Customer Reviews

Not of This World: The Life and Teaching of Fr. Seraphim Rose

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I'm 15 years old, and I read this book because, well, for one, it was the biggest book I'd ever seen in my life. So I was curious as to how so much could be written about one man. I started reading, and became fascinated by the man known as Father Seraphim Rose. I could relate to his spiritual searching, since I have been doing a lot of that myself. Now I love and respect this man as though I knew him. And somehow I feel I have.

If you are a Protestant (I'm a former Southern Baptist) or Catholic who feel that your church, your country, your children, your very life is adrift in a sea of moral relativism, then please buy this book. The short life of Fr. Seraphim Rose is a living testimony that a true Holy man has lived in secular America during our lifetime. Anyone who is sincerely searching for Truth and Godly wisdom can take their first step on the "narrow path" by learning about Fr. Seraphim Rose. But please hurry because as Fr. Seraphim Rose warned "It's later than you think".

After reading the reviews of others who have read this book, I must echo some of their sentiments as well as make a few observations of my own.

First of all, this book is enormous (over a thousand pages.) It definately takes a commitment to make it through it. If one proceeds with caution it can be an extremely valuable read.

First the praise: Fr. Seraphim's story is truly amazing. A disillusioned intellectual in San Francisco in the 1960s shuns the eastern religions he has clung to and converts to the Russian Orthodox Church. His conversion story is so touching because one could tell that he wanted the truth above all else in life, and thankfully he finally found it (as well as helping many others to find it throughout his life.) The part of the book that concentrates on his conversion is especially valuable to Americans or others brought up in a place with western European values (England, Austaralia, New Zealand, etc.) because he understood our modern times so well. Many people will recognize Fr. Seraphim's journey to Orthodoxy as their own: disillusioned with his protestant upbringing & eastern religious experiments as well as being distraught with the notion that their is no meaning to life in the modern world, Fr. Seraphim found Christ in the Orthodox Tradition.

Not only is his conversion inspiring, but his work as a monastic is mind boggling. He taught himself Russian so he could understand church services (in the 1960s it was difficult to find Orthodox churches that conducted services in English. In present day America, English services are the overwhelming majority.) Not only could he speak Russian, but he was highly literate too. He translated many, many valuable works of Russian spirituality into English. He also wrote original material in English and in Russian (he is loved in Russia where his works helped sustain Orthodox believers through communist opression.)

My complaints are similar to those of others too. There is a LOT of politics in this book, especially towards the end of it. Fr. Seraphim was a meek & gentle man who tried his best to avoid politics. Come to think of it, Fr. Seraphim is hardly mentioned in the last several chapters. Much of it is devoted to the activities of the Brotherhood after Fr. Seraphim's repose (+1982). The book has been a source of some controversy, but not in that it portrays Fr. Seraphim as saintly man...this is obviously the case. The problem is that the book tries to justify some questionable decisions made after Fr. Seraphim's repose.

There is another life (thankfully much shorter) of Fr. Seraphim coming out soon from Regina Orthodox Press, hopefully it will be more about him and less about politics. Hopefully it will be the tribute Fr. Seraphim deserved.

Once again, overall, it is a fabulous book...it just occasionally gets bogged down by excessive biographical details and the politics. If you keep these things in mind, and cut through all the crud...it still reveals a beautiful portrait of Fr. Seraphim.

From an introduction to the book:

"The story of Fr. Seraphim Rose is not just the story of an individual; it is the story of what can occur in the conscience of the American soil, when God stirs the strings of the American sense of righteousness. Living as a monk in the mountains of northern California, he broke the shackles of his times and penetrated into the heart of ancient, otherworldly Christian experience, reconnecting fragmented Western man with his lost roots and showing him the way of return to God. Today his name is know and loved by millions throughout the world.

At an early age, Eugene Rose - the young Fr. Seraphim - rebelled against the superficiality of modern American society and partook of the restlessness, despair, nihilism and lawlessness of the "angry young men" of his generation. He even tried to escape into the exotic realm of Buddhist enlightenment but his soul was still left empty and yearning. His forthright, self-sacrificing "American cowboy" character, however, pulled his back from these self-indulgent escapes and it was then that God revealed himself to Eugene's sorrowing soul. The conversion from modern American rebellion to ancient, apostolic Orthodoxy was begun. When he did come to Orthodoxy, he cut straight through all the externals - the worldliness and boring organizational mentality - to go right to the essence and heart of otherworldly Christianity. He has blazed the path for other honest, forthright American souls heeding their own American sense of righteousness."

It's almost a stereotype to speak of a book which changes one's life, but in this case, for me it would be an understatement. There aren't many topics of inquiry for the modern spiritual searcher that aren't covered in this book, but it isn't just theory. This is the real ongoing history of ancient, esoteric, apostolic, transforming Christianity in it's American form. It's often said that "Orthodoxy is one of the world's best kept secrets"; This book reveals the inner heart of Orthodox Christianity as it can be lived in modern practice.

This well written & extremely long book, over 1000 pages, was my churches spiritual manual for many years. How a 1950ish southern Californian Eastern Philosopher Beatnik named Eugene Rose, rejecting the so-called "Norm", turned into one of the most influential Eastern Orthodox monks of our time period. Later tonsured with the name of Fr. Seraphim Rose with a follow brother in Christ Gleb Podmoshensky tonsured Fr. Herman, they entered the Northern California forests to create a monastery & print shop called "St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood", writing books that have effected & enlighten Eastern Europe & Russia during the Soviet oppression.

As with other reviews, the book is fantastic as long as it focuses on Fr. Seraphim Rose's mission in life, with great photographs during his short but productive life. But once Fr, Seraphim Rose dies, the book turns into a private agenda about the monastery's fall out with ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia). The Great News is that the monastery is now under the Serbian Orthodox Church & the book has been extremely edited, deleting this major fault. Please check out "Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works" for a well waited focus on this hopefully Saint-To-Be.

Despite its 1000-plus pages, this extremely well-written biography of Fr. Seraphim Rose (Eugene Rose) is not a difficult or tedious read; it is, as the saying goes, "a page turner." The heart of the book describes Rose's intellectual and spiritual pilgrimage from agnosticism to Eastern Orthodoxy, culminating in his ordination to the priesthood and founding - with his spiritual brother Gleb (Fr. Herman) Podmoshensky - of St. Herman's Monastery in the mountains of northern California. Dozens of black-and-white photos make the people, places, and events come to life in a way that mere text would not be able to do.

Handsome and intellectually gifted, Eugene Rose could have had anything the secular world had to offer. But, like Thomas Merton a generation before him, his dissatisfaction with modern life caused him to follow a different drummer. He began to explore the philosophical underpinnings of both Western and Eastern civilization. Originally drawn to Buddhism, he eventually gravitated towards Christianity, and - in particular - the mystical traditions of Eastern Orthodox monasticism.

Much of the first part of the book is an intellectual tour-de-force, as we hear Rose's wide-ranging exploration and critique of the philosophies of East and West, of the great minds of world civilization, both ancient and modern, in fields ranging from science to literature, philosophy, music, religion, and popular culture. In particular, Rose focuses on what he regards as the spiritual decline of the West, its causes and - he hopes - its remedy. And the remedy is Eastern Orthodoxy, lived from the heart and not as mere habit or social convention, or as a religious sanction for a corrupt and decadent secular society.

Rose's Orthodoxy is countercultural, conservative, and apocalyptic, yet it has an amazing quality of freshness and aliveness, of vitality and newness. That very sense of vitality and adventure seems to have alarmed many in the Orthodox church hierarchy, and Rose's numerous conflicts with church authority occupy much of the latter half of the book. (I vividly recall overhearing a Russian Orthodox priest make disparaging remarks about Fr. Seraphim Rose when I attended a Russian church festival in Seattle in the late 1990s.)

Rose's piety is not for everyone, however. It represents an idealization of monasticism, poverty, celibacy, liturgy, sobriety, and prayer that few in the modern world appear willing or able to follow all the way. Thus Rose and his spiritual heirs see themselves as forming a modern "catacomb" church, a church living precariously on the margins of society, possibly facing persecution in a not-too-distant future. In this, they are somewhat in agreement with evangelical Protestantism and Catholic traditionalism, both of which view the modern world as living in a state of apostasy and thus increasingly subject to demonic influences.

There is thus a danger that the St. Herman Brotherhood will end up as a cult, living in paranoid isolation from a sinful world. This is not a prediction, just a danger, and it would be most unfortunate, as Fr. Seraphim Rose represented in his own life a much needed renewal of the ideals of Christian monasticism, an element of sanity in a world gone mad.

One final note: an updated (and slightly longer) version of this book exists under the title: "Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Teachings." Because of the considerable overlap, many readers will perhaps want to read one or the other of these books, but not both. (The earlier version of the book - the one I am reviewing - follows events up until the late 1980s, several years after Fr. Rose's untimely death, so it is a complete biography. The extra material in the new book is supplementary and interesting, but not essential.)

_Not of This World: The Life and Teaching of Fr. Seraphim Rose, Pathfinder to the Heart of Ancient Christianity_ by Monk Damascene is an excellent biography of an American who converted to the Russian Orthodox Church (ROCOR) and founded the St. Herman of Alaska monastery and printing house in the mountains and forests of northern California. Probably his most well known book is _Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future_ in which Fr. Seraphim examined today's bizarre spiritual phenomena, such as charismatic Christianity, UFO encounters and eastern religious cults in the light of ancient Orthodox Church teaching. Fr. Seraphim is also the author of _The Soul After Death_, which describes the Orthodox doctrine on the spirit realm and life after death. His magnum opus, _The Kingdom of Man and the Kingdom of God_, a metahistorical study of Man's attempt to supplement God's Kingdom with an earthly Utopia in this life, remained incomplete.

There seems to be a lot of controversy surrounding _Not of This World_, it being "written with an agenda." This is ridiculous, seeing as how every single book ever published has been written with an agenda, consciously or unconsciously, for good or for ill. This is a great book on a man who rejected the materialist "American Dream" and traveled the cross-bearing, ascetic path of Christ.

Born Eugene Rose, Fr. Seraphim's early years were wrought with much spiritual seeking. He at first embraced Nietzsche's nihilistic philosophy, but also became interested in Zen Buddhism and the writings of Rene Guenon. Through Guenon, Rose realized the need for an authentic religious tradition. However great Guenon's metaphysical thought was however, the true Faith was only to be realized in Truth Incarnate Jesus Christ.

A large proportion of the material in this book is from Fr. Herman (Gleb Podmoshensky), a Russian émigré who aided Fr. Seraphim in establishing the St. Herman Skete. A host of different bishops, priests, missionaries, and groups is examined in detail, including Archbishop John, Archbishop Averky, and Bishop Nektary.

A predominant theme in the book is the brotherhood's struggle with the Church hierarchy. This book appears to be radically "right-wing" and anti-establishment, but in fact Fr. Seraphim criticized both the far right "the ultra-correct group" and the left wing/liberal groups and trendy theological innovators in the Church. He emphasized the "Orthodoxy of the Heart," without pretenses, squabbling and rule-mongering.

The end of _Not of This World_ deals with Fr. Seraphim's emphasis on the Apocalypse, and the crumbling structures of the word's churches, and the eminent reign of the Antichrist. What motivated him to work so hard for his faith was "it is later than you think." Fr. Seraphim's books have been more widespread in Russia than in America, and it is hoped that "Russia will arise" in a Christian Orthodox revival before the end comes. He died at the age of forty-eight after a stomach ailment, and appears to be the candidate to be the first Orthodox American convert Saint.

The book does get tedious and bogged down in minutiae in some areas, in addition to highlight the fighting going on in the Russian Church. But in all, a great book on Orthodoxy, a modern day American "beatnik" intellectual's journey into it, and the spiritual crisis of our age.

Sadly, this book which should be the life of Fr. Seraphim Rose, reads more like "The Life and Times of Gleb Podmoshensky (a.k.a. Abbot Herman)." We are, however, treated to information about Fr. Seraphim's youth and conversion to Orthodoxy as well as his work with the St. Herman's Brotherhood.

Strewn throughout these pages is constant reference to church bickering, which Fr. Seraphim would have been very disappointed over to see in print. All of the politicking is simply a build up to justify Abbot Herman's defrocking and subsequent seeking of uncanonical recognition. Often throughout the book, it seemed as if the topic of the book was Abbot Herman and not Fr. Seraphim.

Fr. Seraphim lived and reposed loyal to the Russian Church Abroad. Unreported in this volume are some of his very strong words at the time of his repose (death) to Abbot Herman regarding their association. Other characters were also misrepresented in this book. This book should be edited down to size with all of the politics removed. Only then would it be a fitting tribute to a Hieromonk who was and still continues to be a source of inspiration to many.

In this book, it mentions that, "A truth-seeker, when he finds the truth in Orthodoxy, must then stop his searching. His path to Orthodoxy, which is on a horizontal plane, has ended, and now he must go 'vertically,' deeper into Orthodoxy." This book has help me to do just that! I've been Orthodox for 14 years, and I can't begin to describe how much deeper my relationship with God is now. I'm compelled to pray more, to read the scriptures more, and to help others seeking Truth. My copy is flagged with dozens of Post-It Notes and is highlighted throughout. I want to buy another copy, so I can keep mine, and share the other.

By the way, why is the fact that it's a 1000 page book a detriment? I prefer books of that size - otherwise they are finished too quickly!