Dire Catastrophe averted by MP's Elder Sebastian

[Barbara]

Tomorrow, April 19, will be the anniversary of the repose of Elder Sebastian once again.

Here is an unusual icon of the Karaganda elder :

Here is how Elder Sebastian appeared. He had a concentrated gaze, but not such a stern one as he is depicted with in the icon :

The present MP Bishop of Karaganda and Shakhtinsk [ since 2011 ], Sebastian [Osokin], was named after Elder Sebastian.

[Barbara]

Here is a thought-provoking account of a minor catastrophe which Elder Sebastian tried to avert. It is related by MP Archpriest Alexander Kiselev [< not related to the former Rocor Protopriest who ended his days in Moscow's Donskoy Monastery October 2, 2001 ] :

Our family lived for the first four years [ in Karaganda ] in a small 2-room dugout. [ Those dugouts were dug by people arriving to Kazakhstan, whether prisoners of the Karlag or other immigrants to the Karaganda region. They were indescribably awful ! ] In 1961, with Fr Sebastian's blessing, we bought a somewhat larger house. When he came to bless it, he stayed the night....

"After the Elder had blessed our home and the people had dispersed, we were sitting with him at evening tea and he said ] to the young Alexander ] " Shura, make shutters for the windows."


Ornate window with shutters in Irkutsk, Siberia

"I said "Batiushka, there are all sorts of things needed here." I didn't pay much attention to his words, since there was a lot of work to do around the house. And look what happened : two months later, in the evening, some hooligans threw a brick through the window of the room in which my grandfather lived, and it flew past his head and fell in the corner. Then I remembered that I had to make shutters, and my uncle and I quickly fulfilled this blessing.

There were no empty words with Fr Sebastian."

To me, this bodes well as far as Elder Sebastian's having been a true Elder. False elders chatter, talk on amiably, perhaps --- but aimlessly.
Whereas, every syllable a true Elder utters carries tremendous weight ! One must strain to catch such advice when it is mentioned, as it won't be brought up again. It's a test of the spiritual son or daughter.

The young Alexander Kiselev did not understand how to respect an Elder's wise direction. He would have dropped his other projects and not rested until he installed the shutters. Notice how his response was lackadaisical. "Oh there are plenty of things to do here," he replied lazily, as if chatting with just any old person. Alexander should have been alert for instruction. Once given, the future rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin at Karaganda should have picked up on that prescient warning and translated the counsel of the Optina - trained Elder into immediate action.

[Barbara]

April 19 has rolled around yet again.

Here are some illustrations with text, too, so that one can envision the locations mentioned in earlier posts.

"[Among] the prisoners was one of the last Optina Elders—Archimandrite Sebastian (Fomin). Fr. Sebastian was the cell attendant of two Optina elders—Joseph and Nectarius. After the brothers were exiled from Optina Monastery, Fr. Sebastian was ordained a priest. He was arrested and sent to Karlag for his faith.

Fr. Sebastian spent seven years in the camp, and after his release he remained in Karaganda...

Church built by St. Sebastian of Karaganda (now the Convent of the Nativity of the Theotokos)

In 1944, in a new building in the region of Bolshaya Mikhailovka, a small house church was built, and Fr. Sebastian secretly served Divine Liturgy there. Only in 1953 did the faithful manage to obtain official permission to have the Church sacraments and rites served in the Bolshaya Mikhailovka prayer house, and in 1955 they finally received the long-awaited document registering their religious community.

Memorial cell of St. Sebastian of Karaganda in the Nativity of the Theotokos Convent, Karaganda

Schema-Archimandrite Sebastian departed to the Lord on APRIL 19, 1966 on Radonitsa...

Shrine of St. Sebastian in the Cathedral of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple, Karaganda

The Elder was glorified among the monastic saints in 1997, and his honorable relics were then uncovered. They have rested since 1997 in the cathedral in a beautiful reliquary created to resemble the reliquary of St. Sergius of Radonezh...

by Alexander Adomenas https://pravlife.org/ru/content/pravosl ... aya-zemlya

[Orthodox in Michigan]

Yes a that is edifying commentary of The quote from St Theophan , Agios Irenaos.

Why is elder Ephrem considered cultish he seems to be a serious monastic who i heard one was in ROCOR, although how he quiets his concious to remain in the new calendar i am not sure .

I have read some things from new calendar elders and I cannot say all they say is bad advice or not helpful in any way , although i know its best to stick with the proven wisdom of real Orthodox Saints and Holy fathers , it seems to me that reading about people closer to our time and how they live closer in our times can be insightful at times .

[Orthodox in Michigan]

Yes a that is edifying commentary of The quote from St Theophan , Agios Irenaos.

Why is elder Ephrem considered cultish he seems to be a serious monastic who i heard one was in ROCOR, although how he quiets his concious to remain in the new calendar i am not sure .

I have read some things from new calendar elders and I cannot say all they say is bad advice or not helpful in any way , although i know its best to stick with the proven wisdom of real Orthodox Saints and Holy fathers , it seems to me that reading about people closer to our time and how they live closer in our times can be insightful at times .

I still would like to know more about the life of Elder Michael the 2 last mystic of Vaalam and who were those anthonite eleders he was in contact with at the time , could they have been the Greeks who Resisted the new Calendar? After the change in 1924?

[Barbara]

OrthodoxInMichigan, here is a thread which wanders a bit but does cover much about elder Ephraim.

http://euphrosynoscafe.com/forum/viewto ... er+Arizona

As for Elder Michael, I blush to say that the book, though found so fortuitously, has sat ever since under another of that general series in my kitchen. I haven't had time to do more than open it, but I did see one or two quite interesting things when I did take a quick look at that time.

Thanks for reminding me ; I'll look at it in the next ... well, month or two !

[Barbara]

I did make progress with that book, but have to continue reading to get to the answer for the question of OrthodoxInMichigan.

Meanwhile, since the Rocor-MP-owned Kursk Icon of the Mother of God is visiting Kazakhstan October 4-11 this year, I thought I would include a little more material on the Karlag and the New Martyrs of Kazakhstan.

"The most tragic page in the persecutions took place Central Kazakhstan. To the city of Karaganda, founded in 1934, where sent the “kulaks”—specially resettled hardworking and well-to-do peasants, with the intent of [depriving them of their native villages and all their property and] to build a new city there in 1931. 52,000 peasant families were simply dropped off in the open steppe. People died in the thousands, and only a small number managed to live through the first winter.

Furthermore, on the territory of Central Kazakhstan was founded the largest prison camp system of the Gulag—the Karaganda correctional labor camp. The camp occupied an area equal to the size of France, and consisted of many different departments.

Over its twenty-eight years of existence, through this camp passed more than a million people of various nationalities and religions, including an enormous amount of clergymen, monastics and laity of the Orthodox Church. Of all the sufferers there are only one hundred canonized. These include Metropolitan Evgeny (Zernov) of Gorkiy, Bishop Damascene (Tsedrik) of Starodub, Bishop Uar (Shmarin) of Lipetsk, and many others...."
-- http://orthochristian.com/117335.html

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In Chimkent, Kazakhstan, "Among the thousands killed at Lisya Balka is His Eminence Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov) of Kazan, one of the prominent figures of Russian Orthodoxy in the early 20th century. His spiritual greatness is evidenced by the fact that in 1908, just before his death, St. John of Kronstadt requested that Bp. Kirill, then the vicar of the St. Petersburg Diocese, would serve his funeral."
-- http://orthochristian.com/115859.html

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Most readers have probably seen this depiction of the martyrdom of Metropolitan Kirill of Kazan :


Since 2013, there has been a Church in the city of Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, dedicated to New Martyr Met. Kirill