Responding to Old Calenderist allegations against Fr Seraphim Rose

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]Hey folks.

[00:00:02]Um hope everybody's having a great day today.

[00:00:06]Um we're going to do a video responding to the True Orthodox.

[00:00:13]Okay? Uh specifically GOC America, the the ROCOR schismatic True Orthodox allegations against Father Seraphim Rose.

[00:00:22]Many of you who knows about Father Seraphim Rose, you know, there's not much to say there. He is currently being investigated by ROCOR to be canonized.

[00:00:30]Um Now, a lot of you really love Father Seraphim Rose. I think he's fine, but you know, he wasn't really a part of my catechesis or you know, why I turned to Orthodoxy. I know that's true for a lot of you. And a lot of people want him to be canonized. So, we're going to talk about these allegations against Father Seraphim Rose today by you know, the True Orthodox schismatics who are essentially Donatist or Old Calendar's extremist.

[00:01:00]And please keep in mind that when I say that is true in this video I'm not making a definite statement.

[00:01:10]Because the people we are reviewing today it has not been that long away. Okay?

[00:01:18]This is like barely 50 years.

[00:01:21]So um a lot of the statements or actions could have totally been uh kept orally kept without documentation.

[00:01:36]Okay?

[00:01:37]Uh because a lot of those people were still alive.

[00:01:40]Okay? A lot of people involved in this were still alive.

[00:01:43]Um This is it it would be to ask for a definite writ uh you know, written statement would be the equivalent of you know, asking people in the first century to give clear you know, definitions of doctrines as they had written in the 7th century. Okay? So, it's not been that long. So, a lot of stuff could happen could have been hap- could have happened or you know, were fabricated.

[00:02:10]Um I am going to try to give you hints on for you to think about whether something is reliable or not.

[00:02:18]Um again, everything I show you today is going to be on purely on public record.

[00:02:25]Okay?

[00:02:26]Um if it's not there I'm just going to say it's not there or it's not true. So, but no just again, any- everything I say today is based on public record. When I say true is based on based on public public record. Doesn't mean it happened, doesn't mean it's never happened. Okay?

[00:02:45]Just based on public record.

[00:02:48]Um which again the church will probably release definite statements in the future.

[00:02:55]Anyways, let's dive into this.

[00:02:56]>> He sees this young energetic man transferred to also Saint John Maximovich is transferred to San Francisco.

[00:03:06]And he sees this young energetic man who wants to serve the church and he blesses him and his friend Gleb to start a brotherhood. A brotherhood for missionary activity.

[00:03:20]This is true. He blessed uh according again, according to public record Saint John Maximovich met um Father Seraphim Rose briefly.

[00:03:31]And he did not tonsure Father Seraphim Rose or Father Herman.

[00:03:38]He blessed um Father Seraphim and Father Herman to have a brotherhood and a uh had a bookstore. This is true. And [clears throat] to have a bookstore.

[00:03:55]Okay.

[00:03:57]So, Archbishop John Saint John hasn't entered in his mind that these two young men can all of a sudden become monks.

[00:04:14]Cuz that is not how it is done.

[00:04:18]The Orthodox Church does not have that tradition where someone can all of a sudden become a monk. But they say that Archbishop John blessed them to start their monastery. And that is not true.

[00:04:31]According to public record, Archbishop Gregory is correct. Okay? Um Now there are two ways you can go about this. Okay? Well, one think about would someone like Saint John Maximovich allow two you know newly uh received converts to go start a monastery?

[00:04:59]Uh that's up to you to decide.

[00:05:03]Or the other side could say that well, you know, he just saw something super special in them. Which you know, again, it's it's up for you to decide. Okay?

[00:05:11]But based on records okay? Saint John Maximovich did not bless Father Seraphim and Father Herman to start a monastery.

[00:05:22]A brotherhood is really just you know, a men's club.

[00:05:26]And with them it was a there was special thing where they get to have a bookstore to to do publishings.

[00:05:32]Um So, you know, for example, my my godfather Gary uh Gets, he um he runs probably the biggest brotherhood Orthodox brotherhood in in the states, Saint Paisius brotherhood.

[00:05:46]So yeah, so that's a brotherhood.

[00:05:49]Brotherhood's it's really when young men just get together and we talk about Orthodoxy and we do activities. That's what it is.

[00:05:59]Some say the Father Herman only only met Archbishop John >> So, that's just blooming. By the way, we're not going to talk about his allegations of oh, he Father Seraphim was chrismated not baptized. Okay? So, that's just being total a Donatist and extremist. Okay? Uh they're you know, in the church if you look at the church, there's clear cases of many many chrismations being um being allowed, but they're just you know, these Old Calendar's they're just against pretty much all sorts of chrismation.

[00:06:32]Um we're going to skip that. We're not we're not going to talk about the homosexuality parts because I think that's a that's actually good that um Father Seraphim became a confessor of that. We're also not going to talk about the misconducts of Father Herman.

[00:06:48]Okay? Cuz that's that's pretty much irrelevant.

[00:06:51]Now, let's uh move through to the 13-minute mark.

[00:06:56]So now, these two men he facilitated them to be tortured. And he understood, you know, this is this is risky.

[00:07:06]>> So, those of you don't who didn't know was not Father excuse me, Bishop John Maximovich who tonsured Seraphim Rose. It was the next bishop, Anthony Medvedev. Okay?

[00:07:19]Now he's saying that there was some poor guidance or discernment going on. I don't know. Okay? There's no record of that. I tried to look.

[00:07:28]Maybe he was told this by his vicar bishop, Bishop Nectarie.

[00:07:33]And maybe by others, too. Because two laymen can't go and start a monastery or it's very dangerous for them. They will be a plaything for the demons. And in a Okay. So, we're going to stop here. He he's going to say for the next few minutes he's going to say how improper uh Father Seraphim Rose's um monastic journey was. So, to summarize this again again, based on historical record they were not formally made novice.

[00:08:05]Uh they didn't spend any time as novices. Special you know, not neither of them.

[00:08:10]Um they were pretty much um tonsured to be monks in a uh in a pretty haste manner.

[00:08:19]Um whether that's who's whoever's discernment that was we really don't know, but we would assume that Father Seraphim and Father Herman at the time made it clear made the desires to become monks clear to the bishop. And you know, whatever bish- the bishop's discernment, it's it's their problem. Okay? But it is true they never went through proper monastic training. Uh we look at history, they never had a time of you know, the death to the world stage where you know, they disappear uh to really focus on monastic life.

[00:08:55]In- instead, Father Seraphim specifically has always stayed in the public eye by publishing books.

[00:09:01]Obviously, that's one of the duties that he had up there. Uh which made him you know, un- I wouldn't say renowned, but a knowable and uh knowable public personnel. And the other thing is among the Soviet Union, he was writing letters to encourage people in the Soviet Union at the time to give them hope, right?

[00:09:22]So, stuff like that. But he never really disappeared like you know, how monastics would be trained properly. And we cannot blame this fully on Father Seraphim because at the time ROCOR monasticism was was just very lacking in the states.

[00:09:36]And there really weren't many trainings for that. So, you can't necessarily blame Father Seraphim for all of it. Now I am not justifying the behavior to do that. Um obviously, I'm absolutely not fit to be a monk. So uh but does it mean that they shouldn't >> [clears throat] >> they should have actually Yeah, does it mean that they should have did their best to seek monastic guidance?

[00:10:07]Probably yes. But again, that's up to to you to uh decide what really went on there. So, next part, we're not going to talk about Father Again, this is Father Herman.

[00:10:19]Okay? One time uh they printed a book uh one of their magazines called Orthodox Word. And in that uh they had published uh the miracle {quote} {unquote} miracle of the Mother of God in Zeitoun Egypt. Now, I'm a monk in Boston.

[00:10:43]And I [clears throat] get >> Okay, so actually let's Excuse me, sorry. I I do want to play this whole part.

[00:10:51]I'm a monk in Boston.

[00:10:54]And [clears throat] I get this uh and I read this article in in this magazine because we helped them.

[00:11:00]I drew sketches for their magazine.

[00:11:03]Boston monastery translated lives. And we gave them to Herman and Seraphim to publish.

[00:11:14]And God has appearing like uh uh it wasn't >> [clears throat] >> the people who saw it.

[00:11:25]This was on top of a coffin. Okay, so Uh by the way, those of you who don't know who Hieromonk Gregory is, he is uh the leader of the the ROCOR schismatics in the the United States, obviously.

[00:11:41]Uh probably not exaggerating one of the most renowned or skilled iconographers alive today in in the States, okay?

[00:11:52]Um Those of you who been to St. Anthony uh St. Andrew's Orthodox Church led by Father Josiah Trenham, the entire monast- the entire church was uh painted by uh Hieromonk Gregory and his uh his Dormition Skete.

[00:12:11]However that worked out, don't ask me, okay? That's not my It's really not my business, but it's beautiful artwork.

[00:12:18]So, you know, there's that. But the allegation that's made here is that Father Seraphim somehow affirmed First of all, he did he did write the article regarding Mary of Zeitoun, but he did not affirm that it was truly the Theotokos that was there.

[00:12:35]Okay?

[00:12:36]Now, the next part is what I want you to pay attention to. So, we made a protest to Metropolitan Philaret. And the synod the bishops agreed with us. And they told them, you know, this is not right what you're saying. We want you to write a retraction. And these people who are Father Seraphim, Father Herman, who are experts in disobedience said to them, "We understand our mistake, but we are not going to write a retraction." Okay, >> [snorts] >> according to public record, there's no record of a synod or, you know, a synod meeting in ROCOR condemning Father Seraphim Rose and Father Herman for publishing the article. Obviously, there's no condemnation, then there would be no uh rejection from Father Seraphim Rose.

[00:13:30]There is zero public record to support this. However, again, these meetings happen like like monthly, right? So, could it have happened?

[00:13:42]Yes. Do we know definitely if it happened or not? No, we don't. But based on public record, none of this happened.

[00:13:50]Okay? Now, let's move to the second the next part here.

[00:13:55]The Abba heard about them. Archbishop Andrew of Novo Diveevo heard about them.

[00:14:03]And he knew Gleb before he was Father Herman cuz he stayed with him for 1 day.

[00:14:10]He's the one that told him, "Did you do this sin?" And we don't know what that sin is, but we could surmise Archbishop Andrew said, "These two monks are in prelest." Okay, Archbishop Andrew of Rockland, he was indeed known to be a uh clairvoyant at the time.

[00:14:30]He There's no public record no public record of Bishop Andrew calling Father Seraphim Rose and Herman as being in prelest. Okay, there's no public record. That's all I'll say about it.

[00:14:48]Um next part 28:35 Now, this is really where um This is really where I believe it gets controversial.

[00:15:16]And the doctors could have said, "Why didn't you bring him in here?" He said, "It's not monastic life." Great.

[00:15:24]And then finally, the man was about to pass out at this.

[00:15:29]And perhaps Father Herman got there. And is it because of his his practically disobedience caused, I think, the death of Father Seraphim?

[00:15:40]He had a he had a pain in his abdomen in his intestines. Something happened there.

[00:15:48]And is it because of his past uh incontinence?

[00:15:56]We don't know. But he had a pain there.

[00:15:58]Now, if he was living in a monastery with an abbot with a true abbot, the abbot would tell him, "Okay, let's go investigate this and see what the problem is."

[00:16:10]And perhaps Father Herman did that.

[00:16:13][clears throat] And Father Seraphim said, "No."

[00:16:16]Record did say the monastery people in the monastery urged him to seek help.

[00:16:21]Whether Father Herman did that, I don't know. Or this it's not public record.

[00:16:25]Maybe he did.

[00:16:27]He's [snorts] going to live with pain.

[00:16:29]He did reject and decided he was going to live with pain, yes.

[00:16:33]He's going to act like the saints. The pain became worse and worse day after day.

[00:16:43]And then finally, the man was about to pass out.

[00:16:49]And so, then they decided, "Okay, let's take him to the hospital."

[00:16:57]And either he agreed, but they took him.

[00:17:01]Because [clears throat] there's no obedience there.

[00:17:03]They had to agree on something. This time, Father Seraphim was even thinking, "Oh, we're in critical He's in critical condition." And he went into a coma. He had blood clots. He was in critical condition. And the doctors could have said, "Why didn't you bring him in here earlier? But now he's in critical condition." It is factual that Father Seraphim's conditions would have been treated um well well actually had a good chance to be treated if he was brought in earlier.

[00:17:33]>> And he went into a coma. And he's going in and out.

[00:17:39]Father Herman stays with him in the hospital.

[00:17:42]He comes out of the of a coma and sees Father Herman before him >> [snorts] >> next to his bed.

[00:17:56]And he looks at him and he says, "I curse you." Yes, you heard right. He said to his abbot, "I curse you. Get away from me." Now, Father Herman is in shock. And after he cursed him, he fell back into a coma and died. Father Herman now is in shock.

[00:18:19]And he goes running to one of his priests there close by uh who thinks like him.

[00:18:30]Who also did not have baptism.

[00:18:35]His name is Father Alexy Young.

[00:18:38]And he starts lamenting and crying.

[00:18:43]And he comes to him and he says, "I'm cursed. I'm cursed." A priest Okay, so couple of things here.

[00:18:52]Um Is that on public record? Yes, okay? Uh Do you want Is it believable? It's up to you, okay?

[00:19:02]Uh here's just what Father Herman actually told um Father Alexy Young.

[00:19:12]He himself told me that the very last words spoken by to him by Father Seraphim were, "I'm finished with you, damn you." So, it's not exactly what Hieromonk said, but it's still you know, I would say in the same magnitude, right? Cuz when you receive this type of language as last words for, you know, especially from a Hieromonk, that that's that's a pretty pretty serious thing.

[00:19:34]Father Alexy Young added his own commentary immediately afterwards.

[00:19:37]Father Seraphim's uncharacteristically angry words bespeak a mind deeply troubled over Father Herman's general behavior and suggest that there was more going on than any of us suspected at the time.

[00:19:49]By the way, those of you who don't know who Father Alexy Young he was actually he's actually one of the spiritual sons of Father Seraphim.

[00:19:57]So, at this time, Father Seraphim has gone through multiple surgeries, okay? And he was weak. He was he was in intense pain, okay?

[00:20:09]Now, if this is true, if this is true, Father Seraphim would not have died in peace or or forgiveness, okay?

[00:20:20]And now, why would Father Herman go to Father Seraphim's spiritual son to tell him about this? That's up to you guys to Those are, you know, evidence for you guys to consider how you want to take this, okay? But again, according to this is, you know, according to public record, okay?

[00:20:43]Now, if we look at saints who did endure it and died with pain, for example, the very very famous saint here actually, uh Father uh Saint Jacobus of Evia, okay?

[00:20:59]Now, he was clairvoyant, and he knew that his illness was terminal, okay? And he actually seek uh seek help also.

[00:21:09]He seek help, he fought the illness, and he was clairvoyant. He knew the illness was terminal. In Father Seraphim Rose's case, the illness was not terminal.

[00:21:19]And it also wasn't chronicle like the other saints who endured pain.

[00:21:24]>> [snorts] >> Now, me personally, I believe if this is the case that he's willingly allowing pain to torture him in a context that he should have survived, um and caused his own death by doing so, that would have been that would be a scandal, okay? That would be something that's going to be used against him when ROCOR, you know, really reviews all this stuff.

[00:21:57]But exactly what happened, we don't know. But this is what just This is just what the evidence tells us, okay?

[00:22:04]Now, we are going to Before we end this video, again, um we're in the church of God, we're in the house of God. We are told or we are taught to be honest. I know a lot of people like Father Seraphim Rose.

[00:22:18]Myself, I enjoy his writings, okay? I've not read most of it. I've read Religion of the Future and one of his sermons, okay? That's as much as I read from Father Seraphim Rose. And uh you know, as someone somebody who was involved in the the in- intellectual sphere, I think he's very very well written. He's very well um educated. Uh he writes like a fervent scholar.

[00:22:44]But um here here's the thing. We're going to talk about how the Orthodox Church canonizes saints, okay? Just so you guys have a reference. Now, yes, it begins with local veneration, you know, some of it unofficial icons, um report of miracles at the grave, that's one thing. But again, we're not Roman Catholics. Now, the Roman Catholic Church would be, okay, one miracle, this, you know, it's all about the amount of miracles. That's why we see see Sam Shamoun go the way he he goes.

[00:23:15]But we do local veneration, and once it gets to a certain point, which is now, >> [cough] >> and actually, believe it or not, it's been it's been at this point it's just, you know, ROCOR finally decided to review his life. So, the church is the local synod's going to review his life, okay? And this is act- People think this is like democracy.

[00:23:37]It's like enough people voted, he's a saint. No.

[00:23:40]So, the church really really examines a person's life, and this is a very strict process. They exhaust all options to make sure the person lives or lived a virtuous and godly life before, you know, they canonize him.

[00:24:03]Are there cases of mass local veneration or mass even worldwide uh veneration and the person's still not canonized? Yes. I mean, I'll give you I'll give you an example here, Father Raphael, the first um African-American priest.

[00:24:20]You know, he you know, he had some misconduct, but it was widely requested to be uh canonized, was not canonized.

[00:24:30]My own church, Milos Obilic, okay? He's he's the Serbian knight who slayed the um who went and assassinated the the sultan during the Battle of Kosovo.

[00:24:42]Serbian hero. If you go on Mount Athos, his icon is painted in the Serbian monasteries as Saint Milos Obilic.

[00:24:50]Uh not canonized, okay? So, that's a possibility.

[00:24:54]And I did say before, if I think if Father Seraphim someone like Father Seraphim Rose is to be canonized, it would be rather sooner than later. And exactly a few months later, um ROCOR's officially starting to to to begin this process of examining his life.

[00:25:10]Now, what do they look for when they examine the life of the person, okay? Now, martyrs are obviously a uh an exception.

[00:25:21]>> [sighs] >> Now, for example, with a priest, okay?

[00:25:26]He's going to be judged on the standard of a priest. Did he Was he, you know, obviously did he live a godly life?

[00:25:33]Okay, maybe a few miracles, healings, signs of May clairvoyance, maybe.

[00:25:39]Uh but did he suffer for his people?

[00:25:43]Was he a great pastor? Okay, how did he pastor the church?

[00:25:47]Um those are what they look for, okay? They don't No, like not They they don't look for, you know, saints calling fire down from the sky on every canonization process.

[00:25:59]Great example, Saint uh one of my favorite saints, Sophronius of of Jerusalem, who really, you know, there are some minor miracles, but he's really known for defending his flock against the against the Ottomans, right?

[00:26:11]Against the Muslim uh lunatics.

[00:26:14]So, he was canonized, you know, as a pastor, right? As as a bishop, as a priest, as a pastor.

[00:26:19]Now, as as a monastic, you're going to be examined on the uh on the terms of the monastic.

[00:26:28]For example, a common thing they look for was clairvoyance, clairvoyancy.

[00:26:33]Um writings, obviously his life, how he lived his his monastic life according to Orthodox uh standards, uh clairvoyancy is actually decently big one for monastics. And um you know, if you're higher monk, I guess there's the priestly elements in there.

[00:26:56]Now, the truth about Father Seraphim Rose is that he was not a clairvoyant, okay? He wasn't known to be clairvoyant.

[00:27:03]Now, there are people who say, "Oh, he had you know, he had like you know, miracles." And yeah, you know, honestly, my priest has that, too. So, that's not to be used, really. But what Someone who's a clairvoyant is, you know, he would be known as a clairvoyant at his time.

[00:27:18]And there were many who were known as, you know, clairvoyant in his time, you know, Elder Ephraim of Arizona, okay? Clairvoyant. And even today, we have clairvoyants as a Elder Paisios of Arizona, um obviously closer to me, uh Mother Markella, the beloved abbess of Northern California.

[00:27:38]Uh Father Seraphim did not have that reputation as a uh as a clairvoyant. He was known to be one or a confessor, okay? Obviously his sexual sins from earlier life.

[00:27:55]Um he's also known to be a fervent intellectual and writer.

[00:27:59]So, I you know, just speculations, those are the grounds that he's really going to stand out on throughout this process, which is um his writings, him being a theo- more of a, you know, theologian type of mindset, and being a confessor, obviously.

[00:28:22]Um Here are a few points of real contra- I don't even think that People say he's controversial, but I don't think the Toll House thing was a part of it cuz you know, mass majority of the the Russian Church accepts some sort of teaching like that. And you know, I would argue mass majority of the church accepts that, too. And you know, we see the Saint John Maximovich clearly also has a sermon on that, too. But really where he's controversial is you know, maybe some of the minor relationship he had with hierarchs, his death, okay? It's which which was a big one.

[00:28:58]And then that whole process of his death. And most And also his monastic life, which wasn't textbook standard in the in the Orthodox Church.

[00:29:09]Those are going to be the the big hang points, okay? We'll see what happens, you know? Obviously, the more saints we have, the better it is, right? We hope everybody becomes saints.

[00:29:22]Same hope we have for our Father Seraphim Rose.

[00:29:25]Um but actually, in in the same video here, I just thought about it. If you keep watching, and also, the other thing that could be used against Father Seraphim Rose during this process is the state of Platina being, you know, the [snorts] the abbot being deposed and fleeing the ROCOR jurisdiction.

[00:29:49]That's also going to be one of the big hold-ups for this process.

[00:29:54]Okay?

[00:29:56]Um although it's, you know, it's Father Herman's mostly we believe it's mostly Father Herman's conducts, but how much of it was Father Seraphim involved in that?

[00:30:07]We don't know. Okay, we really don't know at this point.

[00:30:10]Uh again, there are people who know, absolutely, and then we're hoping that the church would honor to give us, you know, the definite answer we're waiting for.

[00:30:20]And it is actually true that he, >> [snorts] >> you know, Father Seraphim actually gained more notice, and he's going to talk about this in the video. Video, I'm not going to play it. I don't have much time today. That he was actually made famous after he reposed, which is true.

[00:30:35]Um it was not until after Father Herman was received by the Serbians after he was deposed by ROCOR that he started to publish the work of Father Seraphim Rose, you know, collecting them um into books that made Father Seraphim Rose famous. But at his lifetime, he was known to be a very decent pastor, you know, a very renowned writer in in in the in the Orthodox sphere.

[00:31:09]Okay?

[00:31:11]With that said, I hope this information is um is helpful. I know that it's not everything you wanted to hear, okay?

[00:31:21]Uh but those are things to to think about, okay? Uh and people are not controversial because they're just controversial, you know, they're uh we're not accusing people here, you know, we're not saying whatever. We're I'm just giving you the facts, and again, we're responding to the True Orthodoxy takes on our people, which is interesting because they they they say that Patriarch Pavle of Serbia is is an ecumenist, and that's over one sentence he said, which was the seat of Rome was the first among equal. And that's enough to for them to call uh Patriarch Pavle an ecumenist, which is just totally ridiculous, by the way.

[00:32:01]Um with that said, again, I hope that this information was helpful. Again, everything I said, that's whether true or whatever, is based on purely public record.

[00:32:16]Okay? Uh and many of these things, if you really dig into it, it has so many different accounts of it.

[00:32:23]Okay, just we saw right here, there like the alleged uh Father Seraphim Rose's words to Father Herman, you know, there's different versions of it, right?

[00:32:36]But you know, can we use that and say that something similar happened? Maybe.

[00:32:41]That's up to you to interpret.

[00:32:43]With that said, God bless, and I will see you guys on the next