Serapion of Pskov

Venerable Serapion of Pskov was a Russian monk and wonderworker, born in 1390 at Dorpat (Tartu) into an Orthodox family and died on 8 September 1480 at the Eleazarov Monastery, near Pskov. The Russian Church honours him among the venerable fathers. His commemoration is on 15 May and on 7 September, in the Synaxes of the Saints of Pskov and of Estonia. Our sources give no act of canonization.

His parents were Orthodox, parishioners of the church of Saint Nicholas in Dorpat. His native city was then "under the Germans", who sought to bring everyone to their Catholic faith. Serapion was a zealous champion of Orthodoxy and, as a good expert in Holy Scripture, rebuked the Catholics much, who for this inflicted on him various heavy insults and even beatings, forcing him in every way to accept the union. Seeing that words were of no use with the Catholics, Serapion withdrew in 1426 to the land of Pskov and settled in the hermitage on the river Tolba, beside the venerable hermit Euphrosynus, receiving the great schema.

He took a very active part in the establishment of the Saviour-⁠Eleazarov Hermitage (today the Spaso-⁠Eleazarov convent) and helped Euphrosynus much in all his undertakings. Here Serapion lived until his death; he died on 8 September 1480. Father Euphrosynus himself buried his disciple's body, which, from the zealous monastic labours, looked like "bones covered with skin", and when Euphrosynus himself died, the brethren buried him beside Serapion.