Summer Internship Reflection: Deacon Seraphim Crossman

A Summer Like No Other “It didn’t take long to realize my summer internship would be more like a sprint than a stroll through the magnolias.”

So begins the account of a whirlwind internship that carried Deacon Seraphim Crossman, his wife, Mat. Kristin, and their four daughters across 9,000 miles, 14 states, and more than 60 days of service in the Orthodox Church in America’s Diocese of the South.

From the moment they left St. Tikhon’s Seminary—where he had just served the Divine Liturgy—there was no pause. Twenty minutes after arriving in Charleston, South Carolina, Deacon Seraphim was already serving Great Vespers with His Grace, Bishop Gerasim.

“It never really slowed down after that,” he recalls.

Service on the Move Everywhere the Crossman family traveled, opportunities for ministry were waiting. Deacon Seraphim served liturgically, preached homilies, taught classes, and visited the sick and elderly. At one point, he even helped drive a 29-foot truck carrying an iconostasis and the relics of Sts. Herman, Tikhon of Zadonsk, and Olga of Kwethluk from Phoenix to Dallas.

“It was exhausting work, but unequivocally the best summer we can remember.”

By August, the…