JOHN OF NOVGOROD

On September 20 (7), the very day of the pre-feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Church celebrates the memory of St. John of Novgorod (+1186). St. John was the tenth ordained Novgorod bishop since the establishment of this episcopal see at the end of the 9th century after the Baptism of Rus.

The time of St. John is the pre-Mongol period in the history of the Russian Church, which lasted until 1237. Relatively little detailed information about this era has survived. The life of St. John that has come down to us was compiled in the middle of the 15th century, when in 1439 his relics were found in the Novgorod Cathedral of St. Sophia. In accordance with ancient Christian tradition, the Novgorod cathedral was named not in honor of saints or holidays, but of God Himself, as Wisdom.

From the life we ​​learn that John was initially a parish priest at the Novgorod church of St. Blaise. It is assumed that by this time the practice of electing Novgorod bishops by the people had been formed. In 1165, John himself was elected to the city cathedra. His episcopacy lasted 21 years. Since in 1108-1130 there was already a bishop in Novgorod named John, our Saint John is often called John the Second.

The life says that in his ministry as a priest, and a bishop in the understanding of that time was first and foremost a priest, although with the authority to create his own succession and to have legal jurisdiction, John was merciful to the defenseless and tried to save the persecuted from the cruel secular court. Through the efforts of John, partly at his expense, seven churches were built. Their dedication is interesting: 1. Annunciation; 2. Epiphany; 3. Elijah the Prophet; 4. Theodore the Studite; 5. The Holy Three Youths, Ananias, Azariah and Misael, and the Holy Prophet Daniel; 6. Lazarus of the Four Days; 7. Nicholas the Wonderworker. This is how we learn which saints were especially revered in Rus’ at that time. According to the semantics of the hagiographic language, seven is a symbolic number. It denotes completeness, indicating that the churches were not simply built, but were loved and full of people.

The saint had the gift of power over demons; he bound them with his word by the power of the sign of the cross. Tradition has preserved the story of John of Novgorod’s journey to Jerusalem “on a demon” . Apparently, this was how popular piety tried to explain how an exact copy of the Holy Sepulcher could be created in Novgorod at that time. The hagiographic story was apparently well known to the writer Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852), who used it in his story “The Night Before Christmas” and other works. In modern language, we can say that Saint John is a culture-forming saint. This hagiographic episode is one of the most difficult to interpret among all the lives of Russian saints.

The canonization of Saint John took place at the local council of the Russian Church in 1547 under Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow (1482-1563). It is known that it was Saint Macarius who was the first in the history of the Russian Church to systematically study and then canonize Russian saints. The fact that in 1526-1542 he was the Archbishop of Novgorod, that is, he could have been a direct witness to the local traditions of the memory and veneration of St John, gives his decision on canonization special weight. It is known that, in the matter of canonization, Macarius paid special attention to the correspondence of the narratives to historicity.

The name of John is associated with the famous miracle of Novgorod’s deliverance from the siege of the joint army of Russian princes led by the Suzdal prince Mstislav (+1173) in February 1170. Following the vision of the Mother of God, John, together with the Novgorodians, brought the icon with Her image to the city walls. When the arrows reached the icon, the besiegers panicked, after which they were defeated by the Novgorodian troops. The celebration, established, according to legend, by John himself, is held on December 10 (November 27) as a sign in honor of the icon of the Mother of God of the Sign.

This event became a symbol of the period of feudal fragmentation that was destructive for Rus’. It prophetically pointed to the imminent destructive invasion of the Mongols, from which only Novgorod itself did not suffer. At that time, it was from this Russian northern city, preserved by God, that the ascension of Prince Alexander Nevsky (1221-1263) to the grand princely throne began. In modern language, we can say that St. John is a culture-forming saint. The image of St. John teaches us to overcome mutual hostility by turning to God, reminds us of the danger of civil strife, speaks of the interweaving of historical destinies and the great instructive power of the lives of ancient Russian saints.

Just before his death, John retired from his work and took monastic vows. Thus, a kind of blessed circle of callings and hopes was closed. After all, the life mentions that together with his brother Gabriel, in monasticism Gregory, John, while still a simple priest, lived an ascetic life and with his own efforts built the Church of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos, which was the first of his temple buildings. It is known that the predecessor of the saint in Novgorod half a century earlier, his namesake John, also left the cathedra. Whether Saint John followed his example, or was spontaneously guided by the will of the Holy Spirit in his monastic departure, we do not know. Such was the mysterious continuity of the gesture, in refusal and departure as a visible truth that time is given to learn to say goodbye.