The Life of Saint Herman

CHAPTER ONE

His Native Serpukhov

SAINT HERMAN came from the merchant class of Serpukhov, a city not far from Moscow. Serpukhov was an ancient city with an old fortress and many monasteries. It had been sanctified by the steps of the great Sergius, Wonderworker of Radonezh and foundation-layer of the Northern Thebaid of Orthodox monasticism. When the fame of St. Sergius had spread far and wide, Prince Vladimir of Serpukhov, desiring to have a monastery near his city, asked the Saint to come himself and choose a suitable place for a monastery, leaving one of his disciples as abbot. The Saint chose his beloved disciple, whom he had tonsured himself with the name of the Athonite c;nobiarch Athanasius, and came with him to Serpukhov. Going about the vicinity, he found a beautiful place greatly to his liking on a high cliff overlooking the river, and he consecrated it for the future monastery. Having received the blessing and wise instruction of his Abba, St. Athanasius remained here, and soon there sprang up and blossomed a new and glorious branch of the monastic tree of the great Sergius. St. Athanasius was a man of learning, highly educated for that time. In his solitary cell he occupied himself with the copying of sacred books, and he took spiritual instruction from the great Holy Fathers, St. Basil the Great, St. Isaac the Syrian, and many others. Once there came to his cell a young boy who gently knocked at the door. St. Athanasius, opening the window a little, asked what he wanted. Finding out that the boy wanted to be made a monk, he said: "You cannot be a monk: monasticism is a great thing; you are young, and the rules of the elders are great. Many have come here but have become lazy and have not endured the difficulties of fasting and continence and have fled. Monks are called voluntary martyrs; but many martyrs, having suffered for a short time, have received their end, while monks their whole life long endure sufferings; even though they have not received wounds from torturers, yet by enduring warfare from the flesh and battling with mental enemies they suffer to their last breath. Therefore, my son, if you wish to serve the Lord, prepare your soul so as to endure with patience all the temptations and sufferings inflicted by the enemies." The boy fell to the Elder's feet and could scarcely utter: "Have mercy on me! The great Abba, the blessed Sergius, sent me to you so that you might clothe me in the monastic habit." Hearing this, the Saint said: "Arise, child. Now your desire is fulfilled." And having performed prayer, he clothed Nicon in the monastic habit. And Nicon began to live in Serpukhov, in the monastery of St. Athanasius, and he attained to a high spiritual life in God, so that he was enabled to become the successor of the great Sergius himself.

The life of St. Herman begins in this same Serpukhov, where he passed his childhood in the shadow of St. Athanasius' Vysotsky Monastery under the protection of St. Sergius. Like St. Nicon, from early childhood he had great zeal for pious life, and already at the age of 12 we shall see him in Sarov Monastery, living in the dense Sarov forest in the cell of the ascetic-elder Barlaam. The protection of St. Sergius is visible for the whole length of his life: at the age of 16 he was in the St. Sergius Hermitage on the Gulf of Finland; on the feast of St. Sergius he stepped upon the earth of distant Alaska; and he died like St. Sergius, in a shining of unearthly light amid the fragrance of heavenly incense.

St. Herman was born in Serpukhov in a pious merchant family probably in 1757, or a little earlier. Judging from the notes of his close friend and fellow ascetic in Sarov and Sanaxar, the later Archimandrite Theophanes, his name in the world was probably Gerasimus. His family was very pious; it is known that one of his relatives finished her days in the Convent of the Theotokos of the Passion in Moscow, leaving behind some treasured letters of St. Herman from Alaska. His surname is not known.

The merchant class at that time was distinguished by its special devotion to the Church. Its whole way of life was penetrated through and through by profound, age-old Orthodoxy, and it had preserved the ancient traditions of iconography and Znamenny chant, and the patriarchal customs and traditions. Although Russia in the 18th century had already been subjected to a powerful alien influence from the West, the merchant class was still untouched by it, and every aspect of life in Serpukhov, which was close to the ancient capital of Moscow, breathed the air of Holy Russia. In every merchant family with any means at all there were to be found such books as the Bible, the Lives of Saints, the Prologue of daily edifying readings, and collections and works of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church. These books were no dead capital, either, but were zealously read, and each new generation found instruction in them and drew lessons for life from this pure source. Reading and writing were learned from church chanters, beginning with the Horologion and the Psalter, which disposed the soul from an early age to assimilate easily that which is elevated and truly beautiful, making it for the rest of one's life something deeply desired and natural. Therefore, life was naturally lived in the fear of God, with reverence toward parents and elders, its rhythm governed by the Church feasts and fasts, and not by cold laws and eternally changing fashions. Life proceeded in quietness, in concentration and seriousness, in sufficiency and yet with a harmonious yearning for the beautiful and true, for what is above.

There exist exact descriptions of life in Serpukhov at that time, written perhaps by relatives of St. Herman himself. Families were large, with the grandfather at the head and all the generations living together. Everyone arose with the sound of the bell for Matins. Not a single feast, with its All-night Vigil of many hours, was missed. After the feast-day Liturgy and the common festive meal, everyone sat down and would sing with contrition the "Psalms," or religious songs based mainly on the Psalter, with titles like "O Lord, he that dwelleth in Thy dwelling," "My soul doth strive to offer praise to the Master Almighty," "Oh, woe is me a sinner, woe to me who have no good deeds." The singing would be harmonious, without haste, and often with tears of contrition. Passersby would stop and listen, and the spiritual content of these songs would be poured into their souls. Worldly songs, however, were avoided, as unbefitting Orthodox Christians. The children, of course, took an active part in all of this, and their minds would be elevated and take wing, being inspired with spiritual reality. Frequent visits of pilgrims with their tales of holy places, contact with the God-fearing clergy, encounters with fools for Christ's sake, who fought against the fallen logic of this world all left a powerful impression on young souls. And so the heart of the pious little St. Herman became filled with zeal for God.

In the Vysotsky Monastery in these years there was living a pious monk, Hierodeacon Joel, a relative of the future Optina Elders, the brothers Moses and Anthony Putilov. Many would come to visit this elder of holy life, bringing gifts, and he would reward them with loving spiritual conversation and a fond affection for the children, so that the latter would visit him with joy and reverence and be involuntarily edified.

The nearness to Moscow and the Lavra of St. Sergius could not but attract pilgrims from Serpukhov, and of course they would often visit the holy Monastery. This would be a great event in the life of the children, and especially for such chosen ones of God as St. Herman. The pilgrimage would be made without fail on foot, a labor of love for St. Sergius, who was venerated from one end to the other of the Russian land. The shrine with the incorrupt relics, the magnificent churches, the whole choirs of monks would strike the young pilgrims with their other-worldliness, and tales of the beginning of the Monastery, taken from the Life of St. Sergius, would inspire young souls and draw young imaginations to thoughts of desert-dwellers, dense forests with wild animals, and holy monasteries far from the ways of this world. Celebrated at that time as such a monastery, with a strict and holy life, was Sarov. The soul of the young St. Herman was already striving toward this desert place where he was to become a young hermit. Perhaps he had an uncle or some other relative there, but in any case a twelve-year-old boy is not easily accepted into a monastery, much less such a strict one as Sarov. Therefore, we can readily conclude that this child already had upon him the seal of one of God's chosen ones when he was allowed to live in the forest of Sarov as cell-attendant of the Elder Barlaam, whose kinship to St. Herman is unknown to us.

And so the young St. Herman, like St. Nicon 400 years before him, went as a boy to live in the forest with an Elder and learn the monastic life.

 
MONKS WALKING IN THE INNER COURT OF ST. ATHANASIUS' MONASTERY OF SERPUKHOV
An old engraving from the Pochaev RUSSIAN MONK, 1911

 
St. Sergius calls St. Athanasius to found a monastery in Serpukhov
A fragment from the Document given for the foundation of the Vysotsky Monastery


NEXT CHAPTER: THE SAROV DESERT-DWELLER.