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Father Seraphim Rose Biography
Born in 1934 and reposed in 1982, Eugene Rose spent
virtually his entire life in his native California, but his conversion from
agnosticism to Russian Orthodoxy, his writing and bookselling apostolates and
his embrace of the monastic life spread his influence literally worldwide - even
to Russia, which he never was able to visit - as a spiritual father for this
lost modern age.
After a conversion experience and baptism in a Methodist church at 14, young
Eugene later fell away from belief in God. With a keen, penetrating intellect,
which took him through Pomona College and graduate studies in Chinese
philosophy, even as an unbeliever, Rose saw through the superficiality of
secular American culture, even during the supposed ‘golden age’ of the
1950s. After briefly falling in with ‘beatniks’ and dabbling in Buddhism,
Rose discovered through the writings of René Guenon and others the need to be
grounded in an authentic spiritual tradition. That, the God-given restoration of
his faith and his providential first contact with Russian Orthodox in San
Francisco led to his reception into the Church through chrismation
(confirmation) in the Russian
Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) in 1962.
His bookselling apostolate with his Russian friend Gleb Podmošenskyj - the St
Herman of Alaska Brotherhood - led eventually to the decision to head into
the northern California wilderness to live as monks. Eugene became Fr Seraphim,
Gleb Fr Herman.
Like another disillusioned, brilliant modern seeker, Thomas Merton (whose fine
autobiography, The
Seven-Storey Mountain , Rose thought highly of), Fr Seraphim found peace
and solace in the Church and particularly as a monk. But he stayed the course
and was not led astray by the cultural upheavals of the late 1960s; indeed, his
thorough knowledge of Asian religion and philosophy helped keep him ‘immune’
to it since he already knew its failings when many others were fooled (one
famous Church leader went as far as saying ‘the spirit of the times is the
voice of God’).
Through his magazine The Orthodox Word (still being published by Fr
Herman) and his several books, including Orthodoxy
and the Religion of the Future , Fr Seraphim explained modernity and
what’s wrong with it, and that the way back is only through Christ and His
Church. He shows how the sequential errors of Western thought (rationalism,
Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment) have led to today’s mess, and
dissects various distortions and counterfeits of Christianity such as the charismatic/Pentecostal
movement (what Msgr Ronald Knox called ‘enthusiasm’, Fr Seraphim called
прелесть - prelest’,
a Russian word that here means ‘delusion’) and, more pervasive, secular
humanism or ‘Christianity without Christ’. He also discussed the end times,
including the coming of the Antichrist (modern society, with its blending
together of the religions - part of the great apostasy for Christians - and
‘one world government’ tendencies, is building his throne).
In The
Soul After Death, Fr Seraphim taught the traditional Russian Orthodox
pious beliefs about the form of the particular judgement right after death
(including the aerial toll houses where sins are assessed). 
In so doing he explained phenomena such as the astral plane (New Age)/Bardo
plane (Tibetan Buddhism), ‘out of body’ experiences (DON’T try them!),
‘near-death’ experiences - all these are of the same dimension where the
particular judgement happens - and even UFOs (he believed the ‘aliens’ are
really the demons of the aerial plane in modern guise).
Fr Seraphim died relatively young in 1982 as a priest and monk in ROCOR.
For a condensed version of all his writings, look through Fr Damascene
Christiansen’s 1,000-page biography, Not
of This World (now updated and re-released as Father
Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works).
Note to Catholics: It’s only fair to
warn you that as a member of ROCOR, Fr Seraphim held a ‘hardline’ Orthodox
view that denied that non-Orthodox sacraments and churches could in themselves
have grace and that asserted that Orthodoxy alone is THE Church. Having been
forewarned, you still can benefit from reading what he had to say, articulating
things about Western churches’ ‘cave-in’ to the spirit of the modern age
that you won’t hear from most ‘official’ Catholic sources (you will from
traditionalists, however). And Russian belief about the particular judgement
(the ‘toll houses’) in no way contradicts Catholicism, which leaves the form
of that judgement an open question.
‘Pray without ceasing; it’s later than you
think!’
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