Our Venerable Father Serapion the Wonderworker, Abbot of the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in the Davit-Gareji Wilderness
Life
Serapion the Wonderworker was an abbot of the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in the Davit-Gareji Wilderness, a semi-desert monastic complex in eastern Georgia. Surviving accounts preserve little of his early life, presenting him chiefly through a small number of miracle stories associated with his leadership of the community and his reputation as a wonderworker.
He governed the monastery before withdrawing from its administration to live as a recluse, and is commemorated on August 24. According to the synaxarion he reposed in 1774.
Timeline 3 moments
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by traditionAbbot of the Monastery of Saint John the BaptistSerapion led the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in the Davit-Gareji Wilderness, where he became known for working miracles on behalf of the community.
later in lifeWithdrawal into the great schemaHe relinquished his abbatial duties, received the monastic tonsure of the great schema, and entered seclusion.
1774ReposeForewarned by tradition of his approaching death, he asked to be buried in a grave he had prepared beneath the church gates, so that those entering would pass over his resting place. He reposed that year.
Contributions & Legacy
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The Davit-Gareji Wilderness
The Monastery of Saint John the Baptist that Serapion led belongs to the David Gareji complex, a network of cells, churches, chapels, and refectories hollowed from the rock on the half-desert slopes of Mount Gareja, on the edge of the Iori Plateau in the Kakheti region of eastern Georgia, roughly sixty to seventy kilometers southeast of Tbilisi.
The complex was established in the sixth century by Saint David of Gareji, one of the thirteen Assyrian monks who came to Georgia, and the John the Baptist house — known in Georgian as Natlismtsemeli — is attributed to his disciples Dodo and Luciane. By tradition the complex expanded under Saint Hilarion the Iberian in the ninth century and reached its height between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.
Wonderworking
The synaxarion relates that when bandits attacked monks traveling ahead of Serapion and seized sacred church vessels, the abbot pursued the thieves alone; they saw a flame issuing from his staff and fled in fear, abandoning what they had stolen.
On another occasion he is said to have known of an attack on servants approaching the monastery before any news arrived, alerting the brothers and turning to prayer; the servants reached the monastery safely and the pack animals returned unharmed with their loads. These accounts are the basis of his title as a wonderworker.
