He was the only one of the seven sons of Maksym Wasylkowski Maksymowicz to enter the service of the Eastern Orthodox Church, in which he was appointed manager of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra by 1678.

As Bishop Theodore of Uglich wanted someone to succeed him of Chernigov, he appointed John as Archimandrite of the Eletsky Monastery in 1695.

His most famous work is "Iliotropion", which he translated and adapted into Slavonic and Russian from the original Latin of the German Jesuit priest Jeremias Drexel.

In the early 21st century, it remains the standard work on theodicy among the Eastern Orthodox.

[citation needed] John died peacefully in 1715, inside his quarters while at prayer.