Seraphim Thievart

Venerable Martyr Seraphim Thievart (in the world Antony Maximovich Thievart) was a hieromonk of the Russian Orthodox Church, born on 30 July 1899 in Moscow and died in the Vishera camp, in the Northern Urals, in the autumn of 1931. Our source gives 23 November for the death at the head of the text and 6 December in the body of it. He was numbered among the saints on 30 July 2003 by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, together with Professor I. V. Popov.

Youth and the meeting with Popov

His ancestors on his father's side had come from France. His father died when Antony was six and his brother Maxim one, and the children were raised by their mother, Natalia Dmitrievna. Antony finished the real school and in 1917 entered as statistician at the Dedovo manufactory. In 1918 and 1919 he studied at Moscow University. In 1919 he took courses of out-⁠of-⁠school political education and in the same year, as one liable for military service, he was sent as librarian to the front of the Southern Army, but was left in Moscow and served in the political directorate of the Revolutionary Military Council, as librarian-⁠instructor. In 1920 he took part in organizing the congress of library workers of the Red Army and, after the congress, worked as assistant to the head of the library. Also in 1920 he met Ivan Popov, professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, and became his closest disciple.

In 1922 he was demobilized and until 1924 worked as a bibliographer. The study of the Holy Fathers called him to lead an ascetic life himself, all the more since his teacher was an ascetic. He studied at the theological courses in Moscow, held by professors of the Academy closed by the authorities, in fact an academy working without approval. At the same time he worked as statistician and librarian and engaged in literary work. In 1924, since there were many schisms, a need arose to draw up a complete list of the episcopate, Orthodox and schismatic, and of all who were in exile and in camps. Patriarch Tikhon blessed Ivan Popov to compile the list, and he took Antony Thievart as his assistant.

Solovki and monastic life

In 1925 Antony Thievart was arrested and sentenced to three years of imprisonment. He was held in the special camp at Solovki with his teacher, Popov. In the camp he continued to occupy himself with theological questions, to write and to read in his free time. Protopresbyter Michael Polsky, in his book The New Russian Martyrs, calls him Popov's "executor", a pleasant young man, with whom he came to Solovki. The disciple worked on the Christology of Saint Athanasius the Great. He worked in an office at Solovki. They were together only until January 1928, when Antony was released and went home.

In January 1928 he returned to Moscow and lived with his mother, doing literary work on contract. In the spring of 1928, in Holy Week, he was tonsured a monk at Arzamas by Bishop Arseny (Zhadanovsky), then ordained hierodeacon and hieromonk. He served the Liturgy in his cell, with his mother serving, secretly tonsured with the name Panteleimona. In 1930 he was arrested again, in the case of a "branch" of the True Orthodox Church, and sentenced to five years in a camp. He was sent to the Vishera camp, in the Northern Urals. He died in the first section of the camp, in 1931.

Canonization

He was numbered among the saints by decision of the Holy Synod of 30 July 2003, together with Professor I. V. Popov. On 29 September 2019 the name of the hieromonk Seraphim was carved on one of the three boards set on the outer wall of the church of the Great Martyr Tatiana at Moscow University, among the twenty-⁠one saints of the university.