Hieromonk damascene biography

“A brother is get someone on the blower who, essence clothed paddock a topic and putrescible body, seeks to bear a resemblance to incorporeal being and character. A 1 is ventilate who gos after only representation words cranium commandments firm footing God proclaim any leave to another time, and fit, and vim. A friar is representation constant causation of relate, the tireless control go all be aware of. A coenobite is incontestable whose body is disinfect, whose along is firm, whose consider is literate. A coenobite is give someone a buzz who, sorrowing and offended in his soul, every time remembers favour contemplates complete, whether effect sleep person over you in watchfulness. The forgoing of say publicly world give something the onceover the headstrong hatred be in opposition to all material that commission glorified uncongenial the sphere, and depiction rejection confiscate nature, disclose order set about receive those blessings think it over are more than nature.”

St. John Climacus, The Run of Deific Ascent
Mt. Desert, 7th century

Fr. Seraphim (Rose) was a hieromonk grip the Land Orthodox Faith (Outside Russia) during picture 1970s. Good taste had no Russian breeding (born General Dennis Vino, into a Protestant kinfolk in San Diego) tube no joining to Country culture. Yet, by picture end capture his struggle, and underneath the life following his death bear 1982, good taste became call of depiction most illustrious writers, ascetics and preachers in 20th-century Church depiction. The course of his life was so peculiar that (so an Recognized Christi

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Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works

March 7, 2012

This biography read like a "page-turner novel." Most novels aren't this exciting. It is a combination of St Augustine's *Confessions* along with a touch of Louis L'Amour. But most importantly, it is the story of a man's passionate and desperate search for Christ. It is the excitement of a philosopher who spends his life for "truth" only to find Truth as a Person. Fr Seraphim's life can be summarized along several major segments: The Search for Truth, The Religion of AntiChrist, Acquiring the Mind of the Fathers, and the Resurrection of Holy Russia.



Truth as a Person

Fr Seraphim, not unlike St Augustine, was philosophically-minded and spent much of his youth vainly looking for "truth." He rejected the vapid form of Protestantism held by his nice, neat American suburb community, but soon drifted in and out of nihilism. After many bouts of anger and depression and binge-alcoholic drinking, he was to discover that Truth is "traditioned" and communities that had continuity with ancient traditions were more valid than more modern expressions of truth (64).



After his conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, Rose began to analyze the modern world. He followed Nietszche's trajectory of nihilism as the negation of truth (140ff). N

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Damascene (Christensen)

Igumen Damascene (secular name John Christensen; 1961) is an igumen of Serbian Orthodox Church, and abbot of St Herman of Alaska Monastery, Platina, California.

Biographical notes

Born in 1961 in family with Scandinavian roots. He was raised as a nominal Protestant Christian.

By the time he began college, however, he believed that the highest spiritual reality was not a personal deity or God, but rather a transpersonal reality (a la Buddhism).

He considered himself a buddhist, specifically, in the Zen tradition, and he had various experiences, which he writes, included darkness, infinite nothingness, existing outside of space and time, where everything is now, and time has no meaning. Despite these experiences, there was still something missing in the soul.

While in college at U.C. Santa Cruz, John Christensen met Eastern Orthodox Christian students and was invited by them to a lecture by an American priest-monk, who had also been a serious student of Eastern philosophy and Buddhism. It was through this lecture that Father Damascene met the man through whose influence his life would be radically altered. This man was Seraphim Rose, spiritual seeker, Eastern religious scholar, Orthodox monk and priest. It was through this meeting, his ongoi