Many People have heard the story of how, on being informed that he had been chosen to be bishop, Vladika John was convinced there had been some mistake. On his way to the Synod meeting to which he had been summoned, he met up with an acquaintance and told her that an unfortunate mistake had been made, that some priest John had been chosen to be bishop, and they had invited him instead. On his way back, he met with the same acquaintance, and told her that it was even worse than he had supposed, that in fact it was he who had been chosen to be bishop. That acquaintance was my mother, the deceased novice Maria (nee Shatilova).
My mother was a childhood friend of the future Archbishop John. She knew him when he was a student in Belgrade and later, when he was a monk. She had corresponded with him when he left for China, but for various reasons, this correspondence was interrupted.
When I was nine or ten years old there was a Sobor of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad and the archbishops wereto serve in Saint Vladimir's Church in the small town of Casse-ville (today Jackson), New Jersey. We lived in Vineland, some seventy miles distance. My mother sent me to this celebration together with our rector, expressly to receive a blessing from Vladika John. Since my mother had not corresponded with him for many years, he did not know about our family.
"How will I know which of the hierarchs is Archbishop John?" I asked. With her unique humor, my mother replied that the one who looked the least like an archbishop would be Vladi-ka John. She also said that he was a bit hunched over, and sometimes wore boots without socks.
On arriving at the church, without seeing or speaking to anyone, I went straightway into the altar in order to serve. Suddenly Vladika John came up to me and led me out of the altar (he never uttered any unnecessary words in the altar). At the cliros, he greeted me with the words: "Hello, Styopa! How is your mother, Marika? How are your brother and sister?" Then, with a smile and sparkling eyes, he looked at me intensely and asked how it was that I had recognized him. I became embarrassed, remembering mother's description, and shyly muttered something. Only many years later, when I was studying at Holy Trinity Seminary and learned about the gift of clairvoyance, did I understand how amazing it was — not that I had recognized him, but that he had recognized me, knew me by name, knew who I was, and knew about our family.
Here is another interesting episode. My brother Paul, although not in the military, lived for several years in Vietnam during the war, where he searched for wounded or orphaned children, and found them places in orphanages and hospitals. There he met a Vietnamese woman, Kim En, his future wife, who worked with him, helping these unfortunate children. My brother told her about the Orthodox faith, about Saint Seraphim of Sarov and other saints. During difficult times in her life, an old man, like an elder, appeared to her in her dreams, showing her what to do and comforting her through difficult circumstances. Once I sent my brother a cassette of monastic singing, and some religious books and magazines. On receiving the package, my brother showed Kim the literature and was amazed when she pointed to the cover of one of the magazines: 'That is the old man who appears in my dreams and comforts me." It was the well-known photograph of Vladika John walking in the cemetery of Novo-Diveyevo Convent in Spring Valley. Later Kim was baptized into the Orthodox Church, taking the name Kira.
A third episode I wish to relate is the following: In connection with preparations for the celebration of 1000 years of the Baptism of Russia, the lecturer Vadim Scheglov came to a conference in our diocese. His wife Zoya is an icon painter. When she was still living in Russia and working as an icon restorer, she noticed one day that a sweet fragrance was emanating from an icon of the Mother of God sitting on the shelf of her workshop. It was a Tikhvin icon. After the Scheglovs moved to America, Zoya had a dream in which a young monk walking through a cemetery directed her to paint three icons of the Mother of God. He gave the names of all three, but Zoya remembered only one: the Tikhvin, and she painted this icon. When her husband Vadim came to our conference, we gave him accommodations in our church in Burlingame. In consultation with his wife, Vadim gave this Tikhvin icon to our church as a gesture of thanks. When Zoya came later to San Francisco to the Millennium celebration, she saw in the sepulchre the photograph in which Vladika John was walking through the cemetery at Novo-Diveyevo. She was stunned. "This is the one who appeared in a dream and told me to paint the icons of the Mother of God! Who is he?" When told that it was Vladika John, she became confused, because in her dream the monk called himself Michael. Then she learned that Vladika's secular name was Michael. The novice to whom she recounted these things told her that the Mother of God icon in his cell was the Tikhvin…!
Archpriest Stefan Pavlenko