Ιερομόναχος Δαμασκηνός

Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen) is an Eastern Orthodox priest, monk and spiritual child of ascetic and spiritual struggler Bl. Father Seraphim Rose, of St Herman of Alaska Monastery, Platina, California. Fr Damascene is the author of Fr Seraphim Rose: His Life And Works and Christ The Eternal Tao, as well as numerous articles on Eastern Orthodox faith, doctrine and spirituality…. Raised a nominal Christian, Fr Damascene came to believe that a personal God or gods was a “less enlightened” spiritual Truth than that of the Trans-Personal experience taught in Buddhism. Through his practice of Zen Buddhism, he experienced what he describes as “darkness, infinite nothingness, existing outside of space and time, where everything is Now and time has no meaning.” After having this experience, he met Father Seraphim Rose lecturing on his college campus (UC Santa Cruz). Fr Seraphim had been a student of Zen with Alan Watts, and of Taoism under a genuine transmitter of the Taoist philosophical tradition, Gi-ming Shen, before becoming an Eastern Orthodox Christian convert and monk. Through an on-going relationship with Fr Seraphim, who became his spiritual father, Monk Damascene came to discover that the Truth was not just an abstract idea, sought and known by the mind, but was something personal – even a Person – sought and loved by the heart. As he later wrote, “And that is how I met Christ.” He was at Fr Seraphim’s bedside when he reposed less than two years later. Not satisfied with a “normal or average” Christian experience, Fr Damascene went to live in the Northern California woods where Fr Seraphim lived, in his old wooden cabin, to be united with Christ without distraction. He has lived at St Herman of Alaska Monastery for over 25 years. ONLINE READING from Hieromonk Damascene Resentment and Forgiveness Preaching the Gospel The Way of Spiritual Transformation The Place of Lives of Saints in the Spiritual Life Βιβλία του μεταφρασμένα στα Ελληνικά (2007) Ορθόδοξη ανθρωπολογία και μεταμοσχεύσεις ζωτικών οργάνων, Μυριόβιβλος (2007) Σχέσεις ανδρογύνου πριν και μετά τον γάμο, Μυριόβιβλος (2005) π. Σεραφείμ Ρόουζ, Μυριόβιβλος