Hieromartyr Seraphim Chichagov

Hieromartyr Seraphim (born Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov) was born on June 9 (21), 1856, in Saint Petersburg, into an old noble family of Russian navigators and admirals. After graduating from the Corps of Pages, he served in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment and fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, earning several military decorations. On the counsel of Saint John of Kronstadt, he left military service, was ordained a priest in 1893, and in 1898 was tonsured a monk with the name Seraphim. As a priest, he compiled and published the "Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent," gathering accounts of the life and miracles of Saint Seraphim of Sarov; his work played a decisive role in Saint Seraphim's glorification in 1903. Consecrated bishop in 1905, he successively headed several dioceses, and from 1928 to 1933 governed the Leningrad (Petrograd) metropolia. Besides his pastoral labors, Metropolitan Seraphim was an accomplished iconographer, composer, and author of theological and medical works. In 1937, though elderly and gravely ill, he was arrested and, on December 11 (November 28, Old Style), shot at the Butovo firing range near Moscow. He was glorified by the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1997. His feast is kept November 28 (December 11).