Introduction to the Writings
of Father Seraphim Rose

    “Everything in this life passes away—only God remains, only He is worth struggling towards. We have a choice: to follow the way of this world, of the society that surrounds us, and thereby find ourselves outside of God; or to choose the way of life, to choose God Who calls us and for Whom our heart is searching.”

—Fr. Seraphim Rose

    Fr. Seraphim Rose was the co-founder of St. Herman Press and the spiritual son of a great miracle-worker of our times, St. John Maximovitch. After an arduous and fervent search for truth among religions and philosophies both Western and Eastern, Fr. Seraphim found the end of his quest in Orthodox Christianity, in which his heart felt immediately at home. Becoming an Orthodox monk in the mountains of northern California, he broke the shackles of his times and penetrated into the heart of ancient Christian experience, reconnecting fragmented Western man with his lost roots and showing him the way of return to God.

    “Father Seraphim Rose was a lover of tradition who was also far ahead of his time. His inspiring life and thought deserve to be more widely appreciated.”

—Phillip E. Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial and The Wedge of Truth

    During the era when religion was being mocked and undermined by atheist governments, Fr. Seraphim spoke openly against the spirit of international godlessness. In the late 1970s, Fr. Seraphim’s works began reaching Russia from America and were translated and clandestinely distributed in typewritten manuscripts from one end of Russia to the other. In other Orthodox countries—especially those formerly dominated by Communism—Fr. Seraphim’s works also began to be widely studied. Today, with the advent of freedom, his works are being published openly in mass quantities in Russia and Eastern Europe, and are being talked about on television and radio.

    “Father Seraphim belonged to that breed of ascetics seldom seen today. He strove to assimilate spiritual understanding based on personal experience … and thus, when the time came to speak and write, he knew exactly what he was talking about.”

—Science and Religion, Russian periodical

    Through this man, modern America brings forth out of its own soil a harvest of ancient, mystical Christianity. It is a depth of Christianity that America as yet scarcely knows: hidden from all earthly tumult and vanity, and by nature not of this world (John 18:36).

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