From Evangelical Pastor to Orthodoxy: Fr. Seraphim Rose’s Impact on My Spiritual Journey This video delves into the transformative encounter that led Fr. Seraphim Cardoza to embrace Orthodoxy. Witness the unfolding of a remarkable story that highlights the enduring impact of a monk’s dedication and the beauty of finding the Orthodox faith.
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An honest and lovely conversation between an Orthodox Priest (Fr. Seraphim Cardoza) and an Evangelical Pastor (Perry Atkinson). Rev. Archpriest Seraphim Cardoza, was a former evangelical pastor of a hippie church who was drawn to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In 1995 he was ordained and assigned to minister to the small ROCOR congregation in Medford, Oregon, US. Fr. Seraphim Cardoza passed away in October 2023.
Watch the full interview here.
Special thanks to theDoveTv for allowing this translation.
Fr. Seraphim Cardoza:
I am Orthodox because of a monk, a former Professor at the University of California. His name was Eugene (Seraphim) Rose… Presbyterian all his life… former… other things.
And when he discovered Orthodoxy he became a monastic. He became a monk, a very brilliant man. How did I meet him? He came to my door, knocked on my door, in my office, you know, I had this Evangelical Church then and we didn’t know what a monk was. You know, let’s face it, Evangelical history stops at the 14th century just about and they really don’t talk about monasticism. Come on, we’ve got to get honest, they don’t talk about fasting, they don’t talk about self-denial, they don’t talk about the reversing of our passions from negative to positive, they don’t talk about where Jesus said, you know, “you will fast” [Matthew 9:15], when you fast not if you fast…
Perry A.: so he knocks on your door…
He knocked on my door and one of the ladies from my parish, we had a hippie church, you know, a big one but a hippie church… and she says, this was kind of cool, she says: “Pastor, there’s a heavy duty dude here to see you!” So oooh my… and here’s this guy with his thing, with a long beard, I went ooooh my and I was nervous, so I said: come in. He said: I’m Father Seraphim and blah blah… Yeah… There was something about him, something about his sanctification, something about… he changed my life he didn’t just change my life, after that this monk, this thoroughly sanctified humble, strong man invited me to a lecture to UCSC, University of California, Santa Cruz
It was the philosophy class and in that philosophy class were about 15 people, men and women, young, at that time I took my assistant pastor, because I wanted to hear this guy, here was something about this man that I’ve been looking for.
Perry A.: Okay let me stop you right there and forgive me for interrupting you, but because you’re making some good points here, what were you looking for?
My background was the church that I really loved and still love, talked about sanctification. I wanted to see it, I wanted to see humility, I wanted to see deep humility, deep love for Christ, I wanted to see it fleshed out. And by looking at him, obviously he dressed different, he even smelled a little different.
Obviously he was an intelligent man, but this man has dedicated his entire life to Christ, even the wonderful area of marriage, he even dedicated that. I said: whoa, I want to hear this man. Let’s go back when he jumped in my office, this is what he said: “I just came from a Christian commune up in Northern California.” He said: “all the day have love!” He wasn’t putting down…
Perry A.: but love was the key word of the 60s of the hippie movement…
Yeah but for Father Seraphim it was a different kind of love. Perry, he was a no-nonsense, and… by the way, I’ll just digress a little bit, that church now is Orthodox, that entire church in Northern California, a large church, they became Orthodox.
So we talked a bit, he did something I’ll never forget, he threw his arms around me and he said: “Stay on the path! God is in this place. He didn’t say it must become Orthodox, he didn’t say it must become sanctified. He said: “Stay on the path!” He became my spiritual father, through conversation and through mail and so on so forth. That’s how I became Orthodox.”
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