The holy metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov)

This article by Father Michel Evdokimov offers a biographical and spiritual portrait of Metropolitan Seraphim Tchitchagov (1856-1937), holy martyr of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized at the end of the twentieth century. Drawing on archives and testimonies gathered from the saint's granddaughter, who became an abbess, the author traces the multiple dimensions of an extraordinary life: artillery officer, practicing physician with a psychosomatic approach, reforming bishop and preacher, spiritual son of Saint John of Kronstadt, and a decisive figure in the canonization of Saint Seraphim of Sarov in 1903. The article highlights the theological coherence of a life entirely oriented toward the service of the Church, culminating in the martyrdom of 1937. Its principal contribution is to situate Tchitchagov at the crossroads of two great lineages of Russian holiness, thereby revealing the spiritual continuity that runs through the Orthodox tradition up to the era of Soviet persecution.