Hieromonk
Saint Seraphim was born on December 22, 1872, in the village of Nagulino, Nizhny Novgorod Province, to a family of a small Volga shipowner, Grigory Gushchin. In 1888, he became a clerk on the railway in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1893, he was drafted into the army and served as a non-commissioned officer. After his service, he returned to his previous job.
In 1908, he left the worldly life and became a worker at Optina Monastery. On October 29, 1911, he was accepted into the brotherhood as a novice, and on May 24, 1915, he was tonsured into monasticism with the name Seraphim.
With the onset of persecution against the Russian Orthodox Church in 1921, he was ordained as a hierodeacon and served in the Kazan church. In 1923, an artel was organized to preserve the monastery, but it was soon closed. The abbot of Optina Monastery blessed him to remain serving with Hieromonk Nikon and Hierodeacon Seraphim.
In 1924, Hierodeacon Seraphim was ordained as a hieromonk and served in the church in the town of Likhvin, and then in the Church of the Protection of the Mother of God in the village of Pokrovskoye, Kaluga Province.
On November 7, 1937, on the 20th anniversary of the takeover by the godless, he was arrested and imprisoned. During interrogations, he did not confess to charges of terrorism and slander against the Soviet government. On November 19, 1937, the NKVD troika sentenced him to death by shooting.
Hieromonk Seraphim was shot on November 23, 1937, and buried in a common unmarked grave.
