Friday, July 10, 2026

It is the 10th of July 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

I read so much of a certain kind of church history and Christian biography that patterns start to emerge. How the stories are told, what’s highlighted and what’s left out. In literal “hagiography” or the writing about saints, one has to discern what might be the truth and what might be the truth slightly stretched…

 

And if it’s some 8th-century saint, we have the problem of records and time- but a 20th-century Christian? You’d think we could straighten those questions out… unless you did your work almost entirely behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union. I’m going to tell you the story of the Blessed Sampson Sievers of the Russian Orthodox Church as it is usually told, and then I’ll throw some sizable asterisks there in the end where questions have been raised.

 

He was born Eduard Sievers on this, the 10th of July in 1900 in St. Petersburg. His father was Count Jasper Alexandrovich Sievers- a friend of the Tsar. Jasper met Anna, his mother, at a Ball in St. Petersburg- she was English and a famous socialite back home. She was engaged to an Indian man but broke the relationship off when she found him unfaithful and went into hiding in Russia.

 

She insisted that their son, Edward, be baptized in the Anglican Church, and he was. The story goes that he was curious about the distinctions between Christian traditions and decided to join the Russian Orthodox, secretly at first without telling his mother.

 

He was taken into the church in 1917- an ominous period in Russian history. He joined a monastery and in 1919 was arrested, apparently, because the Bolsheviks believed he was a royal family member in hiding. He was shot and left for dead, but recalled being found alive amongst the corpses, disguised as a member of the Red Guard and sent to a hospital. There he met the future Patriarch, who arranged for Eduard, now Sergius, to work in the local ministry and was, according to friendly sources, very successful. He went to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in 1921, where he took the name Simeon. Eduard, then Sergius, now Simeon, was there until 1932 when the monastery was closed by the Soviets.

 

He was arrested at least three times- and these stories of Siberian torture could make Solzhenitsyn blush. On one occasion the story goes… the men were taken to a cellar where ravenous rats killed most all- Simeon/Sergius/Edward was left alone- leading the guards to think there was something special about this particular monk. Another story is told that he was to be executed by being thrown in the river- he was, and when he was fished out by locals for a proper burial, he spat up water- shocking the crowd. Another story has him escaping from prison and traveling some 7,000 miles on foot. He would spend 1958-1963 at a monastery and in 1966 was tonsured at the highest level- the Great Schema- and given the name Sampson. However, the last decades of his life were spent out of the ministry- he was “expelled”- perhaps to save the monastery that would be punished for his popularity? Perhaps due to illness? Perhaps something else between the Soviets and the Russian Orthodox who would always have a strained relationship. He would die in 1979, born on this day- he was 79 years old.

 

Nevertheless, the Hieromonk Sampson- Edward, Sergius, Simeon… became something of a folk hero with the fall of the Soviet Union. People flocked to his grave and witnessed or told stories about witnessing miracles. In the 1990s, a group of Russian Orthodox believers called on the church hierarchy to canonize Sampson. And to do that they would need to verify records and stories… the modern church needs proof! And what they found was either silence from the records or contradictions. Yes, he was ordained and served in monasteries but was difficult, struggled with his own faith, did go in and out of prison, and was a beaten man when the church allowed him to live out the rest of his days in Moscow.

 

If you came here to this show because there’s not a lot on Sampson Sievers- I don’t want to burst your bubble. But what if the true story of a struggling Christian amidst the Soviet Union- looking to fulfill a religious vocation in an atheistic culture- maybe it makes him a little more human- and instead of pointing to his stories, it can point us to the story of the one who has united humanity and divinity. Eduoard/Sergius/Simeon/Sampson Sievers was born on this day in 1900 (or 1898… the sources are all over the place).

 

 

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and from Paul in Romans 15 on his own service:

17 Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. 18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— 19 by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. 20 It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. 21 Rather, as it is written:

“Those who were not told about him will see,
 and those who have not heard will understand

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 10th of July 2026 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who also found his spouse while in hiding at a Russian Ball…. He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who named his first car “Jasper” after a Simpsons character and a lyric from Pavement… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.