He was born in Umurga Parish, in the Kreis Wolmar of the Governorate of Livonia (today in Latvia), on August 25, 1898.
John grew up in the small provincial town Limbaži, located about 80 miles from Riga.
He attended school in the village and took active part in the Latvian Orthodox Church as an altar boy and then as a psalomshchik [ru].
John, together with his mother and an adopted son, Sergei, was forced to leave Latvia with a small group of Latvian priests.
The group took refuge in southern Czechoslovakia and eventually arrived in West Germany with the help of American soldiers.
John arrived in the United States on July 22, 1949, after having petitioned metropolitan Theophilus (Pashkovsky) to accept him into the Metropolia.