Live lessons in moral theology. Memories of Saint John of Shanghai

An encounter with holiness is always a unique experience; often it is not immediately perceived as it should be, but later it can turn your whole life upside down. Archbishop Michael of Geneva and Western Europe talks about his personal experience, who for several years had the opportunity to communicate closely with Archbishop John (Maximovich), glorified among the saints. Saint John of Shanghai came to France in 1950, at that time I was seven years old. Then I studied at a Russian boarding school in the name of St. George, which was located in the town of Meudon near Paris. Not far from our school there was the famous Church of the Resurrection of Christ, built by the first wave of emigrants in 1927. The Russian engineer who built it made the walls from a mixture of straw and cement, calling the material “straw” - not a single Frenchman could understand what it was, but at that time it was not possible to build a more monumental building. The engineer warned that our strawmite church could stand for no more than seven years. However, it lasted until 1981, until one of the school students accidentally leaned against the wall outside during the service and fell right inside the church. Now on this place there is already a brick church, which in architecture completely recreates the appearance of that “straw” church. Vladyka John often visited that church. He also had a residence in Paris at a church, which he built in the 16th quarter of the city. Then the ruler bore the title of Brussels and Western Europe. He visited Russian schools, in particular ours, and the cadet corps in Versailles. He devoted a lot of time to raising the children of immigrants, since he considered this task one of the most important. Somehow I had to confess for the first time. I remember that the realization of this fact puzzled me very much, because before that I was used to just taking communion every week. On Tuesday of that week, without warning anyone, Bishop John came to us. He announced to the schoolchildren that tomorrow evening there would be an all-night vigil and everyone would confess. When I came to the church, there were two lecterns. A long line of my classmates lined up at one of them, where the priest who had served in this church for many years, Archimandrite Sergius (Pfaserman), was confessing. Mostly adults approached the other, where Bishop John stood; here the line moved very slowly: while the priest had time to confess to ten children, only one person in the “adult” line received permission. Since this was my first confession, I was very excited. I remember Vladyka turned to us children and beckoned someone with his finger. My classmates pushed me and said: “Go, he’s calling you!” I was confused and focused on my feelings and therefore believed them and boldly approached the bishop. He asked me sternly: “Have you come?” I knew the rules of good manners and understood that it was impolite to answer that you yourself called me, so I answered: “Vladyka, I came to confess.” And he answered me: “You don’t know what confession is!” But I stubbornly said: “I know, this means talking about your sins.” The Bishop said: “You don’t know what sins are,” but I again insisted: “I know.” "Well?" – the Bishop asked sternly. I began to say, as children usually say, that I did not listen to my elders and so on. Then the bishop took me under the omophorion. I don’t know how long I stayed under it, but I can only say that it was light there. And the elderly bishop there seemed both handsome and young to me, and I felt great joy. “Say what you want. Say everything that’s on your heart, and I will explain to you what sin is,” I remember the words of Bishop John. It was the first time any adult had said something like that. He then began to explain to me what God’s love is, that sin is when you refuse this love, when you leave Him. And then you are unhappy, because you yourself left love, you are already without love, you are already abandoned, because you yourself left. For me it was something new and amazing, and I felt that the boundless love that I hear about from Vladika John was present here. I cannot say how long our conversation lasted, and when the archbishop said to me: “You know, you and I are left alone here,” I think I said that I did not want to leave, since I had not experienced such a state before. I felt that it was impossible to escape from this state. Vladyka explained to me the meaning of the prayer of permission and then began to pronounce it - he had a very clear syllable, every word was understandable. Later, I noticed more than once during his sermons that what he said easily entered the heart of everyone who listened to him, regardless of education and degree of church affiliation. Then the bishop said: “Now I will take off the omophorion, but keep in mind that it will be dark.” It really turned out to be completely dark in the church; only one lamp remained unextinguished. Since everyone had already left, Bishop John offered to accompany me to school. He asked several times and insisted. But I refused all the time, and I clearly understood then that it was pride speaking in me, and I felt very ashamed, but I was able to overcome myself and still refused, and Vladyka kindly let me go alone. At the exit, my older classmate stood - a boy of about nine years old, he scolded me all the way because I was delayed, and he was forced to wait for me. He expected that his ridicule would hurt me and that I would cry, and he was very surprised that this no longer bothered me - I had such a joyful feeling. I remembered this confession for the rest of my life. Something similar happened later. I remember how some time later we went to Brussels and decided to look at the new church built in honor of Job the Long-Suffering; it was a church - a monument to the royal family, all the new martyrs and victims of the civil war and persecution in Russia. It began to be built before the war, but was completed only in 1950. It was winter. Then there was quite a lot of snow in Brussels, and we even went sledding. It was little warmer inside the church than outside. We stood frozen, the inside of the room was damp, since the plaster on the walls had not yet dried, but everyone was amazed by the appearance of the church. Children born in a foreign land or who came abroad in infancy saw Russian church architecture for the first time. Suddenly we heard stomping and knocking - it was Bishop John who tapped his staff on the floor (there were no doors yet) to attract our attention, and angrily said: “Is this how you meet the bishop?” We were scared, but he said he was joking, came up and blessed everyone, calling us by name. We all turned to the east, and the bishop began enthusiastically telling us what and how would happen in the new church. We looked at his feet in only sandals - they were blue from the cold. “There will be plaques here with the names of all those killed and tortured during the revolution! Patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops... There are many of them, and we will mention each name and pray for the repose of their souls,” he said. He hugged us by the shoulders, and gradually we became carried away by his story, we felt warm and even hot, despite the frost. Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco, wonderworker We knew about his spiritual gifts. When Vladyka John visited us, students of the Russian school, he was already known as the Shanghai miracle worker. Refugees who moved from China to the Philippines and then to France spoke about him. When the communists came to power in China, all borders were closed. The archbishop gathered his flock in the church and ordered them to take the most necessary things. His authority was enormous, and people obeyed him unquestioningly. They told us that after the service, the bishop led them all to the port, together they calmly boarded the ship and sailed away, without encountering any opposition from the authorities - it was a miracle. Then on the island of Tabubao in the Philippines, where the refugees were evacuated, there was not a single natural disaster during the long period of their stay, although storms and hurricanes are very frequent in these places. Thanks to the active petitions of Bishop John, and he secured a meeting with the President of the United States, some of the refugees managed to move from the Philippines to America, some ended up in Australia, and others in France. Vladyka John came to our school often. He became my teacher. Probably, not all of us realized how important his visits could be for us, because in childhood many things are taken for granted. The attitude towards the ruler was mixed. The guys were afraid of the formidable, venerable bishop, but were delighted when he suddenly appeared. I will never forget how he grabbed me by the shoulder from behind when we met - his hand was as heavy as a shovel. At the same time, he communicated with children very simply, in a fatherly way; as soon as he spoke, the fear immediately went away, the ruler became completely “one of his own.” He interacted with people a lot. I spoke briefly with adults. If his sermons after the Liturgy were very long and lasted at least forty minutes, then in personal communication he spoke only a few words. When I was 16 years old, he once came up to me in church and said: “Listen to me, after the Liturgy you must always gather parishioners for a meal, you must feed them, welcome them, and the table must be set, it must be bursting. Because the meal is a continuation of the Eucharist. And when it’s Christmas, you should put up a Christmas tree here, so that there are toys, so that the children dance and so that they all receive some kind of gift, so that they are happy and happy. Do you understand me? I, of course, did not understand, since at that time I did not even think and did not intend to become a priest or monk. But the Bishop, apparently, had already foreseen that I would be a cleric. And when many years later I was ordained a priest in this church, I remembered these words and even shed tears. Vladyka knew how to help people in a completely incomprehensible way. It used to be that he would leave the church, and a Russian man would walk past, and the bishop would call him and give him a wad of money. “If you don’t pay the rent, they’ll kick you out,” he told the stranger, who was very surprised, since he didn’t even expect any help and was generally embarrassed to come up and ask for something. Moreover, they gave him exactly the amount that was needed. Vladyka, by the way, was very fond of such meek, shy people. He is known to have collected homeless young children from the streets and created a shelter for them. Very often people who were not entirely balanced and, in our opinion, even abnormal, appeared at our church services. They knew that Vladyka would help them and heal their mental illnesses, feed them and generally do everything for them; all of Paris knew about this. We children probably understood his holiness. But we didn’t know how to handle it, we didn’t know how to approach him, but we felt it. And we felt that we were probably constantly doing something wrong when communicating with him. This sometimes tormented us. Once in the cadet corps, the boys in the choir, while Vladyka was serving vespers, shortened the stichera. The Bishop clicked his tongue reproachfully from the altar, but did not come out himself, and the children passed on the chants. When the stichera were sung, the bishop came out and demanded that all the stichera be sung from the beginning, without any omissions. One of the main human virtues is prudence, and Vladika John fully possessed this ability. He was a living lesson in moral theology for us. He told the man: “Do this or, on the contrary, do not do this in order to be with Christ.” Faith is not a philosophy. Although philosophy should not be neglected. Faith is a force that can move society forward. But faith can not only move, but also transform society. After Bishop John left France due to duty in 1962, we, his students, of course, began to miss him, but I always felt that we all, and even I, a sinner, remained in his memory and in his prayers. After the bishop’s departure, various people, even atheists, often came up to me and asked: “Where is your bishop?” They were perplexed and turned to me seriously: “How will we live without him?” Now the veneration of St. John is growing, especially in Russia. People coming to San Francisco can verify the incorruptibility of his holy relics. Many were repeatedly healed through prayers to him even before his glorification. The discovery of such a great saint of God became a clear sign of His mercy to foreign Russia and to the entire Russian Church as a whole.