John Kronstadt

In 2014 Vitaly Milonov proposed to establish 14 June as a memorial day for John of Kronstadt in St. Petersburg. But the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Russia became an absolute adversary, it made an official statement: "John of Kronstadt was a member of the odious Black-Hundred organization «Union of the Russian People», known for its terrible anti-Semitism and moral support for Jewish pogroms in pre-revolutionary Russia"

In 1990, after the beginning of Perestroika and the liberalization of church life in the USSR, John was subsequently canonized by the Moscow Patriarchate. Also, after the 1990 the rehabilitation of the sectarian Ioannites started and even the Ioannite leaders previously condemned by the Synod were incorporated into the mainstream Orthodoxy in Russia.

From 1990 to 2016, more than 60 new churches or altars in Russia alone were dedicated to him, his flat in Kronstadt was partly restored and officially registered as a memorial museum, and his biography was published in the most respected in Russia series of biographical books Lives of Remarkable People. The John Apartment Museum is located in Kronstadt, on the street Posadskaya in house 21. Monuments to John have been placed in Kronstadt, Irkutsk and Moscow.

In 1964 John was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in the first such canonization independent from Moscow Patriarchate. St. John Maximovitch of San Francisco played an active role in preparation of St. John's canonization. A well-known conservative ideologist of the ROCOR, Archimandrite Constantine (Zaitsev) believed that the most powerful heavenly patrons of Russia are John of Kronstadt and the Tsar Martyr with his family.

The grave of John became a place of pilgrimage. After the Revolution, the Soviet authorities decided to eliminate it. In 1923-1926, when the Ioannovsky Convent began to be closed, the option of reburial in one of the cemeteries was discussed, but this idea met resistance from Soviet authorities, who feared that the new grave would become a place of veneration too. There was also discussed the option of bricking up the crypt, and later burying the remains deeper along with concreting the floor of the crypt. It is known that the crypt was indeed bricked up, but there is no data on the reburial. The book of the Soviet historian of the religion Nikolai Yudin claims that coffin with the bones of John was taken far out of city and burned. After 1990, the Church-necropolis (Russian: Церковь-усыпальница ) of John of Kronstadt was consecrated in the crypt of the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles of the Ioannovsky Convent; inside the Church-necropolis, where the coffin of John used to be, a new empty coffin on the floor (sarcophagus) was built. On the official website of the John Convent claims that the relics continue to be in the crypt, but there was no excavations to prove it. The Orthodox Encyclopedia states that the tombstone (sarcophagus) is located above the relics of John of Kronstadt.

In 1909 Nicholas II wrote an order to establish the commemoration of St. John in the Church. Subsequently the Holy Synod issued an edict to commemorate St. Father John annually on the day of his death.

John of Kronstadt died in his home in Kronstadt on 2 January [O.S. 20 December 1908] 1909. The coffin with the body was transported through St. Petersburg with pompous ceremonies and buried in the Ioannovsky Convent. According to the last will, the convent also got all the things of the deceased, which brought great benefits to the convent and aroused suspicions of forgery.

In the fall of 1907, John was appointed by Tsar Nicholas as a member of the Holy Synod, but did not participate in any meeting of the Holy Synod because of his serious illness.

John at first condemned the participants in the Kishinev pogrom; but then changed his mind, he apologized to the pogrom-makers and accused the Jews themselves of the pogroms. After the Russian Revolution of 1905, he became an ally of Russian far-right radicals, also known as the Black Hundreds, who fought against left-wing activists, liberals and Jews. He was a honorary member of the Union of the Russian People and several other right-wing organizations. He became one of the most celebrated clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church who supported the creator of the Union, Dubrovin. When Dubrovin invited the hierarchs of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev, as well as John of Kronstadt to a mass meeting in November 1906, only Father John attended. Moreover, Metropolitan Anthonii of St. Petersburg sent Dubrovin a sharp rebuke, calling his organization terrorist. Father John publicly consecrated the banners of the Union, thus inspiring its leaders.

John, the only one of all the priests of St. Andrew's Cathedral, fled from Kronstadt, during the uprising in 1905; the rest of the priests of St. Andrew's Cathedral held a procession to the rebels; they urged them to stop the uprising. The press accused John of cowardice after this act; journals published caricatures on John.

Nikolai Leskov and Maxim Gorky were very critical of John. Gorky called him an "actor of the Imperial Churches". Leskov ridiculed John in his work Polunochniki ("Night Owls") and in a variety of letters. John of Kronstadt was also known for his fierce attacks on Leo Tolstoy, whom he considered the devil. He wrote to Tolstoy: "You ought to have stone hung round your neck and be lowered with it into the depths of the sea." In 1902 a collection of such diatribes was published, while Tolstoy did not pay attention to him. The support of the ultra-right movements and such aggressive attacks on Tolstoy led to the fact that the attitude of the "progressive" part of society towards John became negative, and his figure became the personification of "reactionary" forces.

By the early 1890s John had become well known, and people from all over Russia came to him every day in thousands. He practiced mass confessions, during which thousands of people wiped out their sins and went into a frenzy, which was often accompanied by hysterics and tears. Even the Tsar Alexander III of Russia in 1894 summoned Father John to Livadia Palace (in the Crimea) as he lay dying of kidney disease. John claimed later that he had raised the dead, but failed to heal the Tsar by his prayers.

John came to a wide prominence after the publication in the newspaper Novoe Vremya (literally New Time) in 1883.. This publication was also a turning point in the relationship between John and his church authorities. In the open letter 16 people told about their healing thanks to the prayers of Father John and swore "Now live according to God's truth and go to Holy Communion as often as possible". Such a publication in a secular newspaper violated the then rules (the religious censor had to approve the article first) and was perceived by the church hierarchy as interference into the affairs of the Church and violation of subordination by the John. The Russian Church did not know what to do with a person who suddenly claims to be a living wonderworker with healing power (only relics were thought to have this power). The situation was discussed by the highest church organ, the Most Holy Synod. The hierarchs of the Synod were in disarray, and especially the Metropolitan Isidore (the direct supervisor of Father John) was dissatisfied, but they could do nothing. However, only after the invitation to the bed of the dying Tsar Alexander III in 1894 John became immune to their criticism, despite he did not make any expected miracles there.

John established a special relief organization. It was called the "House of the Industry" and opened in Kronstadt in 1882. It had its own church, an elementary school for boys and girls, an orphanage, a hospital for anyone who came there, a boarding house, a free public library, shelter for the homeless that accommodated 40,000 people each year, a variety of workshops where the impoverished were able to earn some money, a cheap public canteen which served about 800 free dinners on holidays, and a hostel for the travelers.

From 1855 he worked as a priest in Saint Andrew's Cathedral in Kronstadt, the naval base near St. Petersburg. He received the office of priest by marrying the 26-year-old daughter of the archpriest of this cathedral. Benjamin (Fedchenkov) (1880—1961) writes that after the marriage, he surprisingly refused to have sexual relations with his wife, despite her complaints to the church authorities. In the family of John and his wife Elizabeth, their niece Rufina lived and was brought up.

John of Kronstadt (Russian: Иоанн Кронштадтский ; 31 October 1829 – 2 January 1909) was a Russian Orthodox archpriest and a member of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was known for his mass common confessions, numerous miracles and charitable work, as well as for his monarchist, chauvinistic, antisemitic and anticommunist views.

The future Saint was born as Ivan Ilyich Sergiyev (Russian: Иванъ Ильичъ Сергіевъ ) on 31 October [O.S. 19 October] 1829 in the northern village of Sura, near the White Sea, in the Russian Empire. He came from a hereditary corporation of village clergymen and his father was a poor dyachok in the local church. Little is known about his early life, mainly from late memories. In his autobiography, he claims that his parents gave him to a parish school but the study was too difficult for him. However, he prayed earnestly and received inspiration; he became the top student in the school, and then in the seminary, which enabled him to enter the Theological Academy in Saint Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire. He became the 35th out of 39 students who graduated from the Academy in 1855.