 240 p., Compiled by A. Trofimov.
• Blessed Vyritsa. History of asceticism. Publishing house "Art of Russia". SPb. 2010, 137 p. , compiled by L. A. Ilyunin.

• Rev. Seraphim, Vyritsky miracle worker - site dedicated to the saint
• TREE - “SERAPHIM VYRITSKY”
• L.I. Sokolova. Bearing sorrows. To the biography of St. Seraphim Vyritsky
• Life on the site of the Sretensky Monastery
• I.V. Popov. Holy Vyritsa
• Testimony of the truth of Seraphim Vyritsky
• Filimonov V.P. - Saint Rev. Seraphim Vyritsky and Russian Golgotha ​​- 2006.pdf (inaccessible link)