JERUSALEM: June 22, 2020
Archimandrite Seraphim (Bobich) reposes in the Lord

On Thursday, June 18, 2020, having partaken of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, Archimandrite Seraphim (Bobich) passed into eternity. He had been living in retirement since the mid-1990's at Ascension of the Lord Convent on the Mt of Olives in Jerusalem.

Fr Seraphim was born Mikhail Bobich on January 17, 1929, in the USA, where his parents had immigrated to from the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe. He was tonsured a monk and then ordained to the priesthood at St Tikhon Monastery of the Russian North American Metropoliate. He graduated from its seminary and remained there as a teacher. In 1970, desiring a life of silence on Mt Athos, Fr Seraphim transferred from the Orthodox Church in America to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, having received a canonical release to serve at St Elias Skete on the Holy Mountain. In 1973, after the death of Abbot Archimandrite Nikolai (Piven') on Holy Pascha, the Spiritual Council of the Pantocrator Monastery appointed Fr Seraphim the Prior of St Elias Skete, promising his independent status as a member of the Russian Church Abroad. That monastery was unique in that the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople was not commemorated there. This situation led to the brethren being driven out of the monastery in 1992, after which Fr Seraphim served for a time at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY, and in San Francisco.

In the 1990's, Archimandrite Seraphim moved to Jerusalem and settled at Ascension of the Savior Convent on the Mt of Olives. Here he exhibited his love for divine services. Daily, an hour before the midnight office, Fr Seraphim came to the convent church to help the serving priest with reading the commemorations for proskomedia before Divine Liturgy. He loved to spend time in isolation at St Savva the Sanctified.

On Friday, June 19, Archimandrite Roman (Krassovsky), Chief of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, performed the funeral and burial of Fr Seraphim at Ascension of the Savior Convent.