John of Shanghai and San Francisco

[1][2] Mikhail Maximovitch was born in 1896 in the village of Adamovka of the Izyumsky Uyezd of the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire (in present-day eastern Ukraine).

He studied and attended church in Kharkiv, where he was inspired by metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky to deepen his spiritual learnings.

[5] In 1929, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church appointed him as a teacher of the seminary in Bitola under principal Nikolaj Velimirović.

In 1934, he was ordained a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia by Metropolitan Anthony and assigned to the diocese of Shanghai.

[7][6] In Shanghai, John found an uncompleted cathedral and an Orthodox community deeply divided along ethnic lines.

He quickly became involved in local charitable institutions and also founded an orphanage and home for children of the destitute.

He worked to restore church unity and establish ties with local Orthodox Serbs and Greeks.

[4] When the Communists took power in China in 1949, the Russian colony was forced to flee, first to a refugee camp on the island of Tubabao in the Philippines, and then to the United States and Australia.

Portions of his relics are located in Serbia, Russia, Mount Athos, Greece, South Korea, Bulgaria, Romania, the United States, Canada, England, and other countries.

Icon of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco
The relics of St. John