Hierarch Seraphim of Sofia

Saint Seraphim (Sobolev), Archbishop of Boguchar, born Nikolai Borisovich Sobolev on 1 (13) December 1881 in Ryazan into the family of a priest. He graduated from the Ryazan Theological Seminary and the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. In 1908 he took monastic vows with the name Seraphim and was ordained a hieromonk, later serving as inspector and rector of seminaries in Kostroma and Voronezh. In 1919 he was consecrated Bishop of Lubny, a vicariate of the Poltava diocese. After the Revolution and Civil War he emigrated with General Wrangel's army through Constantinople to Bulgaria, where from 1921 he led the Russian parishes in Sofia within the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. In 1934 he was elevated to archbishop of Boguchar. A noted theologian and staunch defender of Orthodoxy, author of "Russian Ideology," he firmly opposed ecumenism and modernist reform. In 1945 he and his flock returned to the Moscow Patriarchate. He served at the Russian St. Nicholas Church in Sofia until his death, revered by Bulgarians as a clairvoyant elder and wonderworker. He reposed on 13 (26) February 1950 in Sofia, where his relics rest beneath the church. He was glorified for church-wide veneration on 3 February 2016 by joint decision of the ROC Bishops' Council and the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.