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Conversation with Motovilov on the Aim of the Christian Life — Seraphim of Sarov

Traditional attribution · Essential works

Conversation with Motovilov on the Aim of the Christian Life

О цели христианской жизни. Беседа преподобного Серафима Саровского с Н. А. Мотовиловым

Retrato de Serafín de Sarov pintado en vida
bySeraphim of Sarov

In a snowy clearing by his hermitage, the elder answers the question Motovilov had asked since childhood: the aim of the Christian life is not prayer, fasting, vigil or almsgiving, which are means, but the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, likened to the accumulation of a capital 'of grace and eternal'; prayer is the means most to hand. When the young man asks how to know whether he is in the Spirit, Seraphim takes him by the shoulders and his face becomes 'brighter than the sun': Motovilov describes the light, peace, sweetness, warmth and fragrance he feels in the depth of winter. It is the most widely read text of modern Russian spirituality, the basis of Seraphim's iconography and of the interest of theologians such as Florensky and Lossky.

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Authorship note

Seraphim did not write it. It is the first-person account that Nikolai Motovilov (1809–1879) left in manuscript, at an unknown date of composition, of a conversation of November 1831. Sergei Nilus found it among the papers the widow gave him in 1902 and published it in 1903 in The Great in the Small, with an afterword dated 19 May; in later editions he removed some pages criticised as unorthodox. The manuscript has never been studied critically. Vsevolod Rochcau accepts the core of the episode but doubts its literal accuracy (density of quotation, ideas on animal souls foreign to the Fathers, Nilus's style).

Editions and translations

Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.

English

  • A Wonderful Revelation to the World

    Saint Nectarios Press, 1993

    ISBN 9780913026427

    42 pp.

  • A Conversation of Saint Seraphim of Sarov with N. A. Motovilov

    Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville (NY), 1962

  • Concerning the Aim of the Christian Life

    Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), Londres, 1936

Русский

  • Великое в малом (cap. «Цель жизни христианской»)

    1903

    Primera publicación, por Serguéi Nilus; la 2.ª ed. (Tsárskoie Seló, 1905) es la que cita Florenski (pp. 197–199).

  • О цели христианской жизни. Беседа преподобного Серафима Саровского с Н. А. Мотовиловым

    Azbuka very (edición digital)

    Texto completo con el epílogo de Nilus.

    View in store · Azbuka very (gratuito)

Español

Français

  • L'Entretien avec Motovilov — Seraphim of Sarov

    L'Entretien avec Motovilov

    Arfuyen, 2002

    Translation: Madame Mouraviev

    ISBN 9782845900103

    Prefacio de Michel Evdokimov (según Open Library).

    View in store · Éditions Arfuyen

Other works by Seraphim of Sarov

Sources

  • Nilus, Serguéi A. «Цель жизни христианской» [El fin de la vida cristiana], en Великое в малом, 1.ª ed., 1903; epílogo del editor fechado el 19 de mayo de 1903. Texto en Azbuka very.

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