26 Facts About Seraphim Rose

Seraphim Rose translated Eastern Orthodox Christian texts and authored several works.

Seraphim Rose's writings have been credited with helping to spread Eastern Orthodox Christianity throughout the West; his popularity equally extended to Russia itself, where his works were secretly reproduced and distributed by samizdat during the Communist era, remaining popular today.

Seraphim Rose's monastery is currently affiliated with the Serbian Orthodox Church and continues to carry on his work of publishing and Eastern Orthodox missionary activity.

Eugene Seraphim Rose was born on August 13,1934, in San Diego, California.

Seraphim Rose's father, Frank Rose, was a World War I veteran who operated the city's first "Karmel Korn Shop" together with his wife Esther Rose, Eugene's mother.

Seraphim Rose's ancestors had come to the United States from France, Norway and the Netherlands.

Seraphim Rose read with such clarity that I almost had the illusion that he was explaining things.

Seraphim Rose enjoyed opera, concerts, art, literature, and the other cultural opportunities richly available in San Francisco, where he settled after his graduation and explored Buddhism and other Asian philosophies.

At age 22 in 1956 and while he was still at Pomona College, Seraphim Rose came out as gay.

In 1962, Seraphim Rose was received into the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in San Francisco.

Seraphim Rose quickly distinguished himself to the bishop of San Francisco, John Maximovitch, as a serious and studious convert.

In March 1964, Seraphim Rose opened an Eastern Orthodox bookstore next to the Holy Virgin Cathedral on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco, which was under construction at the time.

Seraphim Rose's parents provided the down payment for a mountaintop near the isolated hamlet of Platina, where Seraphim Rose and some friends built a monastery named for Herman of Alaska.

Seraphim Rose wrote, translated and studied for the priesthood in his cell, a one-roomed cabin with neither running water nor electricity, where he would spend the rest of his days.

Seraphim Rose was ordained in 1977 by Bishop Nektary of Seattle, spiritual son of Nectarius of Optina, the last of the great Optina startsy.

Seraphim Rose spoke of the need for warmth and kindness of the spirit, especially when dealing with those with whom one disagreed, an increasing problem in Eastern Orthodoxy in America, and its conflict between so-called "traditionalists" and "modernists".

One can be firm, Seraphim Rose insisted, without having to compromise basic Christian teachings on lovingkindness, longsuffering, and mercy toward others.

Seraphim Rose composed and published dozens of other titles, including God's Revelation to the Human Heart, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, Nihilism: The Roots of the Revolution of the Modern Age, and The Soul After Death; all remain in print.

Seraphim Rose translated and printed Michael Pomazansky's Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, which remains a text for clerical students and laymen alike.

Seraphim Rose translated his books into Russian, and they were circulated widely as samizdat within the Soviet Union, although they were not formally published until after the fall of the Communist regime.

Seraphim Rose was one of the first American Eastern Orthodox Christians to translate major works of several church fathers into English.

Seraphim Rose had enormous struggles, enormous inner struggles, and he struggled with them in really great asceticism.

Seraphim Rose waded into the ongoing debate between Biblical creationism and evolution, asserting in Genesis, Creation and Early Man that Orthodox patristics exclusively supported the creationist viewpoint.

Seraphim Rose slipped into a coma after a second surgery, never regaining consciousness.

Several reputed miraculous events, healings and apparitions of Seraphim Rose have been reported around the world, commencing soon after his death.

Seraphim Rose continued to pray, telling Rose that it was beautiful in his monastery.