Sampson Seavers
Sievers is one of the most controversial figures in the history of modern Christian society. His admirers and followers are fighting to confer sainthood on the elder, and critics and denouncers call him an obscurantist and a heretic. Who is he really: a saint of God or a fake miracle worker?
Hieroschemamonk Sampson (Sievers)
The root of the disagreement goes deep into the thorny life path of the old man, and like a coin, it has two profiles: the front - official and the back, a mysterious “tails”, revealing dubious facts in the biography of Father Sampson.
Who is Hieroschemamonk Sampson Sivers
The life of Sampson Sivers, like his road to the rank of hieroschemamonk, was filled with events and difficult trials. The elder was deprived of his freedom, sentenced to death, and was stricken with debilitating diseases. Sampson preached the teachings of Christ, but often changed the interpretation in his own way, and used methods and rituals that ran counter to Christian church foundations.
The monk's actions and sermons caused bewilderment and caused a double perception of his personality and contribution to the development of Orthodoxy. Some clergy patronized Sampson, others demanded his expulsion from the church and defrocking. Sampson has many defenders among believers, who assure him of his holiness and miracle-working during his life and after death.
Origin
Sampson Sievers, born in June 1900 into an Anglican family living in Petrograd, received the name Eduard Esperovich Sivers. The boy's father had the rank of colonel and was listed as an adviser and friend of Emperor Nicholas II. The Sivers surname, as a sign of a well-known count family, did not have documentary evidence of the family’s involvement in the title of nobility.
As an infant, Edward was baptized into the Church of England. His mother instilled an interest in religion in the boy. Later, he visited Orthodox churches alone, took a keen interest in monastic life and defined Orthodoxy for himself as the only existing truth.
Having matured, the young man graduated from a Reformed school at the German church, then studied at the Petrograd gymnasium. At the age of 18, Edward converted to Orthodoxy, receiving the name Sergius in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh.
Life and service to God
Information about the further life of Sergius, who came to the Orthodox faith, varies. According to biographical data, in 1918 he became a novice at the Krypetsk St. John the Theological Monastery, where he arrived to familiarize himself with life and service in the monastery. In the monastery the monk was named Alexander in honor of Prince Alexander Nevsky.
Soon the novice, who was part of the royal family during his childhood, was arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad. The sentence was carried out on the celebration of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The bullet intended for the monk passed through his right shoulder. The wounded man was shell-shocked and fell dead. Later, the body was picked up by the monks, dressed in the uniform of a Red Army soldier and taken to his mother’s house.
The interrogation report from 1932 states that at the age of 18 the young man enlisted in the Red Army. In 1919, he was seriously wounded in the right shoulder and suffered a concussion in the battles near Gatchina.
The wounded man was sent for treatment to the Semenovsky hospital in Petrograd, where he underwent 8 operations. The condition complicated the development of gangrene, but doctors managed to save the young man’s life. He underwent further treatment and rehabilitation in the city of Tikhvin within the walls of the Tikhvin Monastery. The consequence of the injury was neurasthenia, and the functionality of the hand remained only 15%.
Tormented by doubts, the patient, while in the hospital, applied to join the Communist Party, but later, having strengthened his faith, he did not follow through with the matter. In the hospital, a decisive meeting in the young man’s fate took place with Bishop Alexy, who accepted him as a subdeacon.
At the age of 22, under the patronage of Alexy, Sivers was assigned to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, where he entered the path of monasticism and was named Simeon. A year later, Simeon Sivers became a hierodeacon.
In February 1935, Father Simeon was arrested in the case of the Leningrad branch of the TOC and sentenced to three years of exile in the camps. Having been freed, Sivers was ordained in Tambov to the rank of hieromonk.
Crowds of women came to Father Simeon for confession. Many came for absolution from other cities. In 1936, Sievers, who admitted to hosting believers in his apartment, was arrested again.
During 6 months of imprisonment, Simeon wrote 9 statements, some of which renounced his religious rank and title. As a result, Sivers was sentenced to 8 years in labor camps. Since 1946, he continued to serve in Orthodox churches in Stavropol, then in the Penza diocese and in a monastic monastery near Poltava, receiving the patronage of Archbishop Sergius Larin. Archbishop Sergius recommended Simeon to serve in the Kazan Cathedral in the city of Stalingrad, where he was appointed priest.
During this period, the actions of Father Sievers were harshly condemned. Simeon was accused of intimate relationships with the women who visited him, sinful cohabitation with some of them, a passion for mysticism and careerism.
Sivers was dismissed from the cathedral with a ban on priestly service for a period of 15 years, which he served within the walls of the Odessa monastery. According to the official version, Simeon was sent in 1958 to the Pskov-Pechersk monastic monastery to attract young people to Orthodoxy. According to other evidence, Sivers was expelled from the Odessa monastery in 1963 for attempting to seduce a parishioner, after which he left for Moscow. In 1966, called Sampson, he accepted the schema.
Demise
In his old age, Hieroschemamonk Sampson Sivers suffered from severe neurological and heart diseases and the consequences of pulmonary tuberculosis. The elder died in 1979 in Moscow.
Reverend Sampson the Host
Memory June 27 / July 10
St. Sampson the Stranger
(MP3 file. Duration 4:59 min. Size 2.4 Mb) Read by Hieromonk Ignatius (Shestakov)
Saint Sampson lived in the 6th century. He came from a noble Roman family, probably related to the descendants of St. Constantine the Great. He comprehended all the wisdom of his time, and in particular studied medicine a lot, to which he was drawn by his penchant for compassion. Sampson could not look at suffering and poverty with indifference, so in his home he received all the sick and poor he met, mercifully providing them with the necessary care, as well as consolation in prayer and faith.
After the death of his parents, he gave away his enormous wealth. Being finally free from all earthly attachments and wanting to avoid praise from people, he went to Constantinople. There he settled in a poor house and devoted himself to prayer in silence. At the same time, Sampson did not give up his charitable activities: he collected the sick and treated them free of charge[1]. He especially cared for those suffering from incurable illnesses and those whom other doctors refused to treat: lepers, the paralyzed, the blind, and the possessed.
The fame of Reverend Sampson spread throughout the city, and his house became a refuge for the desperate.
At the age of thirty, Sampson was ordained to the priesthood by the holy Patriarch Mina [Aug. 25][2], who highly valued his godly deeds. The saint cured Emperor Justinian (527-565) from a serious illness, who had already lost all hope in doctors. Justinian received a command in a dream to call the saint to the palace. It was enough for him to lay his hand on the sore spot for the emperor to be immediately healed. But the monk wanted to avoid praise, and therefore applied a little ointment so that this miracle would not be attributed to his virtue. The emperor did not know how to thank St. Sampson, and wanted to shower him with gold, but the saint sent the gifts back with the words: “Why are you giving me what I rejected out of love for Christ?” Instead, he suggested that Justinian use the money to build a hospital next to his hut in order to receive the sick and poor with dignity. The Emperor gladly agreed and commissioned the workers who had just completed the construction of Hagia Sophia to build a large magnificent building to the north of the Great Church, which became known as Sampson's Hospice House.
Subsequently, the saint led this hospital with unparalleled dedication. He served his suffering brothers with the readiness of an Angel standing before the Most High. Numerous professional doctors worked in the hospital, and monks cared for the sick. The emperor granted generous donations to this wonderful institution not only to support the workers, but also to generously distribute food and clothing to wanderers and the needy.
St. Sampson devoted many years to these apostolic works and died peacefully at a very old age. His holy relics were buried in the church of St. Mochius. Here, on the day of memory of the Monk Sampson, the doctors of Constantinople, who revered him as their patron saint, organized a solemn religious procession. In the Hospice House, his staff, stole and priestly vestments were revered.
Subsequently, thanks to the invisible help of the saint or his appearances, many miracles and healings occurred in the Hospice House. Soon after the death of the monk, a terrible fire that started in Hagia Sophia destroyed all the surrounding houses and spread to the roof of the hospital.
It seemed that the servants of the institution and volunteers were trying in vain to put out the fire, when suddenly they saw the monk walking along the roof and authoritatively commanding the fire to go away. So the shelter was saved from destruction.
The sick came to the grave of the Reverend Sampson to spend the night there; they kissed his icon and anointed themselves with oil from the lamp that burned over the grave. Often the Monk Sampson appeared to them alone or accompanied by the unmercenary saints Cosmas and Damian and bestowed healing.
From the book “Synaxarion: Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church,” published by the Sretensky Monastery Publishing House.
Compiled by Hieromonk Macarius of Simonopetra, adapted Russian translation by Sretensky Monastery Publishing House
Posthumous miracles of the hieromonk
The flow of believers turning to Father Sampson did not stop after his death. People come to the elder’s grave at the Nikolo-Arkhangelskoe cemetery in Moscow and ask for help.
Believers testify that Sampson posthumously helps them with the following requests:
- healing from bodily illnesses;
- getting rid of bad habits and addictions;
- gaining peace of mind;
- resolving difficult life situations.
People praying at Sievers' grave report that they received healing from illnesses in hopeless cases when medicine was powerless.
“Miracles” happening at the grave of the “elder”
Hieroschemamonk Sampson (Sievers)
The look of the old man from the photograph is piercing and unpleasant. This is what they say: looks straight into the soul. Despite the disapproval of church authorities, people pray to him as a saint. Photographs and icons depicting the elder, the text of the akathist and prayers are sold in abundance in one candle shop at the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery, where the elder is buried. The flow of believers to his grave does not diminish.
People claim miracles that happened to them through prayers to Father Sampson, and many of these testimonies belong to clergy. Especially often people who are considered possessed are brought to the tomb. They say that such people cannot even approach the grave: they scream and fight back, as if the spirit of evil living in their bodies senses the holiness of the place and the remains of the old man.
However, the Church does not officially recognize Hieroschemamonk Sampson’s right to be called an elder, much less a saint. Here is what Archpriest Dimitry Shushpanov says about this:
“...what about the “miracles” happening at Sampson’s grave? A miracle in itself is not a sign of holiness, for miracles are performed by shamans of pagan religions, and Buddhist lamas, sorcerers and psychics. A miracle only testifies to the fact that existence is not reduced to matter, and beyond its boundaries there is a spiritual world. But this world is not homogeneous.
Fallen spirits can also work miracles, and therefore a miracle must be considered in the context of other criteria. But as we saw above, there is no reason to consider the intravital and posthumous “miracles” of Sampson (Sievers) as originating from God.”
According to some clerics, Sievers lost the right to clergy when, in 1936, he renounced the religious order and the privileges attached to it in writing. Since ancient times, eldership in Rus' has been revered as a unique type of holiness that a person receives through the will of the Lord.
During his lifetime, Sievers was accused of performing rituals of “exorcism of demons” as a shaman , “spitting, whispering, etc. on used objects of worship.”
Thus, a natural question arises whether Sievers can be considered an authoritative spiritual leader, because the path he teaches to follow may not lead to Christ at all.
Is it possible to read prayers and akathists
Believers turn their prayers to the saints, and since Hieroschemamonk Sampson is not counted among them, he should not pray. The texts of the prayers and akathists to it are not canonical and are not approved by the Church.
To date, there is no genuine generally accepted version of the biography of Hieromonk Sampson. Even among clergy there is no consensus about the identity of Sivers.
Some call him an impostor and self-saint, claiming that he tonsured himself into the schema, others testify to his help and intercession, adding that they believe the miracle that happened more than all the archival data. Only one thing remains an indisputable fact - the person of Sivers, like Grigory Rasputin, is too ambiguous to judge quickly and superficially.
Galina Bocharova
Canonization of an elder - pros and cons
Sivers received the name Sampson during his tonsure into the great schema in honor of the venerable elder, known in Orthodoxy as Sampson the Host. Almost 20 years after his death, the followers of the hieroschemamonk drew up a petition for the canonization of Sampson Sivers.
The grounds for the appeal were:
- many years of service to God;
- attracting young people to Orthodoxy;
- evidence of the elder's gift of foresight of events during his lifetime;
- confirmation by believers of the facts of miraculous healing of diseases.
Having considered the appeal, available materials and documents, the commission made a negative decision. The reason for the refusal of canonization was ambiguous biographical facts and contradictory testimonies of priests.
