Letter Eleven of Fr. Clement Sederholm to His Father

Please forgive the close to four month absence, it seems a four + month old doesn’t leave much spare time for translation. But we’ll continue in the series of Fr. Clement’s letters; however, I don’t know when the next installation will turn out to be. Christ is Risen! In Truth He is Risen! I heartily [...]

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Letter Ten of Fr. Clement Sederholm to His Father

In your last letter you asked me how I, without an alphabet [the basics?], want to make a grammatical, historical exegesis in order to penetrate into the meaning of Scripture. Academic exegesis is, all the same, an invention of the mind, and the mind did not come from exegesis, therefore, even though it helps many, [...]

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Letter Nine of Fr. Clement Sederholm to His Father

In my last letter I asked you the question: do you think that the Gospel or something else is the foundation and characteristic of Christian truth? You answered that from this you see how far we still stand apart from one another, and say that I am lacking much before we come to general agreement [...]

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Letter Seven of Fr. Clement Sederholm to His Father

You think, dearest father, that I should in my letters, and in the exchange of our thoughts, not only to work to please you but to look for my own benefit and to check my one-sided view. It seems to me that I am not holding to a one-sided but to a general view. Besides, [...]

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Letter Six of Fr. Clement Sederholm to His Father

Thank you, dearest father, for your kind letter of June 8. You write that since Pascha you have not been in the condition to write anything, and that you must postpone all your speculative problems. If you cannot write anything philosophical, then maybe it would be seemly, according to your circumstances and current mood, to [...]

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Letter Five of Fr. Clement Sederholm to His Father

I wish you, dear father, complete success in your work “On the Resurrection of the Lord.” It would be good if you were able to put in place today’s Saducees. I do not know what to say about the fact that a large part of educated humanity rejects the principle dogmas of the Christian teaching, [...]

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Letter Four of Fr. Clement Sederholm to His Father

In one of my last letters I cited the words of the Holy Apostle Paul to the Romans (12:2) so that you could test what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. To you, dear father, it was not clear in was sense I quoted those words. In order to explain that [...]

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Letter Two of Fr. Clement Sederholm to His Father

I heartily thank you for the description of your visit to our monastery in 1838. I read it with great interest and gave it to others to read. Your conclusion, however, is not in agreement not only with your favorable description of our brotherhood, as it was 25 years ago, but also contradicts the amicable [...]

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On Church Prayer

Following the request of Christopher at Orrologion, I have begun translating some selections from the letters of Fr. Clement Sederholm (1830-1878) to his father. In the book I have acquired there are only 15 letters, and they are mostly from the period of Fr. Clement’s life after he was tonsured a monk at Optina in [...]

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