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John (Maximovitch) the Wonderworker (1896–1966) was a outstanding Japanese Orthodox ascetic and hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Exterior of Russia (ROCOR) who was energetic within the mid-Twentieth century. He was a pastor and religious father of excessive fame and a reputed wonderworker to whom was attributed nice powers of prophecy, clairvoyance and therapeutic, and he’s usually referred to easily as “St. John the Wonderworker.”
St. John was born Mikhail Borisovich Maximovitch in 1896 within the village of Adamovka within the Kharkov Governorate (in present-day southern Ukraine). He got here from the identical household of Serbian origin as that of St. John of Tobolsk whom he was stated to resemble in a number of respects. From 1907 to 1914 he attended Poltava Army College. He obtained a level in legislation from Kharkov Imperial College in 1918. His household introduced him to Belgrade in 1921, the place in 1925 he graduated from Belgrade College with a level in theology.
In 1926 he was tonsured a monk and ordained a hierodeacon by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who gave him the identify of John after his saintly relative. Later that very same 12 months, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Gabriel of Chelyabinsk. For a number of years afterward he labored as an teacher and tutor. In 1934 he was ordained a bishop by Metropolitan Anthony and assigned to the diocese of Shanghai.
Shanghai
In Shanghai, Bishop John discovered an uncompleted cathedral and an Orthodox group deeply divided alongside ethnic strains. Making contact with all the assorted teams, he shortly concerned himself within the present charitable establishments and personally based an orphanage and residential for the youngsters of indigents. It was right here that he first turned identified for miracles attributed to his prayer, and as a public determine it was unattainable for him to utterly conceal his ascetic lifestyle. Regardless of his actions throughout theJapanese occupation, when he routinely ignored the curfew in pursuit of his pastoral actions, the Japanese authorities by no means harassed him. As the one Russian hierarch in China who refused to undergo the authority of the Soviet-dominatedRussian Orthodox Church, he was elevated to archbishop by the Holy Synod of ROCOR in 1946.
When the Communists took energy in China, the Russian colony was pressured to flee, first to a refugee camp on the island ofTubabao within the Philippines after which primarily to the United States and Australia. Archbishop John travelled personally toWashington, D.C. to make sure that his folks can be allowed to enter the nation.
Western Europe
In 1951 John was assigned to the archdiocese of Western Europe along with his see first in Paris, then in Brussels. Due to his work in amassing lives of saints, an awesome many pre-Schism Western saints turned identified in Orthodoxy and proceed to be honored to at the present time. His charitable and pastoral work continued because it had in Shanghai, even amongst a way more broadly scattered flock.
San Francisco
In 1962 John was as soon as once more reassigned by the Holy Synod to the see of San Francisco. Right here too, he discovered a divided group and a cathedral in an unfinished state. Though he accomplished the constructing of Holy Virgin Cathedral and introduced some measure of peace to the group he turned the goal of slander from those that turned his political enemies, who went as far as to file a lawsuit in opposition to him for alleged mishandling of funds associated to development of the cathedral. He was exonerated, however this was an awesome reason for sorrow to him in his later life.
Deeply revering St. John of Kronstadt, John Maximovitch performed an energetic function in preparation of his canonization.
Demise and veneration
On July 2, 1966 (June 19 on the Julian calendar) St. John died whereas visiting Seattle at a time and place he was stated to have foretold. He was entombed in a sepulchre beneath the altar of the Holy Virgin Cathedral he had inbuilt San Francisco devoted to the Theotokos, Pleasure of all who Sorrow on Geary Boulevard within the Richmond district. In 1994 he was solemnly glorified on the twenty-eighth anniversary of his demise. His unembalmed relics now occupy a shrine within the cathedral’s nave. His feast day is widely known on the Saturday nearest to the 2nd of July. He’s beloved and celebrated worldwide, with parts of his relics positioned in Serbia, Russia, Mount Athos, Bulgaria, Romania, United States, Canada (Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church, Kitchener), England (Dormition Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church, London) and different international locations of the world.
Photograph: Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco, 1954.
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