'The Momentary Problem of a Stuck Car'—Hieromonk Ambrose (Young)

I have just learned that Hieromonk Ambrose (Young) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease a few years ago. Many people in American Orthodoxy will be familiar with Fr Alexey Young, who, after the death of his matushka was tonsured and is now Hieromonk Ambrose. Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen) refers to him as one of the ‘closest spiritual children’ of Fr Seraphim (Rose). [1]

A convert from Roman Catholicism, Fr Ambrose was the founder and editor of an early periodical for converts called Nikodemos, which eventually became the periodical Orthodox America and Nikodemos Orthodox Publication Society, publisher of such books as Lubov Millar’s Life of St Elizabeth the New Martyr and Man of God: St John of Shanghai & San Francisco. Fr Ambrose’s own books include such titles as A Man Is His Faith: Ivan Kireyevsky & Orthodox Christianity [2], The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia: A History & Chronology [3], and, perhaps most importantly, Letters from Father Seraphim: The 12-Year Correspondence between Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) & Fr Alexey Young [4], a volume of Fr Seraphim’s letters beautifully edited with Fr Ambrose’s explanatory notes and reminiscences. Fr Ambrose also wrote an important criticism [5] of the first version of Fr Seraphim’s biography, Not of This World: The Life & Teachings of Fr Seraphim (Rose), by Fr Damascene [6], and Fr Damascene offers him ‘special thanks . . . for his invaluable help and encouragement through the preparation’ [7] of the new version of Fr Seraphim’s Life, Father Seraphim (Rose): His Life & Works [8].

Although he was originally ordained to the priesthood in the Russian Church Abroad, Fr Ambrose transferred for a time to the Antiochian Archdiocese, but was later released back into ROCOR and tonsured at Holy Cross Hermitage in West Virginia (a dependency of Holy Trinity at Jordanville). He eventually transferred to St Gregory Palamas Monastery in Hayesville, Ohio (GOA), and in 2004 was made chaplain to the women’s Skete of St Mary of Egypt in Cleveland (also GOA). He now resides as chaplain at the Entrance of the Theotokos Skete near Hayesville, where Mother Theadelphi of the Skete is his daily caregiver.

This heavy news came to my attention through a letter from Fr Ambrose himself posted (here) on the website of my sister’s former parish in Virginia, All Saints of North America (ROCOR) under Fr John Moses. I offer the letter, and Fr Moses’s introductory comments in full:

[Father Ambrose Young (Fr Alexey Young before his monastic tonsure) is a dearly loved spiritual friend, teacher, guide, and author. He is the God-son of Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, and among other books, published a book of Father Seraphim’s letters to him over the years, Letters From Father Seraphim. He also wrote The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia: A History and Chronology, Teachings of the Holy Fathers on the Body, Teachings of the Holy Fathers on the Passions, Teachings of the Holy Fathers on Illness, The Great Divide, The Rush to Embrace, and other works. Many of us have been blessed to know Fr Ambrose personally, to have heard him speak, to have sought his blessing and guidance. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease a few years ago, and when Father John wrote him, recently, Fr Ambrose sent him this reply, and he granted permission to post it here.

This is a copy of a message I sent to good friends here who were inquiring about the status of my Alzheimer’s Disease and were wondering if it is even even appropriate to ask. After I wrote it I though I would share it with you and a few others, and you may share it with anyone you think might also be interested. Here is the message, below:]

It’s quite all right for you to ask. I am very open about my illness, as is Gerondissa, and we do not hide anything or keep any secrets. And I have very little false pride about my limitations any more—I’ve already been through ‘that phase’ and have been able to embrace my disease in the shadow of the Cross. More than that, I have begun the slow process of climbing up onto the Cross with our Lord, and sharing now in His Passion. This is incredibly sanctifying; I don’t know how else to describe it. So although I don’t talk much about my illness, it’s not out of secrecy or pride or sensitivity, but only because I am keeping the Lord on the cross as close to my heart as I can. And He will get me through. It has frankly become as much a spiritual experience as a mental one.

So, I want to take this opportunity to share with you, since we haven’t really talked about it much. I have discussed it on several occasions with some friends, and they are wonderfully and appropriately sympathetic and helpful. They are more than relatives; they are good friends. I will talk more about it with my other siblings when we have a family reunion this summer. My children are completely on the same page with me already, but for them it is too painful to talk about much.

This illness is the oddest feeling of being somehow detached and experiencing a slow metamorphosis from being one person into another; not dramatic, but disconnected, and yet still able to pray, read, do email, recognize others (although my short term memory and my malapropisms have gotten worse over the last week). But at the same time it’s oddly not depressing. (I went through the depressing stage last year.) In fact, I woke up this morning with Finn having crawled up and curled into my left arm, and at the same time I had the most intense longing for heaven, which made me very happy.

The neurologist told me some time ago that there is a small percentage of AD victims who in some way consciously ‘know’, all the way through, what is happening to them, and he thinks I am one of them. I don’t know if that’s a blessing or not, but I do think it’s a blessing that I can share with others the various stages of this illness as long as possible. That sharing is helpful to me, and perhaps for others if they see that there is a spiritual way to ‘do’ something that is otherwise so awful.

As you know, Alzheimer’s is a long and slow process, for which reason it’s called ‘the long goodbye’. But I read Patty Davis’ fine book about her father, President Reagan, ‘The Long Goodbye’, and she said that he remained cheerful, happy and polite as a three year old, right to the end. And I also know about the Alzheimer’s of some great and holy Elders of our time, who were able to serve Liturgy and say the Jesus Prayer right to the end, even when they no longer recognized anyone else. So Alzheimer’s doesn’t have to be grueling and ugly, the way it is so often portrayed. I think that the perceived ‘terribleness’ of this disease is at least in part a reflection of our incredibly morally and spiritually bankrupt culture.

With drugs and medical help, and very good care from Mother Theadelphi, I have had three years of relatively slow deterioration, and I think that ‘slowness’ will continue yet for some years. Right now is a different phase, though. I am very blessed to be in monastic life and here with Mother and the Fathers and Brothers just down the road, who also stay in contact and are very affectionately supportive. I feel safe and well cared for. There are many in my condition who cannot say that. Mother is a good friend, caretaker, intellectual and spiritual companion, but you and Tim will have to help her to harden her heart as time goes on and my symptoms become worse. I have already spoken to her about this, too. She is very tender-hearted and quietly suffers over my illness, although she’s no drama-queen about it, as you can well believe. That’s not her style. She only quietly says, ‘I don’t like it’, and that, coming from her, actually says a great deal.

From a purely spiritual standpoint I want to share with you the insight I believe God gave me from the time of my diagnosis. My greatest and overriding sin—indeed, even vice—has always been pride. Pride of mind, of ‘knowing better’ and judging others inappropriately, sometimes thinking of them as being less than I am. This is a most grievous sin, and one that many people don’t even recognize in themselves, but it is the one sin that will, above all, consign us to hell if we don’t overcome it! It was the sin of Satan, the sin of Adam and Eve.

I understand fully how I got this way. I have throughout my life been inordinately proud of my mind, my intellect, my ability to think clearly about difficult and complicated things, to speak and write well, understand, process, and explain difficult things, etc. Growing up, I wasn’t good at sports, I wasn’t attractive to the ladies, I couldn’t dance, I was an intellectual bookworm and loner, I had no other skill than my brain, and I used it and developed it as far as I possibly could, although actually I wasn’t particularly academically brilliant, as all of that just seemed like some kind of superficial ‘game’ to me. But that was my path in life. And although I have put these gifts to the service of Christ and the Church, as best I could, the pride has still been there.

Now the Lord has offered me a chance to mortify and humble down that pride, by accepting without complaint the slow crumbling of my mind. And I do accept this, with my whole heart, even if with the occasional tear, as a gift from Him for my salvation. So it sometimes ‘feels’ as though this dying of various parts of my mind is also a dying of self, a dying of ego, a dying to pride. And isn’t that the purpose of spiritual life, after all, anyway? The Lord looked down and saw that I wasn’t going to do it any other way, and so, because He loves me very much (unworthy as I am) and wants me to be with Him forever, He offered me this incredible opportunity to die to self. I see this as a great, if sometimes painful, blessing!

Well, these are my few thoughts about it. Never hesitate to ask me how I’m doing. I will tell you honestly. But never feel sorry for me, or pity, as I do not for myself, but rather rejoice for me that I am on a sure path to the Kingdom of Heaven. I believe this with all my heart. —Fr A

In conclusion, I offer a passage from Fr Ambrose’s reminiscences about Fr Seraphim [9] in Letters, which Fr Damascene quotes in his review as ‘one of this reviewer’s favorite parts of the book’. Fr Damascene introduces the passage thusly, ‘Describing the end of his first visit to the St Herman Monastery in 1970, at which time his car got stuck in the mud halfway up the mountains, Fr Alexey writes:’ [10]

After a few hours of conversation on my first visit, Fr Seraphim announced that they would walk back down the mountain with me to my car and see what could be done about rescuing it from the mud. On the walk he sang hymns, troparia to various saints, which softly echoed through the forest and mingled with the sounds of birds. When we arrived at the car there was much pushing and shoving and groaning, but the car did not budge. Finally we had to walk into town and call for a tow truck. While we waited back at the car, Fr Seraphim saw that I was frustrated and anxious about the vehicle. Suddenly he said, gesturing to the beautiful mountains and forests around us, ‘Do you see all of this beauty? And those mountains over there—they’ve been here for so long, and it seems they’ll be here forever, doesn’t it? But it’s not true. Even those mountains will one day pass away.’ His point was clear: why get annoyed about the momentary problem of a stuck car, which in any case will shortly be solved, when even the substantial mountains will one day dissolve? It was the first of many times that Fr Seraphim’s own stillness of heart was momentarily communicated to me. I felt suddenly at peace, at rest, all agitation banished, as was so often to happen in his presence over the years to come. [11]

Judging by the letter to Fr Moses above, it looks as though Fr Ambrose learned the lesson well indeed.


[1] Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen), Review of Letters from Father Seraphim, The Orthodox Word #228 (2003), p. 46.

[2] Fr Alexey Young, A Man Is His Faith: Ivan Kireevsky & Orthodox Christianity (London: St George Information Service, 1980).

[3] Fr Alexey Young, The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia: A History & Chronology (San Bernardino, CA: The Borgo Press, 1993).

[4] Letters from Father Seraphim: The 12-Year Correspondence between Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) & Fr Alexey Young (Richfield Springs, NY: Nikodemos, 2001).

[5] Fr Alexey Young, ‘From the Bookshelf—Not of This World: the Life and Teachings of Fr. Seraphim Rose’, Orthodox America, Issue 126-127, XIV.2-3 (September—October, 1993) (here).

[6] Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen), Not of This World: The Life & Teachings of Fr Seraphim (Rose) (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1993).

[7] Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen), ‘New from St Herman Press—Father Seraphim (Rose): His Life & Works’, Orthodox Word #228, p. 5.

[8] Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen), Father Seraphim (Rose): His Life & Works (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2003).

[9] For more of these, see Fr Ambrose’s talk at the celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of Fr Seraphim’s repose, here.

[10] Fr Damascene, Review, p. 47.

[11] Letters, p. 16.