Hieromartyr Seraphim (Samoilovich), Archbishop of Uglich
Hieromartyr Seraphim, Archbishop of Uglich (in the world Semyon N. Samoylovich) was born on July 19, 1881 in the city of Myrgorod, Poltava governorate.
Semyon graduated from the Poltava Theological Seminary in 1902 and received a place as a teacher of Unalashkinskaya, a two-year school in Alaska. In 1905 he held the same position at Sitka, where he was tonsured into the mantiya by Bishop Innocent (Pustynsky) and a month later he was ordained as a Hieromonk. In 1906, Father Seraphim was rector of the Nugek Spiritual Mission in North America. In 1907-1908 he taught at Sitka Theological Seminary. In America, Vladyka was the associate of His Eminence Archbishop Tikhon, the future Patriarch, who valued the zealous missionary-ascetic highly.
In 1908, Father Seraphim was an assistant to the Vladikavkaz diocesan missionary, and in 1909 he was the Father Confessor of the Alexander Ardon Theological Seminary. In 1910, he was appointed first Vicar of the Mogilev Brotherhood First-Class Monastery, and then, at the request of His Eminence Archbishop Tikhon, who then held the Yaroslavl kathedra, he was transferred to the post of viceroy of Tolzhsk Yaroslavl Monastery.
There, Father Seraphim wrote a serious work on the history of the Tolzhsk Monastery, timed to coincide with its 600th anniversary. He started a beekeeping school for orphan boys, and at the beginning of the war he established an infirmary.
From 1915, Father Seraphim was the vicar of the Uglich Protection Monastery. In February 1920 he was consecrated as Bishop of Uglich, and vicar of the Yaroslavl Diocese.
Vladyka was a member of the so-called "Parallel Synod", which existed with the tacit approval of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon in the Danilov Monastery. It was founded by the Hieromartyr Archbishop Theodore (Pozdeevsky) and it included prominent bishops: Archbishop Andrew (Ukhtomsky), Bishop Arseny (Zhadanovsky), Bishop Seraphim (Zvezdinsky), and Bishop Gouria (Stepanov).
The reason for the emergence of the "Parallel Synod" was that in the opinion of its members, the Patriarchal Synod, which was under the tight control of the G. P. U, was ineffective and was forced to stand in a conciliatory position. It was conceived as a "permanent Pre-Conciliar Conference" but its main purpose was the preparation of a secret Local Council capable of resolving Church problems without pressure from the authorities. The fundamental decisions of "Danilovtsy" were:
1. Affirmation of the principles of decentralization of Church life as the most effective way to resist the Bolsheviks' control over the Church;
2. Secret installations of bishops and priests. Thus, the "Parallel Synod" was the cornerstone on which the Catacomb Church began to be established.
From July 1922 Vladyka was in prison at Yaroslavl, and after his release in 1924 he was elevated to the rank of Archbishop by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon. In 1925, Vladyka became the temporary administrator of the Yaroslavl Diocese.
Hieromartyr Metropolitan Joseph (Petrov), as one of the Deputies of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, in case of his arrest, he appointed temporary Deputies in 1925, including Bishop Seraphim. In 1926, on December 16 (29), after the arrest of the Hieromartyr Metropolitan Joseph (Petrov), Vladyka issued an Epistle on assuming the office of Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens. He ran the Church until April 1927, then handed over the administration to Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), who had been released from prison.
It is known that in 1927 Vladyka was summoned to G. P. U. headquarters in Moscow, where he was offered to accept compromising conditions for the legalization of the Church, indicating who to appoint as members of the Synod. The Saint refused to do this, proposing its members of the Synod and among them Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov). "After all, he's sitting there," the Chekists said.
"But you have him, free him," the Saint replied. After such a reply, he was soon arrested.
After the publication of Metropolitan Sergius' Declaration, the Saint joined the Yaroslavl Opposition, headed by the Hieromartyr Metropolitan Agathangel (commemorated on October 3). With regret, he wrote in January 1928 that he had "hastily and unconditionally" handed over the Deputy Rights to Metropolitan Sergius. He pleaded with Metropolitan Sergius to be courageous and publish another Declaration "to correct the first," which "detracts from service to the Truth, and God does not help lies."
He called on the Metropolitan to look to the oldest hierarch, Metropolitan Agathangel of Yaroslavl, and transfer the Deputy Rights to him. In April 1928, Metropolitan Sergius deprived Vladyka of his kathedra and suspended him from the priesthood. He was arrested and then expelled from Yaroslavl to Mogilev in the Buynichi Holy Spirit Monastery.
In his January 1929 Epistle to the Entire Church, the Saint continued to denounce the politics of Metropolitan Sergius and the grave sin of "the infatuation of our faint-hearted and weak brethren into the new renewal," for which he was soon arrested again (in February 1929) and sentenced to five years in a prison camp. But the Saint's Message was widely circulated throughout the country, and was published in Belgrade.
He was released from the camp and exiled for three years to the Northern Territory, where he headed the secret Church, assigning priests, and performing tonsures. According to the memoirs of his spiritual children, "he weakened physically, but he was strong in spirit." He believed that in an era of persecution there should be no centralized Church Administration. The Bishop must govern his Diocese himself.
Around 1934, Vladyka wrote another Epistle, in which Metropolitan Sergius was suspended from the priesthood for his uncanonical activities beginning in 1927. To approve this Epistle, a "small catacomb council" was held at Arkhangelsk, the decisions of which were to be the basis for all exiled bishops and clergy. There is evidence that the Patriarchal Deputy Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky) wrote from exile that the Russian Bishops themselves must rebuke Metropolitan Sergius for his uncanonical actions.
In May 1934, the Saint was arrested once again in Arkhangelsk on charges of creating a new "counter-revolutionary organization of supporters of the true Orthodox Church" and he was sentenced to five years in the Camps. He served his sentence in the Suslov branch of Siblaga. Vladyka was shot in the camp on October 22, 1937 (November 4 New Style).
He was canonized as a Saint with the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Bishops' Council of Russia. In August of 2000, the Hieromartyr Seraphim was approved by the Orthodox Church for general Church veneration.