Relics of the Venerable Martyrs Seraphim and Feognost of Alma-Ata

Hagiography of the Venerable Martyrs Seraphim and Feognost of Alma-Ata

To spread the Orthodox faith in the Turkestan region and provide spiritual enlightenment to the Asian nomads, Bishop Alexander (Kulchitsky) founded the Holy Trinity Missionary Monastery on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul in 1882.

At the beginning of the 20th century, several monks from the Nativity of the Mother of God Glinsk Hermitage in the Kursk Diocese were invited to the monastery. Among them were the monks Seraphim, Feognost, and Anatoly. It is known that they were educated monks leading a highly ascetic life. Additionally, Father Seraphim was endowed with a talent for iconography and had a beautiful singing voice, Father Anatoly was a remarkable singer and an outstanding choir director, and Father Feognost had excellent administrative abilities.

At the Holy Trinity Monastery, the Glinsk monks became close with the monks Pakhomiy and Irakliy. Currently, it is not possible to precisely establish the biographical details of the Kazakh ascetics and the factual aspects of the described events. What is reliably known is that by 1909, the monks Seraphim and Anatoly were called to the cathedral city of Verny, where they were honored to receive holy orders and served at the Assumption Church of the Turkestan Archiepiscopal House. For their service, in 1912, they were granted the right to wear the nabedrennik. They also provided spiritual guidance to the recently founded Iveron-Seraphim Women's Monastery.

In 1916, Hieromonk Anatoly managed the archiepiscopal choir at the Ascension Cathedral in the city of Verny.

After the events that shook Verny—the Bolsheviks' rise to power in March 1918 and the execution of Bishop Pimen (Belolikov)—the monks retreated to the mountains. They established a skete eight versts from the city in the mountainous area of Medeo, on Mohnataya Hill. Hieromonk Seraphim set up a church dug into the mountainside. Later, this skete was handed over to nuns, and the brethren decided to seek a more secluded place. They found such a place on Mount Kyzyl-Zhar, where they built cells, dug caves, and established a church.

Father Pakhomiy was also transferred to the city of Verny before 1916, and his subsequent path was intertwined with the Glinsk ascetics Seraphim and Anatoly. Monk Irakliy, Hieromonks Feognost and Pakhomiy remained in the Issyk-Kul Monastery until 1919. In the same year, Father Feognost was appointed as the monastery’s prior and assistant spiritual advisor for the laity. After the Kyrgyz attack on the monastery in 1916, many elderly monks were martyred. The monastery was closed in 1919.

The spiritual father of the skete was Hieromonk Seraphim (Bogoslovsky). He was born in the 1870s in the town of Glukhov. His secular name was Alexander. His father, Euthymius, was a manager for a landowner, and his mother, Maria, was a gentle and pious woman who constantly attended the church. There were two children in the family—Sasha and his older sister. It was revealed to his mother by God that her son would meet a martyr's death. When he was still a young schoolboy, she once woke up crying and said, "My son, I saw in a dream that you will be a martyr." She wept continuously for him, and he loved and pitied her deeply. Once, he was playing the bayan and singing church hymns. His mother was listening. Suddenly, he noticed that she was crying and asked, "Mother, why are you crying?" She replied that during his singing, she saw a crown above his head and angels with him, and she repeated that his end would be martyrdom. These words of his mother left a deep impression on his soul. Alexander reasoned, "If my end will be martyrdom, what should I seek in the world!" And, upon reaching adolescence, he withdrew to the Glinsk Hermitage.

While residing in the Glinsk Hermitage, Father Seraphim had as his spiritual father the assistant to the brotherhood's spiritual father, Hieromonk Domn (Aggeyev), with whom his spiritual connection continued even after Domn's repose.

In 1921, three Red Army soldiers arrived at the Kyzyl-Zhar skete on horseback, armed with rifles. Father Seraphim offered them tea and arranged a place for them to sleep. He himself did not sleep, instead reading his prayer rule. In the early morning, the soldiers approached him, aimed a rifle at his back, and shot him. He managed to shout, "Anatoly!" before the soldiers proceeded along the path to Father Feognost, who usually prayed in a cave at night. Exhausted from his nightly prayers, he had laid down to rest in his cell. As he lay there with his hands crossed on his chest, he remained in that position—they shot him in the heart.

The next day, the police arrived, examined the site, and permitted the burial. They dug a grave, covered it with boards, and buried the monks without coffins, wrapped in their mantles. The grave of the Venerable Martyrs Seraphim and Feognost in the Aksai Gorge has always been revered by the faithful. In 1991, a memorial cross was erected on it, and later a chapel canopy was constructed. Many cases of healings and miracles are known to occur at the grave of the Venerable Martyrs. In 1996, a men's monastery, the Aksai Seraphim-Feognost Hermitage, was established at the site of the Kyzyl-Zhar Skete.

They were glorified in 1993 as locally venerated saints of the Almaty Diocese. They were canonized as Saints of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000 for general church veneration.

The relics of the Venerable Martyrs Seraphim and Feognost were uncovered by the blessing of Archbishop Alexy of Astana and Almaty (now Metropolitan of Tula and Efremov) on July 16, 2001.