Fr. Seraphim Rose. Orthodox Survival Course

Essential to understanding these difficult times is Fr Seraphim Rose’s and Father Herman Podmoshensky’s “Orthodox Survival Course”, a rare and most valued orthodox resource. Fr. Seraphim and Fr. Herman taught this course in the 70;s at the Platina monastery.

When reading, you should keep in mind that this is a transcript of the live oral speech of Father Seraphim, and not a written and slowly thought-out text.

Content:
Instead of a preface
Lecture 1
Introduction to the Orthodox World View
Lecture 2
The Middle Ages
Lecture 3
The Renaissance
Lecture 4
Enlightenment: Part 1
Lecture 5
Enlightenment: Part 2
Lecture 6
French Revolution
Lecture 7
Revolution in the Nineteenth Century
Lecture 8
Meaning Of Revolution
Lecture 9
Revolution
Lecture 10
New Religion
Lecture 11
Evolution
Lecture 12
Modern Art & Spiritualism
Lecture 13
Antichrist

Instead of a preface
(from the book about Father Seraphim “Not of This World”, compiled from the memoirs of Father Herman).

In the story n the summer of 1975, with the aim of giving their pilgrims a foundation in Orthodoxy, the fathers held a three-week course, naming it the "New Valaam Theological Academy" after St. Herman's settlement in Alaska. Four college-age men attended the course, all of them converts; and Fr. Herman accordingly gave an opening talk on not becoming a "crazy convert" but receiving Orthodoxy fully.

In the weeks that followed, Fr. Herman talked on Pastoral Theology and on literature "very revealingly," as Fr. Seraphim noted in a letter; while Fr. Seraphim gave an in-depth series of lectures on the development of Western thought from the Great Schism to the present. Fr. Seraphim's lectures were recorded, which resulted in over seventeen hours of tapes. For all the talks Fr. Seraphim wrote extensive outlines, organizing the vast historical and philosophical research he had done for The Kingdom of Man and the Kingdom of God. He called his lecture series a "Survival Course" because of his belief that, in order for people to survive as Orthodox Christians nowadays, they had to understand the apostasy, to know why the modern age is the way it is. In order to protect oneself, one must have an idea of the strategy of one's enemy. Fr. Seraphim also called his classes "a course in Orthodox selfdefense."

One of Fr. Seraphim's students recalls taking the course soon after his baptism: "Each day the novices and pilgrims gathered in the 'Tsar's Room.' When Fr. Herman and Fr. Seraphim began to teach, everyone instinctively hung on each word. Fr. Seraphim was not pedantic or flashy in his presentation. Everyone could understand him, for he spoke slowly, with much thought. "One of the by-products of our study was to read secular sources. We were driven to the Shasta County Public Library to check out many books. These were our texts."

Fr. Seraphim's course had behind it all the research that would go into any university course, and yet it provided something which could not be acquired in any university. "In universities today," Fr. Seraphim told his students, "one comes across people who have learned a great deal, who are like walking encyclopedias, and yet there is no unity to the knowledge, no point to it at all. It is better in that case to go slowly, aware of how much one does not know rather than simply to grasp learning for the sake of learning. There must be a direction to all this learning...

"Nowadays the very principle of such an education is almost lost in the world. You can't go to the university and obtain that kind of knowledge, since there everything is fragmented, divided up into different departments. The very idea of having knowledge which holds together is considered medieval superstition, backwards; and therefore one becomes a specialist in one particular sphere with a narrow point of view and does not know what the purpose of it all is.

Some of the great men, now gone, who were at Jordanville had this key, this principle of learning. We should make a special point of learning from them about the necessity of having a point of view, of making everything, all our learning, centered on a particular point. And that point, of course, is Orthodoxy, whose aim is the salvation of the soul."

For an Orthodox Christian in today's universities, learning from this point is, again, a matter of "survival." For example, a student without an Orthodox understanding of history may find himself at a loss if his teachers or peers tell him that "Christian civilization" is to blame for the current ecological crisis. He will not be aware that it is not Christianity itself, but the Western apostasy from it  day exploitation of nature.

At the end of the summer course, Fr. Seraphim recorded: "The four students of the 'New Valaam Theological Academy' give sermons at the skete on Gospel passages chosen for them. Final classes are held, and in the afternoon the 'graduation exercises,' with playing of the '1812 Overture.' The classes... have had a definite beneficial effect on all; but the application of this knowledge to life remains to be made."

The "New Valaam Theological Academy" was held again in the summer of 1977, and every summer after that. The sessions grew in attendance every year, but were only about half as long as the first one. The tongue-in- cheek aspect of it all the high-sounding name of "Academy," the "graduation exercises" and official-looking printed diplomas had all been designed by Fr. Herman. But what began as tongue-in-cheek eventually turned out to have some real significance. During Fr. Seraphim's lifetime, at least ten people (many of whom were converts) were ordained to clerical ranks with no other formal theological training than that of the "Academy." Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco, who wanted proof that the clergymen in his diocese were theologically trained in case someone should ask, took the Academy's diplomas very seriously. After all, they were documents!

At the end of each session, the fathers emphasized that the diplomas indicated not the end of the students' Orthodox education, but only the beginning. For the rest of their lives they were to build on what they had acquired, handing it back in the form of Christian activity. Many pilgrims, having first come to the hermitage as greenhorns in Orthodoxy, were given confidence to go out and do much in the ready harvest of the mission field. After Fr. Seraphim's repose, the Academy went "on the road" and graduated hundreds more people, over fifty of whom are now clerics. But perhaps the most far-reaching effects of that first "summer school" of 1975 will come from the lecture notes and tape transcriptions of Fr. Seraphim's "Survival Course".

Perhaps Fr. Seraphim never realized that his course could be so powerful. If the response of those who have had a preview is any indication, this work - this summer exercise of "organizing his thoughts" in order to educate four college-age boys - could be one of the most significant achievements of Fr. Seraphim's life.