The newly-canonized saint, Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) of Boguchar (Bulgaria), has been known by the faithful since his lifetime as a defender of the Orthodox faith in the face of various new trends decisions that faced the Orthodox Church worldwide during the very complicated twentieth century. For those who are not familiar with his life, we reproduce here a biography from Orthodox America posted on ROCA.org.

From my mother’s womb

Thou art my Protector.
(Ps. 70:6).

Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev)

The age-old enemy of our salvation, as if sensing in advance what a powerful and implacable adversary he would have in the person of Vladyka Seraphim, tried to destroy him while still in his mother’s womb. She had an extremely difficult and painful labor, and the doctors determined it would be necessary to operate-to extract the infant piece by piece in order to save the mother’s life. At this moment she regained consciousness and, on learning of the doctor’s decision, with an oath forbade her husband to permit the murder of her child. The next morning, at the first stroke of the church bell on December 1, 1881, she successfully gave birth without any outside help. When she saw the baby, she exclaimed, “Oh, what a serious mukhtar!” The infant was named Nicholas in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, but his family sometimes called him “mukhtar,” an apparently senseless word which he disliked terribly. Years later, Bishop Nestor of Manchuria visited Vladyka Seraphim in Sofia. He presented him with a book of his memoirs, in which, in the chapter about his visit to Jerusalem, it said that the word mukhtar means “bishop” in Arabic. And so, not realizing it herself, his mother had foretold the destiny of her newborn child.

Nicholas was an excellent student and, after attending the local parish school, he entered the seminary. There, in the second to the last year, he decided to devote his life to God. With tears he began to pray fervently and made this vow to the Saviour, “My Saviour! Help me to write my compositions well, and I promise to be a monk and belong to Thee with every fibre of my being.” From that time on, his compositions were always the best in the class.

When he finished seminary, his mother, considering his health too weak to study at the Academy, tried to arrange for him to become a priest. To this end it was necessary to find a fiancée. Loving his mother and never opposing her in anything, Nicholas submitted entirely to her will and even was silent about his vow to become a monk. Suspecting nothing, his mother began arranging a marriage for her son, and in one summer they visited several towns and villages in search of a suitable bride. But such was not God’s will, and every time the matchmaking fell through, often in a completely incomprehensible way. Finally, in the middle of August, 1904, she said, “All our efforts concerning your marriage and setting you up as a priest have come to nothing. Now you arrange your own future.”

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