THE HOLY ARCHBISHOP JOHN OF SAN FRANCISCO
AND OUR CHURCH
TESTIMONIALS
(Orthodox Presence n° 3 – 3rd quarter 1968)
On July 2, 1966, Archbishop Jean (Maximovitch) of blessed memory, the father who consecrated me bishop, was born in heaven.
He had celebrated the Liturgy in the morning, then having gone to parishioners for a service of the dead, back in his chapel he began to pray again, when the Angel of Light approached. He lowered his head and his soul flew “like a bird from the birdcatcher's cage”, as the Gradual of the feast of Saint Irenaeus sings. I suspect he was celestially warned of the solemn moment, for for three days he had been trying to settle all the affairs of his Church.
The paths of God, paths of our destinies, contain such a mystery! How much I would have liked, when we learned of his death, that we became all ears in order to know the divine thought, not so much for him as for us.
Saint Archbishop John of San Francisco reading the Gospel
His kindness was infinite, his fervor of prayer – I have testimonies of it – healed the sick, rescued people from misery. I remember this anecdote in which his patient charity is revealed: due to political circumstances, several Chinese children in his care – he was then bishop of Shanghai – could not enter America, being arrested in the port. He then went to Washington and the secretary having refused to introduce him to the White House, he sat down on the steps of the staircase and prayed in silence until the members of Parliament, stupefied to see each time that they passed this bishop praying on the steps of the staircase, asked the reason for his presence and immediately voted a law allowing Chinese children to enter America. Admirable free man.
As Christians we should rejoice to know him working in the Kingdom. As a bishop, I should confess joy in death - the apostle Paul desired to die in order to join his Lord, released from the weight of this life - I know all this and cannot help, however, from still be saddened by his departure. It is not only a personal pain that rises in my heart, it is that of our Church in France.
Archbishop John appeared to us at a particularly difficult time. He held out his hand to us, understood us, loved us. When he left he left us orphans. God who directs the Church has his plans, God who is Master of our lives has his plans; certainly, everything is from Him, from You Father, everything is through Him, from You Son, everything is in Him, from You Spirit! No hair of our head falls without his will, and we, Christians called "children of light", we must at such times scrutinize the divine thought, be available to discern what he wants from us, what the events mean …Archbishop John, pray for us!
When he had celebrated in our church, after the Divine Liturgy, Archbishop John stopped in front of each icon and implored it for sinners.
I can still see him walking among us, then coming into contact with the Saints.
Such are your friends, such are you, they say, he was the friend of the Saints and the Saints were his friends. With what grateful intimacy he discovered the relics of a Saint unknown to him.
Metropolitan Antoine of kyiv, who crowned him bishop, said of him: “We put ourselves in prayer, he never puts himself in prayer because he is prayer”.
What strikes me first of all in the destiny of our Orthodox Church of France is that, despite our weakness, it is not the hierarchy alone that has helped us but people of prayer. The living stones, the foundations of our Church were, first of all, Archbishop Alexandre of Brussels who prayed seven hours a day, naming all those he had met during his life and, finally, our Archbishop Jean. Metropolitan Anthony of Kiev, when sending him to Shanghai, wrote about him to the Metropolitan of that city: “I am sending you a bishop whose soul is that of a child; he is small, very small (he was small) like a baby, but his prayer pierces the heavens”.
Providence sent him to us. What characterized him, distinguished him from other bishops, is that we did not go to him, it was he who came first, image and reflection of Christ, because man did not go to God , it is God who has gone to man. “I have come to you”, says the gospel. Everything unfolds in a strange way in the history of the Church and in everyone's life, not according to a five-year plan, but according to a road traced by God.
We were not yet under his leadership when one day his brother wrote to him that there was a church in Montpellier, ours, and he asked if we could celebrate there; we gave it to him with joy. Our church was still under construction, yet he celebrated the Divine Liturgy there. Thus the Liturgy preceded any canonical or administrative conversation. Monseigneur Jean had entered the interior of the Church of France, on the same level, through the Eucharist.
Then I met him under unexpected circumstances. An anchorite from Mount Athos referred us to him through one of our faithful who had been to the Holy Mountain, Émile Moine. The latter, wishing to visit him and believing that he did not speak French, asked me to accompany him as an interpreter.
During this intimate interview, at Versailles, we talked about different subjects, and as we said to him: It is really good to pray in your little chapel, his eyes suddenly became so alive, his being suddenly revealed itself because, you you know, no longer sleeping he was sometimes not drowsy but tired, bent over, and spoke with difficulty. We had touched the prayer: then his gaze began to shine with an inexhaustible kindness and depth, and from that moment he never left us.
Archbishop John did not give his assent from a pulpit, he mingled with us, prayed with us, celebrated the Divine Liturgy according to our Gaulish rite, watched over our development by giving us the signal grace of ordinations. How many priests, deacons, clerics of our Church were ordained by him! Two years before his departure, against all odds, he crowned our work with the consecration of the first bishop of the Orthodox Church of France, thus ensuring its continuity.
Many articles in Russian newspapers were devoted to Archbishop John. They insisted above all – as I did myself – on the man of prayer, the ascetic who no longer slept and this aspect is true. Looking back on our Church, we see precisely that if we have been supported in our trials by canonist bishops, administrators - it is an immense privilege - we were more particularly supported by charismatic bishops, inspired by the Breath of the Holy Spirit, for Archbishop John, despite his humility, was never subjected to the pressures of the world. He sometimes took sudden resolutions, without letting anyone know, which raised criticism. Scrupulous in the liturgical and canonical forms, much more scrupulous in the Tradition than his colleagues, he had a breadth of vision and an understanding of the most difficult situations. In him Truth was married to Charity.
Much has been said about his kindness, his compassion for the sick, his nocturnal prayer, but he had one more quality and no article or person mentioned it. I believe and I want to proclaim it. Our Archbishop's vision was universal, Catholic. This vision of the universal Catholic Church made the Serbs say when I spoke to them about him: “He is one of us!”. I have heard Chinese exclaim: “How we love him, he understands us so well!”. The French, the Germans, any race, any nation reacted the same way. He was not only attentive, loving, Monsignor Jean cherished each people, each tradition. With what joy he enjoyed celebrating the Liturgy of Saint James and ours! He said to myself: “Yes, the Church is One but each people has its vocation in this unity” and he added, for example: “I lived in Serbia, and the Serbs, while celebrating the same liturgy as the Russians, have a different spirit”. Alongside his intellectual understanding, his heart and mind were present. Catholic soul. God allow that we still find on our way other bishops, pastors and fathers similar to him. The past has shown us that the Holy Spirit sustains us through men of God. May the Lord send us other friendly bishops! Who will they be? Have we reached a stage where we will have to move forward alone, without counting on the help of beings inspired from Above? Alongside his intellectual understanding, his heart and mind were present. Catholic soul. God allow that we still find on our way other bishops, pastors and fathers similar to him. The past has shown us that the Holy Spirit sustains us through men of God. May the Lord send us other friendly bishops! Who will they be? Have we reached a stage where we will have to move forward alone, without counting on the help of beings inspired from Above? Alongside his intellectual understanding, his heart and mind were present. Catholic soul. God allow that we still find on our way other bishops, pastors and fathers similar to him. The past has shown us that the Holy Spirit sustains us through men of God. May the Lord send us other friendly bishops! Who will they be? Have we reached a stage where we will have to move forward alone, without counting on the help of beings inspired from Above? Who will they be? Have we reached a stage where we will have to move forward alone, without counting on the help of beings inspired from Above? Who will they be? Have we reached a stage where we will have to move forward alone, without counting on the help of beings inspired from Above?
Along our journey up to Archbishop John, we have known, experienced, this coordination of the Body of Christ and the charismatic power of the Spirit. I don't know what will happen now. God will tell us. There is no point in imagining the future. I know that the servant of God, John, is among us, I know that he, the vigilant one who on earth forgot to rest, is with us, invisibly.
Before he died, in May, he had written me a letter, brief as always, but condensed. Here it is: “Say for me to all the priests and faithful my great prayer, that they obey you with confidence because I have consecrated you bishop for them. By obeying you, they obey me even if I can no longer return to France”. And two days before his death, he sent the telegram: “I bless the clergy and the holy flock of the Church of France”.
The world thirsts for holiness, Archbishop John was a saint. He was accused of praying too much and being a bad administrator. What a lie! If the Russian Church of Paris exists, it is because he knew how to find the sum necessary for its purchase, if the new cathedral of San Francisco was completed before his death, it is because he was present; if the Church of France has been strengthened, recognized, based on its own statutes, it is thanks to him. No, it's good to be an administrator, it's better to be a Saint. The Saints, while contemplating and praying, act and leave real and more effective traces than those who are agitated. Archbishop Jean will direct us, guide us.
Praying for the repose of his soul, because every human being needs prayer, let us ask him to pray to the Divine Trinity for us, for each one of us, for the Church of France and Orthodoxy in general, so tried.
John, beloved father, pray for us!
Bishop Jean, Bishop of Saint-Denis
THE HOLY ARCHBISHOP JOHN: IN HOMAGE
( Orthodox Presence n° 3 – 3rd quarter 1968)
One afternoon, in August 1957, an anticlerical Parisian and yet a seeker of truth, had the good fortune to converse in front of a “skiti” on the arid and steep mountain of southern Athos, facing the sea, with the monk Nikon, 82-year-old anchorite and then spiritual leader on the Holy Mountain.
Learning that a new Orthodox Church was being born in Paris in addition to those, too numerous for his liking, which already existed, the venerable old man protested! But after a short exchange of views, realizing that this one was of specifically French stock, he began to meditate and give advice with a view to his apostolic fullness: not to address an ecclesiastical See always influenced by politics and social contingency, he says, but to men entirely dedicated to God, free from the world and bearers of holiness. And the anchorite indicated Archbishop Alexandre of Brussels and the Archbishop of Shanghai, the latter recently arrived in Paris. He specified the latter's address in Versailles after looking for it in a notebook. So warm was the charity of his insistence that his interlocutor's anticlericalism dissipated along with his decision not to meddle in ecclesiastical affairs; writing down the address, he agreed to carry the message, heavy with consequences that he did not suspect…
The continuation was given only several months later, because the modest Archbishop Jean was hardly known at the Saint-Irénée church.
The messenger from Athos, present at the first meeting given on December 22 to Monsignor Jean de Saint-Denis, still Archpriest Eugraph Kovalevsky, was at first disappointed and thought: “If he is this highly spiritual man, recommended by the Sage of Athos!”. We came to talk about prayer. Immediately the bust of the Archbishop and especially his head appeared to him largely surrounded by blue, the color of the Virgin. The tone changed completely, diviner affable, considerate, full of love, as if descending from the sky. Athos was manifesting, and more. The Archbishop asked to go to the dining room to share the snack of the children who were receiving an education in the archbishop's residence, and the snack, brief as it was, seemed exquisite. After the interview,
* * *
Asked to adhere to Orthodoxy, the still anticlerical messenger had declined this honor, but on his return from the interview with Archbishop John he changed his mind and desired to receive Orthodox chrismation from the hands of the bishop, on condition obviously to have taken knowledge of the ritual in advance. And this Russian ritual, although inspired by Rome, was not accepted by him because of the denials it involved with regard to his first Church, to which, despite his distance and his indifference, he remained grateful. The passage from one Church to another should, according to him, take place not in a rupture and denial but as a progression, an evolutionary continuity.
The sponsoring Archpriest, whose established ritual for the French contained no such difficulty, reported it to Archbishop John, who replied: “Well! let him prune whatever he wants, according to his conscience”. Thus he welcomed this Orthodox of French stock in the broadest understanding and charity called for by our history and the particular temperament of our soil. Miracle of holiness, grace that was to extend to our entire Church.
On Sunday, June 1, 1958, two parishioners of the parish of Saint-Irénée going for a ceremony at the Russian convent of Fourqueux were victims of a very serious automobile accident, near Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and transported to city hospital. After about ten days their condition was at its most serious; the intestinal functions blocked in one, a weakness of the heart preventing the surgical operation in the other. Immediately after a visit from Archbishop John, the weakness of the heart had disappeared and the operation immediately undertaken was successful; as for the intestinal blockage that no medication had been able to release, it ceased when the wounded man – practically abandoned – had, in homage, absorbed half of a bread roll blessed (according to the Russian rite) by Archbishop John.
Later, the interested party pointed out to him that the accident could well mean, or at least include, that the French had to go not to the Divine Liturgy according to Saint John Chrysostom (practiced in the Russian convent of Fourqueux) but stop at that of Saint Germain de Paris. In his broad tolerance and humility, he replied: “Ah! I did not think about it".
If he hardly ate, he also took no sleep. Provincial friends who had taken him in, reserving for him the most beautiful room in their opulent interior with the maximum comfort, were dismayed to hear him walking there all night. He was in perpetual prayer.
* * *
When he was twelve, he asked his mother to let him pray all night, and since then he came to stop using a bed, contenting himself with awake rest in his work chair. So he advised anyone who offered to call him, not to call him on the day he was busy, but around midnight, one o'clock in the morning.
When spoken to, he sometimes seemed, to the disappointment of the interlocutor, to be carried off by sleep or enraptured in other spheres: he nevertheless followed everything that was said to him perfectly, not letting slip any detail and always perceptive. Probable state of union where he received strength and light.
Higher enlightenment embracing depth and breadth.
The depth, the height and the constancy of his perpetual prayer were manifested in the love of humanity so intense, in an understanding so clear and so spiritual of the human soul that even what in the prejudice of our society seems contrary or enemy of the Church, found measure with him: “We must not reject the Freemasons, he said, they are men like the others; and they, like the others, need divine help”. The penetration of his gaze, generally humble and discreet, but then of an unbearable ember, instantly frightened those who, approaching him, felt suddenly probed beyond their inner shell.
In him, love and compassion went beyond the individual level and extended to the dimension of peoples and nations. He had to exercise his priesthood over the entire periphery of the earth: after Serbia, China, Europe and Africa to end up in San Francisco. Everywhere, the same participation in the collective soul.
When he took in hand the question of French Orthodoxy, no problem remained in the shadows, particularly the reason for the passage of a fraction of the French population, from Roman or Protestant obedience to Orthodox obedience and the opportunity of this restitution to the original tradition for the deeper spiritual blossoming of the lands of Gaul and the West. Above local particularities, while living them, transcending them in love, he immediately saw the need for autonomy for an Orthodox movement of French origin; he saw the authenticity, the beauty, the Western tonality of the liturgy according to Saint Germain of Paris which he admired, adopted and had, consequently, adopted for our Church. He sacrificed, at least momentarily, the attachment of some cherished children of his Russian flock.
By his service of the Truth, beyond the immediate ecclesial contingency, Archbishop John broke down the Eastern barriers of Orthodox practice and opened the West to it.
The renunciation was great, certainly, but also the horizon of conquest. It needed such a personality full of light, gentleness and humility.
One would have thought that a difficulty of elocution, caused by a blow of the butt on the mouth, maintained it in a fast of the world, it was only harmony of an asceticism pushed to the extreme of the love divine. He was a bishop at a very young age, then, despite this apparently prohibitive embarrassment, he became Exarch for Europe and Africa, guide and protector of our French Orthodoxy.
When he officiated at Saint-Irénée, even when he was expected by the assembly of the faithful, the cathedral was full of indescribable light.
The Council which elected, in 1964, a Head for the Russian Church outside the borders, gave him half of its votes. Ultimate tribute according to the divine plan, because if one were to remain on earth, heaven was already waiting for the other. The path was undoubtedly shorter, freer, from adoration near the altar where he was welcomed, to the Ineffable among the children of the Blessed Virgin, near the Lord.
From there, now, as if nothing had changed, discreetly and luminously as before, Archbishop John pours out on us the grace that emanated from his presence in total fidelity to the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Emile Monk
On July 2, 1966, Archbishop Jean (Maximovitch) of blessed memory, the father who consecrated me bishop, was born in heaven.
He had celebrated the Liturgy in the morning, then having gone to parishioners for a service of the dead, back in his chapel he began to pray again, when the Angel of Light approached. He lowered his head and his soul flew “like a bird from the birdcatcher's cage”, as the Gradual of the feast of Saint Irenaeus sings. I suspect he was celestially warned of the solemn moment, for for three days he had been trying to settle all the affairs of his Church.
The paths of God, paths of our destinies, contain such a mystery! How much I would have liked, when we learned of his death, that we became all ears in order to know the divine thought, not so much for him as for us.
When he had celebrated in our church, after the Divine Liturgy, Archbishop John stopped in front of each icon and implored it for sinners.
I can still see him walking among us, then coming into contact with the Saints.
Such are your friends, such are you, they say, he was the friend of the Saints and the Saints were his friends. With what grateful intimacy he discovered the relics of a Saint unknown to him.
Metropolitan Antoine of kyiv, who crowned him bishop, said of him: “We put ourselves in prayer, he never puts himself in prayer because he is prayer”.
