Shanghai biography

Article from the Encyclopedia "Tree": Drevo-info. He came from the noble family of the Maksimovichi, among his ancestors was the enlightener of Siberia Saint John Tobolsky. Parents of Mikhail, Boris and Glafira, raised his son in piety, warming in him the desire to stand for the truth and a hot love of the Fatherland. Michael was a painful boy with poor appetite.

Since childhood, he was distinguished by deep religiosity, at night he stood for a long time in prayer, diligently collected icons, as well as church books. Most loved to read the lives of saints. Mikhail fell in love with the saints with all his heart, was completely soaked in their spirit and began to live like them. And in children's games, his aspirations expressed - he turned toy soldiers into monks, and fortresses into monasteries.

The Svyatogorsk Monastery, standing near the Maksimovichi estate, had a young Mikhail to a thoughtful attitude to life. The holy and righteous life of the child deeply impressed his French governess of the Catholic, and as a result, she accepted Orthodoxy. Mikhail thought to devote his life to serving the Motherland, entering either the military or civil service. At first, he entered the Petrovsky Poltava Cadet Corps, which he graduated in the year.

Then he studied at the Faculty of Law of the Kharkov Imperial University, which he graduated in the year. He studied excellently, although he devoted part of his time to the study of the lives of saints and spiritual literature. Kharkov church life contributed to the initial steps of young Mikhail along the path of piety. The relics of the miracle worker Archbishop Meleti Leontovich, who spent the nights in prayer, standing with his hands with his hands, rested in the tomb of the Kharkov Cathedral.

Michael fell in love with this saint and began to imitate him in the feat of nightly wakefulness. So gradually, young Mikhail began to ripen the desire to devote himself entirely to God, and in this regard, high spiritual qualities began to manifest in him: abstinence and strict attitude towards himself, great humility and compassion for the suffering. During the years of teaching, Archbishop Anthony Khrapovitsky, who became his spiritual mentor, had a particularly strong influence on him, and Mikhail began to deepen into the study of spiritual life.

In the end, as he recalled, the local monastery and the temple became closer to him than any social institutions. The tragedy - years finally convinced him of the weakness of human, of the fragility of everything earthly. Preserving the fiery patriotism all his life, which has become in it by faith in the revival of Holy Rus', he decided to renounce the world and devote himself to the service of God.

During the Civil War, the Maksimovichi family was evacuated to Yugoslavia, where Mikhail entered the university at the Theological Faculty of Belgrade, which he graduated from the year. In order to feed the family in poverty, Mikhail had to sell newspapers. But his spiritual mentor, Vladyka Anthony, also ended up abroad, and Mikhail continued to feed him. Hieromonk John Maksimovich.

A photograph in the year Mikhail was tonsured a monk with a name in honor of his ancestor of St. John Tobolsky. The tonsure was committed by Metropolitan Anthony in the Milkova monastery. Further by the same lord, he was ordained a hierodeacon, and on the feast of the introduction to the temple of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he was ordained a hieromonk by Bishop Gabriel Chelyabinsk.

From the day of his monastic tonsure, Father John never slept again lying on the bed - if he fell asleep, then on an armchair or on his knees under the icons. He constantly stayed in prayer, eating food once a day and daily served the Divine Liturgy. The first years of his monastic life, Hieromonk John is especially devoted to youth - since the year he teaches and is a teacher in the spiritual seminary of the city of Bitol.

Already at that time, Saint Nikolai Velimirovich, the Serbian Chrysostom, gave such a characteristic to the young hieromonk: "If you want to see a living saint, go to Bitol to Father John." Father John quickly won students' love with his ability to inspire them with high Christian ideals and himself treated them as a loving father - at night he walked around the hostel and overshadowed the sign of the godmother.

During this period, at the request of local Greeks and Macedonians, he began to serve for them in Greek. Then Hieromonk John began to visit hospitals and find patients in need of prayer, comfort and communion. Vladyka Shanghai as the fame of Hieromonk John continuously grew up, the foreign bishops decided to build him into bishops. Wanting to evade such a high rank, he began to refer to his tongue -tied tongue, but the bishops remained adamant, indicating to him that the Prophet Moses was tongue -tied.

In May, Hieromonk John was Hirotonisan in Bishop of Shanghai, Vicar Pekinsky, and left for his flock. This was the last Hirotony, committed by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky. This small, weak man, almost a child in appearance, is a miracle of ascetic resistance in our time of universal spiritual relaxation. "The new bishop arrived at his department on the day of the festival of introduction to the temple of the Blessed Virgin Mary and, with redundant jealousy, continued his pastoral and ascetic work here.

Here he immediately took up the restoration of church unity, establishing a connection with local Orthodox Serbs, Greeks and Ukrainians. Possessing inexhaustible energy, in Shanghai, Vladyka John was the inspirer of many undertakings, took the most lively participation in many public affairs of the Russian community. Then he completed the construction of the new Cathedral in honor of the Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the “Spiritwoman of the Sinners”, elevated the magnificent Holy Nicolaev Church-“The Monitor Temple Martyr to Emperor Nicholas II and his august family,” founded the House for the elderly and the children's shelter in the honor of St.

Tikhon Zadonsky. Vladyka inhabited the shelter with abandoned children, whom he fearlessly collected from the streets and from the slum of Shanghai. At first, eight orphans lived in the shelter, over the years he began to give asylum hundreds, and in total children passed through him. The children, despite the usual severity of the Lord, were absolutely devoted to him, and the saint himself worked for them before the Lord.

So, when during the war the shelter did not have enough food for children, Vladyka prayed all night, and in the morning a call: a representative of some organization arrived with a major donation for the shelter. John Maksimovich. The photo as before, the saint was strengthened and enlightened the flock of the daily commission of the Divine Liturgy. Vladyka was very strict in the altar, demanded accurate knowledge of the rules and follow him, forbade any conversations during the service and very often remained in the temple for a long time after the service.

Then he visited the sick daily, taking confession and introducing them to the holy secrets. If the patient's condition became critical, the lord came to him at any hour or night and prayed for a long time at his bed. Numerous cases of healing of hopelessly ill patients according to the prayers of St. John, his unusual phenomena at the right time are known.

The saint was visited by both prisoners in prisons, and mentally ill and obsessed in the hospital for the insane ones. And everywhere he had a gospel and preached, awakening the conscience of some and warming the hearts of others. The strictest ascetic life of the Lord was expressed not only in fasting, he earned food only once a day, and in posts ate only as a prosphore and deprivation of himself sleep.

To avoid worldly glory and attention, Vladyka learned the features of Judges, in which his feat was even brighter. So, St. John went everywhere either barefoot, or in sandals alone, even in winter. He toned his cassock to such dilapidation that she looked more like the clothes of the beggar. According to some, the tongue -tied words of the Lord was explained by the fact that he was so exhausted by himself that from his weakness his lower jaw dropped and did not allow to speak clearly.

However, as the former servant of the lord of those years, who began to imitate him in a lean feat and alarmed his parents, the saint, learning about this, ordered him to eat sausages in a great post and always remember that obedience to parents is more important than unauthorized exploits. Between the Moscow Patriarchate and the foreign church during the Japanese occupation of wartime, Vladyka declared himself a temporary head of the Russian colony and showed great courage, protecting the Russians before the Japanese authorities.

During this period, the message with the Bishop Synod of the foreign church was interrupted, and the far-eastern Metropolitan District was in the conditions of forced self-government. After the bishops of the Harbin diocese and Vladyka Nestor Anisimov in the year recognized as their Cyrian to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy, Vladyka John was also inclined to follow them, "since - according to him, there is no doubt in the legality of both the Patriarch, and by all other local churches." However, when Vladyka John learned about the continuation of the activities of Metropolitan Anastasia, he considered himself obliged to remain, as before, in obedience to the first hierarch of the foreign church.

Once the only Far Eastern bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church is abroad, by the decision of the Munich Bishop Cathedral of May 10, he was appointed an independent lord and erected to the dignity of the archer. The followers of the foreign church in China rallied around him [1]. Exodus from China St. Icon from Ireland. With the coming to power in China, the Russians who did not accept Soviet citizenship were again doomed to the outcome.

Most of the Shanghai flock of the Lord took the Philippines - in the year on the Philippine Island of Tubabao, about 5 thousand Russians from China lived in the camp of the International Organization of Refugees. The island was in the way of seasonal typhoons, which are flying over this sector of the Pacific Ocean. However, throughout all 27 months of the camp, he was only threatened by typhoon, but even then he changed his course and bypassed the island.When one Russian in a conversation with the Philippines mentioned his fear of typhoons, they said that there was no reason for concern, because "your holy man blesses your camp every night from all four sides." When the camp was evacuated, the terrible typhoon hit the island and completely destroyed all the buildings.

Vladyka remained that ascetic, a strict bishop, a sacrificial shepherd and a spirit -bearing prayer book, as he was at the Shanghai department, and in the true holiness of Western Europe, the craving of many alosords to the vessel of God's grace was clearly manifested. Saint John Shanghai and San Francisian. The icon from the temple in the name of all saints in the land of the Russian shining, Paris.

Here, Vladyka began to restore the memory and veneration of the ancient Orthodox Saints of the West and brought to the bosom of the church many converts from local peoples, joining many French and Dutch parishes to the foreign church. Glory about it spread among the entire population. So, in one of the Catholic churches of Paris, the local priest tried to inspire young people with the following words: "You demand evidence, you say that now there are neither miracles nor saints.

Why should I give you theoretical evidence when St. Jean Bosoy walks along the streets of Paris." In Paris, the dispatcher of the railway station delayed the departure of the train before the arrival of the "Russian Archbishop". In all European hospitals, they knew about this bishop, who could pray for a dying man all night. He was called to the DRILE OF A seriously ill - be he a Catholic, a Protestant, Orthodox or someone else - because when he prayed, God was merciful.

So, in the Parisian hospital lay one Orthodox, shy in front of the neighbors in the ward of the arrival of a torn and barefoot bishop to it.

But when he taught her the Holy Gifts, the Frenchwoman on the nearest bunk told her: “How happy you have that you have such a confessor. My sister lives in Versailles, and when her children get sick, she drives them out onto the street, along which Bishop John usually walks, and asks him to bless them. After receiving the blessing, we immediately recover. In connection with difficulties with the construction of a new cathedral in San Francisco, San Francisa, Saint John, at the request of the thousands of the former Shanghai Pasomi lords of those who lived there, was appointed to the West-American department.

Suspended, and the quarrel paralyzed the community. But with love and patience, the saint brought the matter to the end, and in the year the Cathedral in honor of the icon of the Mother of God of "all the mourners of the Mother of God" was erected. And in the last years of earthly life, despite the enmity, the saint continued to work miracles with his vigilant prayers. Clead and veneration of the power of St.