Remembering Vladyka Seraphim

I picked up the phone on Tuesday evening to call an old friend, someone that I’d only met in person a couple of times, but with whom I’d had a friendship for over twenty years. Instead of the familiar voice, I got a recording telling me “your party is not available… please leave a message after the tone”. Something hit me here as very odd, but I plowed ahead, “Vladyka, it’s Katja in Wisconsin. I’m just calling to say ‘hi’ since it’s been awhile. I hope you’re doing well. Okay, talk to you later…” (I always feel like I sound so dumb on recordings.)

I clicked the button to disconnect the phone, and that odd feeling caused me to pick up my laptop from the chair I was sitting in and do a search on my friend’s name.

The announcement from the Orthodox Church in America is pretty straightforward, beginning with the fact that triggered the posting in the first place: “His Grace Bishop Seraphim (Sigrist), former Bishop of Sendai, fell asleep in the Lord on February 6, 2026.” The post continues to “hit the highlights” of a very interesting man; someone who converted to Orthodoxy in the 1960s, served the Church for nearly two decades in Japan, including becoming a bishop there, then returning to the US, where he both taught at a university, and, later worked in a university library.

When I first crossed paths with Vladyka Seraphim, it was just as I was coming into the Orthodox Church. Back then, we both had LiveJournal accounts. Back then, one of the things that made LiveJournal stand out from Blogger or Blogspot or Typepad was that in Livejournal, one could join (or set up) interest communities. For a time there, the Orthodoxy community was one of the best places online for those of us English-speakers (most of whom were American) to connect with other people in or interested in the Orthodox Church. At a time when most parishes didn’t have many converts, and when many of us really felt “different” for not being ethnically Orthodox (especially when there were more parishes that did not use English), the LiveJournal group was a little place where we could talk and ask questions and share news and prayer requests and what-have-you.

Back then, nearly all of us were in our twenties. But there was one regular who was not. Seraphim Sigrist. It didn’t take me long to understand that he was some sort of Orthodox clergy, but it was probably a couple of years before I actually realized that he was an actual retired bishop and longer still to comprehend what that rank means in the Orthodox Church. He was often referred to as “Vladyka” in discussion, and as I finally did come to the realization that he was a bishop, I started doing so as well. “Vladyka” means “master” or “lord” in Old Church Slavonic, which was appropriate to his rank, but being in the US, where English had superseded whatever “pona shomu” a certain church congregation had spoken, retaining “Vladyka”, for many, carried with it a level of endearment as well. So, despite the fact that Bishop Seraphim was not Russian, and had been a bishop in Japan, he was ever and shall always be “Vladyka”.

In any case, Vladyka’s presence in the group was one of the things that made it as good as it was. It certainly helped to have real clergy there to help steer people away from weird interpretations and ideas. When he was asked questions, nothing was too basic or silly, and nobody was made to feel dumb for asking. He was forty years ahead of most of the rest of us in this journey into Orthodoxy, but he was willing to come back again and again for us newbies, and he did it with true kindness as well.

His own journal, which he kept writing in for close to 25 years, was an eclectic mix of things that he found interesting or beautiful. There was a fair amount about the charity organization that he worked with in Moscow (Hosanna) as well as information about Orthodox people, including Fr. Alexander Men, Fr. Alexander Schmemman, and Fr. Thomas Hopko, to name a few. A lot of his blog, though, consisted on thoughts and ruminations on the world, often sparked by experiences or conversations with friends, by random beauty, and by photography, paintings, and poetry. Many, many posts had some subtle humor and wit embedded in the text. There were many times I felt way out of my depth with what was being written about, but if I would comment, any response I’d get was incredibly kind.

It’s almost impossible to overstate how involved I got with LiveJournal back in the day. One of the results of this was that across two continents, four countries, and twenty years, I have probably met something like thirty people from Livejournal in real life (and am actually planning to meet 1-3 more in the next month or so). Wouldn’t you know it, but the day came where Vladyka and I would be in the same city at the same time. And that time and place ended up being Moscow in September 2007. I happened to be in Russia to celebrate what would have been Alexander Schmorell’s 90th birthday, and my visa allowed me to take some time in Moscow besides the festivities in Orenburg. Vladyka was in Moscow, I believe, to spend some time with the Hosanna charity that he was involved with. One of the things that struck me, meeting him in person, was how jovial he was; he wasn’t making the world a laughing matter, to be sure, but the attitude, almost, that life is too short to take too much super-seriously was palpable. That perspective made it much easier to adjust plans when things didn’t go quite right, which, of course, happened that day in Moscow. It was a great day; we had lunch together at a restaurant, then we travelled to another part of the city so that he could show me Hosanna and have me meet people over there.

We would meet again about a year later, this time because my work took me to New York City. Without getting too much into the details of the trip, meeting with him was actually part of the itinerary, and it was complete joy. That has been my one and only trip to New York City, and it really struck me how much Vladyka Seraphim seemed to be energized by being in such a place. One of my favorite memories from that trip was getting a ride from St. Vladimir’s Seminary in Yonkers back to, I think, Columbia University in the city. There were five of us; me, Vladyka Seraphim, the man whose project I was assisting with which is why I was on the trip, and two priests. The car was cozy, to be sure, and I was sitting in the middle of the backseat. It was a gorgeous day, and the car was filled with sunlight, but it wasn’t overpowering. Soon after we got underway, the two priests and I ended up singing Simon & Garfunkel songs together. It was a really special moment, and although Vladyka didn’t sing with us, it was obvious that he was enjoying the moment immensely. In that car, there were five Orthodox people – three members of the clergy, a theologian, and me. Were we discussing nuances of Orthodox theology? No. Were we taking turns reading Psalms? No. We were singing Simon & Garfunkel because it was a beautiful day in New York. However, you can’t convince me that the Holy Spirit wasn’t with us in that car that day.

It’s funny; over the last few years, there has been a huge influx of people coming to the Orthodox Churches in the United States, interested in finding out what it’s about. Even if half of these people stay, this is going to mean a huge shift in the demographics of the Orthodox Church in years to come. (Fr. Andrew Damick has a recent video on this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mctrleKYA4 ) Back when I became Orthodox in 2002, there were beginnings of where to have parishes with converts wasn’t such a strange thing. These days, there are no shortages of books and merchandise and whatever you want that is specifically Orthodox, but even in 2002, when I had my library job, it wasn’t hard to keep up with Orthodox books and what was new in the English-speaking Orthodox world because there just wasn’t that much. But because now there is so much more, it’s easier for someone to really wrap the idea of being Orthodox around them with the stuff that they read, the clothes they wear, the people that they communicate with. But to be an American convert in the 1960s?! Just to keep one’s mind sane, one would really have to really have a good head for taking in the good wherever it was going to be found, regardless of whether it had an “Orthodox Sticker of Approval” on it.

Anyway, probably back around 2006, Vladyka Seraphim made a little comment, probably in jest, about no one calling him. A couple of months later, I called him out of the blue, just because I’m a little crazy like that. (His number was published by the OCA website, so I wasn’t pulling any “stalker girl” stuff here.) Over the years, when I’ve gotten Christmas cards mailed, he’s sometimes been on the list. I dropped off of LiveJournal for the most part as life got busy, but something would happen, like I’d read something that reminded me of him, so I might drop a note or comment or email. One of those times, when it pertained to a question about one of his books, he surprised me by sending me a signed copy of one of his books.

Maybe two years ago or so, I really felt like I was being asked to reach out; that God was asking me to not let the number of people I’m in regular contact with dwindle to nothing. God only knows how many lonely people are out there. I’m an introvert, and for me, reaching out is good, but it can quickly get exhausting. And so, it’s ended up being a very small number of people that I’ve really been working on making sure I call every once in awhile at least. I don’t know why, but Vladyka Seraphim was one of those people. It turns out, too, that he had retired from the library job, and though he obviously has a lot of friends and acquaintances, I think he appreciated getting a phone call here and there, because when you don’t live with somebody, it’s very easy to go through a whole day without speaking to anyone. And so it went, and Vladyka added me to a group called “Transfiguration” that met every month or two, mostly on Zoom, and I popped in for a couple of those, and it was all really nice.

The last time I spoke to Vladyka Seraphim was probably back in September or October, when life at the beginning of the school year was just insane. I usually called him, but he ended up calling me at my home number one afternoon, just as I was about to leave the house with my youngest. I saw the caller ID and knew I had to pick up. It ended up being a short conversation; he was at a restaurant in New York and was waiting for his food. Unsurprisingly, the conversation ended with the arrival of his meal. 🙂 It was so random, and so funny, and just completely nice. And then I never ended up calling back; over the last couple of months, I’ve been terrible at calling anybody, but over the past few weeks, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to call him just to say hello, but that feeling didn’t result in action until Tuesday night, and, well… I’m writing this now. I won’t lie, I’m really, really sad. Besides that, I feel bad that he’s been gone for a month and I’m just finding out now. And yes, he was 84, so it’s not silly to say that he had a long, full, and meaningful life, and I’m sure that things are better for him on the other side. At the same time, he was a friend, a friend for a very long time, and someone who was always gracious and kind, and there’s a rightness to grieving that, at least for a time.

It’s just so funny, too, how much the death notice says, but at the same time how much it fails to capture any sort of essence of the man. Of course, a death notice can’t convey a twinkle of an eye or a manner of speech. It wasn’t “work of the Church” per se, all the online activities Vladyka Seraphim became known for, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been touched by the way he made himself accessible through this crazy thing called the internet to point out the wonder of God’s creation and to offer wisdom, knowledge, and care to us who were lucky enough to get to know him while he was here.

(I will post Amazon links here to his three books, in case anyone is interested. You know the drill; I’m an affiliate and if you purchase anything through the links, I might get a kickback earn a small percentage of the sale, at no cost to you.)

• A Life Together: Wisdom of Community from the Christian East
• Tapestry
• Theology of Wonder

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