Venerable Seraphim Vyritsky

Seraphim, born Vasily Muravyov in 1866 in the Yaroslavl region, went to St Petersburg as a boy and became a successful fur merchant who traded across Europe. In 1920, after the revolution, he and his wife both took monastic vows; he entered the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, became a priest, took the schema as Seraphim in 1926 and was known as a confessor of the Lavra.

From 1933 he lived in the village of Vyritsa near Leningrad, receiving many visitors. During the Second World War he prayed for hours on a granite stone in the garden before an icon of Seraphim of Sarov. He died on 3 April 1949 and was canonized in 2000.