Fr. Seraphim Rose's monastic cell in Platina, CA
I’ve quoted below an excerpt from last year’s issue of Death to the World (issue no. 29, published 2023) that I find very compelling because it contrasts the legacies of the late Fr. Seraphim Rose and Theodore Kaczynksi:
Two handmade buildings.
The occupants of both rejected the modern world and its soothing lies.
Both were quintessential products of 20th century America.
Both were college educated.
Both were authors and academics.
Both stared into the Abyss of human depravity.
Both retreated into the wilderness for healing.
Both sought a meaning to the madness of the modern world.
But there the similarities end.
For one chose to kill for an impossible utopia.
The other killed his flesh for an everlasting Kingdom.
One lived for this world as it was.
The other lived for the World to Come.
Both questioned, but only one received answers.
One died, defeated by the System he sought to destroy.
The other died, victorious over the world, the flesh, and the devil.
One called Christ a fiction.
The other shared His Cross and Resurrection.
One fought the darkness with the darkness's own weapons.
The other fought the darkness by prayer and fasting.
Both have died.
But only one is undefeated even in death.
Two handmade cabins.
One became an antechamber to Heaven.
The other, an antechamber to Hell.