Память святого юродивого Иоанна, устюжского чудотворца

Blessed John was born of pious parents - from a father named Savva, and mother Natalia - in the vicinity of the great city of Ustyug 3522, in a village called Pukhovo and located on the other side of the river called Sukhona, where the ancient city of Ustyug was located. From a young age he showed extraordinary abstinence. On Wednesdays and Fridays he ate nothing, and on other days he ate only bread and water, and he always spent his nights awake in prayer and always walked with a sad and pitiful face, so that those who saw him thought that he was not completely sane. This is how the blessed youth always acted, and his mother many times convinced him to change this way of life, saying: – My child, do not exhaust your body by not eating food; such severe abstinence may cause you illness. “Do not force me to do this, my mother,” the boy answered, “abstinence will save me from sins.” “What sins, my child,” asked the mother, “do you have, being at such a young age?” There is only the grace of God in you and we do not see any sins in you. To this the boy answered his mother: - My mother! Stop saying such words, listen to what the Scripture says: let no one boast that he is sinless; without sin - God alone (Rom. 3:10, 23; 1 John 1:8, 9). And one more thing: food and drink will not bring us closer to God (1 Cor. 8:8). Therefore, let us not feed our body, lest it become our enemy. With these words Blessed John persuaded his mother. Although he himself was illiterate, he was taught by the grace of the Holy Spirit given to him, as the prophet said: “I will enter into meditation on the powers of the Lord God; I will remember Your righteousness—Your alone” (Ps. 70:15–16). After this, the father of the blessed one moved from the village of Pukhov to a city, also located in the vicinity of Ustyug, named Orlets 3523, on the Yug River, and died here. Then his mother went to the monastery of the Life-Giving Trinity that was there, took monastic vows and was soon elected abbess of this monastery. All the time she had her son with her, but the blessed youth, having learned the vanity of this world, took on the appearance of a holy fool, 3524, and the mother, seeing that he was behaving this way, left him to the will of God. After this, the Monk John left the monastery and, having come to the city of Ustyug, settled near the cathedral church of the Most Holy Theotokos, Her Venerable Dormition in the church gatehouse. Staying awake at night, he offered unceasing prayers to the Lord, and during the day he tried to seem like a holy fool to people and ran through the streets so that they would not recognize his pretense. He usually rested on dung and walked around completely naked, only wearing one torn rag on his lower back. But when he happened to put on a shirt, it was always shabby and he never washed it. The monk endured a lot of insults, ridicule and beatings from frivolous people, constantly suffered hunger and thirst, and at the same time did not take anything from anyone. One day, due to the winter cold, he climbed into a very hot stove, lay down in it on the burning coals, as if on a bed, and did not suffer at all from this. In addition, he healed the wife of one prince, named Theodora, nicknamed the Red 3525, from a fever, a princess named Maria. Having spent his life in this way, blessed John, having learned about his departure to the Lord, prayed for the whole world, protected himself with the sign of the cross and, lying down on the ground, gave up his holy soul into the hands of God. This happened in 1494, on the 29th day of the month of May. The monk was buried near the cathedral church and works miracles for those who turn to him with faith 3526. With bodily nakedness and patience you exposed the enemy’s deceit, denouncing his incomparable act, the bitter suffering of the sun, and you did not feel the need of great cold, frost and fire, we are covered by God’s help, John the Wise. Pray for those who honor your memory honestly and diligently, flowing to the race of your relics, to get rid of troubles and avoid falling. Desiring the highest beauty, the lower sweets of bodily eating, you carefully abandoned, through the non-acquisitiveness of the vanity world, you loved the angelic life, passing away the blessed John: with them, pray to Christ God unceasingly for all of us. Veliky Ustyug, now a district town of the Vologda province, is located on the left bank of the Sukhona River at the confluence of the Yuga River. The city of Orlets was located 40 versts from Ustyug on a tributary of the Sukhona Yuga. Foolish actually means stupid, insane. This is the name given to Christian ascetics who presented themselves as stupid or strange out of humility and for the sake of their eternal salvation. This was the Ustyug governor, Prince Theodore the Red. Residents of the city of Ustyug turned with prayer to Blessed John during the disasters of the interregnum and he was prescribed the victory of the royal army over Sapieha in 1610, and in 1613, with the prayers of the Ustyug miracle workers (Procopius and John), they not only defended their city from the Poles, but also defeated them. A church was built in Ustyug in the name of Blessed John. You might be interested in: