Early Life and Calling
Serapion was born to a wealthy aristocrat of Klarjeti who was known for his charity toward wanderers and the poor. He had two brothers, of whom the younger, John, would share closely in his spiritual life. Their mother died during their childhood, and their father reposed a short time afterward.
From his youth Serapion felt drawn to the hermit's life. He and his younger brother John traveled to Parekhi Monastery, where they placed themselves under the spiritual guidance of Michael of Parekhi, remembered as a renowned wonderworker and as a spiritual father and teacher of orphans. Their eldest brother remained at home to continue the family's tradition of serving wanderers and the poor. Recognizing Serapion's genuine dedication to the divine service, Michael ordained him to the priesthood.
The Founding of Zarzma
Michael of Parekhi received a vision instructing him to send Serapion and John to Samtskhe to establish a new monastery. Though at first apprehensive at the responsibility, Serapion obediently set out with a company of monks, carrying with them a wonderworking icon of the Transfiguration of Christ. The monks first settled on a high mountain peak but were driven away by villagers, after which they located the site that Michael had revealed in his vision.
A local nobleman, George Chorchaneli, encountered the monks while hunting. Moved by their presence and by Serapion's teaching, he knelt before Serapion, pledged his support, and donated to the monastery the territory the monks could traverse on foot in a single day.
According to the account of his life, as the monks walked their boundary through forests and rocky terrain, accompanied by two devout locals named Ia and Garbaneli, the residents of Tsiskvili tried to obstruct their passage. That night an extraordinary earthquake fractured the rocks holding back Lake Satakhve and destroyed the village of Tsiskvili. The place afterward became known as Zarzma, a name derived from the word zari, meaning a tragic occurrence.
Building the Monastery
The monks disagreed over where to build the church. To resolve the question, they filled two icon lamps with an equal measure of oil: Serapion set one atop the hill, while John placed one by a stream on the southern slope. After prayer, Serapion's lamp was extinguished by dawn, while John's continued to burn until midday. Taking this as a sign, they built the church at the place John had chosen.
After three years of labor the monastery was completed, and the wonderworking Transfiguration icon was installed in the altar. When Michael of Parekhi, nearing his own death, learned that the monastery was finished, he rejoiced; by tradition he blessed George Chorchaneli with a withered box-tree branch that then miraculously bloomed.
Repose
When Serapion sensed that his death was near, he gathered the monastic community, bid them farewell, and appointed the hieromonk George as his successor and abbot. He was buried with great ceremony on the eastern side of the altar. He is commemorated on October 29.
Legacy of the Monastery
The account of Serapion's life is preserved in a hagiographic work by his pupil, Basil of Zarzma. The Zarzma monastery lies in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region of southwest Georgia, in what is today the Adigeni Municipality; its earliest church is generally dated to about the eighth century, with some sources placing it earlier. The nobleman George Chorchaneli remained an important early benefactor, endowing the community with villages and estates.
The monastery's main church was substantially rebuilt in the fourteenth century under the patronage of Beka I, Prince of Samtskhe and Lord High Mandator of Georgia, of the Jaqeli family; it is built on a cross-in-square plan with a single dome. A surviving late tenth-century Georgian inscription in the chapel's entrance arch records military assistance rendered to the Byzantine emperor Basil II. After the Ottoman conquest of the sixteenth century the monastery was abandoned and fell into disrepair until it was reconstructed at the turn of the twentieth century. Today it is again functional, home to a community of Georgian monks and a place of pilgrimage.
Relics & Shrines
Saint Serapion was buried on the eastern side of the altar of the church he founded at Zarzma.
