Our Venerable Father Serapion the Wonderworker, Abbot of the Monastery of the Forerunner (+1747)

The Venerable Serapion the Wonderworker was abbot of the monastery of Saint John the Baptist in the desert of Gareji. To the holy father, mighty in deed and word, distinguished for his ascetic labour, a great faster and man of prayer, God had granted the gift of working miracles.

Once the Venerable Serapion went into the city on business with brethren of the monastery. The servants going on ahead, who were carrying things needed for divine service, were met by robbers and plundered. They ran back and in distress told the abbot everything. “Great is God; I will not let the unclean heathen carry off the holy things,” said Saint Serapion; he took up his staff and alone went after the robbers. As soon as the robbers saw Serapion, they left the donkey with its load where it was and hid themselves among the rocks and ravines. Afterwards the robbers said: “Who was that monk who came after us? For we saw fire coming out of his staff.”

Another time blessed Serapion was praying in his cell. Suddenly he came out in distress and said to the brethren: “Alas, alas, the monastery’s servants have fallen among robbers.” With these words he at once went back into his cell, shut the door and began to pray fervently. About two hours later the monastery’s servants arrived in distress and said: robbers met us on the road; we abandoned the donkeys with their loads and saved ourselves by flight. A little later the laden donkeys too came back to the monastery with no one leading them. The servants, who had come back unharmed by the grace of God and the holy prayer of the Venerable Serapion, glorified God, who had revealed hidden things to Father Serapion for his humility and goodness.

The abbot of the monastery, distinguished for his virtue, resigned, put on the great schema and began the labour of a recluse. From constant prostrations and standing the saint’s legs became so diseased that he could no longer stand. Soon the approach of his departure from this world was revealed to him too, and he asked the brethren to bury his body at the entrance of the church, in the grave he himself had prepared beforehand, so that everyone going in and out of the church should step over him. Saint Serapion died in 1747. As he had asked, he was buried at the entrance of the church.