Ascetic Practice

The documented ascetic regimen St. John kept for the four decades from his monastic tonsure to his death: never lying down to sleep — only dozing, upright in a chair or bent over icons on the floor, “never even allowing himself to lean on the back of a chair”; the daily celebration of the Divine Liturgy, and daily Communion when he could not serve; a single meal taken late at night; going barefoot or in sandals in every weather and giving his shoes away; the cassock of the cheapest fabric; an exacting fidelity to the full services and rubrics; and a severity to himself joined to a famous gentleness toward children. Reported, where the sources allow, through their named witnesses.

Tradition: ROCOR (glorified 1994; Moscow Patriarchate veneration affirmed 2008)

Never Lying Down to Sleep

The most famous and most consistently attested feature of St. John’s asceticism is that, from the day of his monastic tonsure, he never again slept lying down in a bed. The lives state it as his own admission: “since taking the monastic vows he had not slept lying in a bed” (Blessed John the Wonderworker, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 3rd rev. ed., 1987 — the Vita Prima). Mileant’s life records that “he was not known to have slept in a bed for forty years,” allowing himself only “an hour or two each night of uncomfortable rest in a sitting position, or bent over on the floor praying before icons” (Mileant, The Life and Miracles of St. John, orthochristian.com/54575.html). Fr. Herman (Podmoshensky) intensifies the detail: “he would never lie down to sleep; he never even allowed himself to lean on the back of a chair” (Fr. Herman, “The Price of Sanctity,” orthochristian.com/71942.html).

The witnesses to this regimen span his whole life, which is precisely what makes it credible as a regimen and not a legend. It was first discovered by his seminary students at Bitol, who noticed that the young hieromonk stayed awake after all had retired — going through the dormitories at night, picking up fallen blankets, covering the sleepers, and signing them with the Cross; the deep impression he made on those students is attested by Archbishop Averky (Taushev), later of Jordanville, then himself a young hieromonk in Carpatho-Russia (Vita Prima; Averky is the named attestor for the Bitol period). In Shanghai, a cathedral caretaker who heard noises after midnight found Bishop John in the bell-tower, praying over the sleeping city (Vita Prima). For the Paris years the witness is E. G. Chertkova, in whose house he had a cell: “There was no bed in the cell, as Vladyka did not lie down to sleep, but rather prayed … when he prostrated himself, he would fall asleep for a little while in that position on the floor” (Chertkova memoir, Vita Prima). The Shanghai orphanage matron Mrs. Maria Alexandrovna Shakhmatova likewise testified to seeing him in “deep, concentrated prayer, freezing, shivering in the open air” on the belfry on winter nights (Shakhmatova, via Fr. Herman, orthochristian.com/71942.html; see Orphanage and Pastoral Care).

This sleeplessness was not an end in itself but the bodily form of unceasing prayer. He did not abolish sleep — the lives are careful to say he took “an hour or two” of it — but he refused it the dignity of a bed, taking it only as it overcame him at his prayers, so that his rest itself was a posture of vigil. The discipline began at the tonsure described in Belgrade and Tonsure and was unbroken to his death in a chair in Seattle (see Repose and Relics).

Daily Divine Liturgy

The second pillar of his rule was the daily Divine Liturgy. He served it every single day of his episcopate, and the lives add the crucial corollary: “He celebrated the Divine Liturgy daily, as he was to do for the rest of his life, and if for some reason he could not serve, he would still receive Holy Communion” (Mileant, orthochristian.com/54575.html). “No matter where he was, he would not miss a service” (Vita Prima). This was the fixed center around which the rest of his asceticism turned: the sleeplessness, the fasting, and the night-long sick-visiting all served, and were sustained by, the daily standing at the altar. In his last San Francisco years the rule was unchanged — he “officiated in the cathedral every morning and evening, even when sick” (Mileant; see Completion of the Cathedral).

The insistence that, prevented from serving, he would still commune is theologically pointed. For St. John the Liturgy was not a duty he performed but the life he lived; to be cut off from the altar even by illness was a deprivation he repaired by receiving the Gifts from another’s hand. The daily Eucharist was the one thing in his ascetic economy he would not do without.

A Single Meal, Late at Night

His eating was as austere as his sleeping. “He ate once a day at 11 p.m.” (Mileant, orthochristian.com/54575.html; Vita Prima). The single late meal meant that his whole day — the Liturgy, the diocesan work, the visiting of the sick — was carried on fasting, with food taken only when the day’s labor was finished. During the strictest seasons he ate still less: “During the first and last weeks of Great Lent he did not eat at all, and for the rest of this and the Christmas fast he ate only bread from the altar” (Mileant; Vita Prima). To live for weeks on the antidoron — the blessed bread of the Liturgy — was to make even his nourishment liturgical, drawing his sustenance from the same altar at which he served.

Barefoot in All Weather

St. John habitually went barefoot or in thin sandals, in every season and climate, and was known to give his shoes away to the poor. The lives record that he “wore clothing of the cheapest Chinese fabric, and soft slippers or sandals, always without socks, no matter what the weather”; that “he often went barefoot, sometimes after having given his sandals away to some poor man”; and that “he even served barefoot” at the altar, despite the criticism it drew (Vita Prima; Mileant, orthochristian.com/54575.html; and see Orphanage and Pastoral Care). For the Paris years the named witness is again E. G. Chertkova: “Whenever he did not serve … he usually walked barefoot (to mortify the flesh) even during the hardest frosts” (Chertkova, Vita Prima).

His obedience under this discipline is itself attested. After he was hospitalized with an infected foot, his Metropolitan ordered him to wear shoes; St. John obeyed the order — and went on going barefoot, carrying the shoes with him so as to satisfy the letter of the command while keeping his ascesis (the lives preserve the wry detail that he wore the shoes “under his armpits”) (Vita Prima). The barefoot bishop became one of the saint’s defining images; the famous Paris testimony of a Roman Catholic preacher belongs here — addressing his young parishioners, the priest said, “today there walks in the streets of Paris a Saint — Saint Jean Nus Pieds (Saint John the Barefoot)” (Mileant, orthochristian.com/54575.html) [Disputed: this “saint walks the streets barefoot” testimony is frequently mislocated to Shanghai or placed in St. John’s own mouth; the standard life sets it in Paris and gives an unnamed Catholic priest as the speaker — see Orphanage and Pastoral Care].

The Shabby Cassock

His dress matched his feet. He wore the cassock and riassa of “the cheapest Chinese fabric” (Vita Prima; Mileant), and given that he slept in a chair or on the floor in his clothes, the cassock was often slept-in and worn. Mileant’s life stresses the deliberateness of this poverty of dress: it was not negligence but mortification, the refusal of the comfort and dignity of appearance that his rank might have afforded. The shabby riassa, like the bare feet, was a standing sermon against vanity — and, predictably, a standing provocation to those who thought a bishop should look like one.

Canonical and Liturgical Exactness

For all the apparent eccentricity of his asceticism, St. John was a rigorous and exacting liturgist who would tolerate no carelessness in the services. He was himself “an expert in Divine services,” and “would correct errors and omissions in the order of service immediately” (Vita Prima). He served the full services without abbreviation, observed the rubrics of the Typikon strictly, and insisted on commemorating the saints of the day; Mileant notes that he showed displeasure at shortened services. He demanded reverence of those serving with him: “He insisted on the proper conduct of Church servers, allowing no levity, or even talking, in the altar” (Vita Prima).

This precision is the necessary complement to the sleeplessness and the bare feet, and it guards the whole picture from sentimentality. St. John’s asceticism was not a romantic individualism but the personal extreme of a thoroughly churchly and canonical life: the man who would not lie in a bed was the same man who would not let a single appointed troparion be dropped. His severity to himself and his exactness in the services flowed from one source — an absolute seriousness about the things of God, in which neither his own comfort nor the full text of the office could be negotiated away.

Severity to Self, Gentleness to Children

The final and most humanizing note of the sources is that this man, so merciless toward himself, was famously tender toward children. The Vita Prima records that “after services he would smile and joke with the boys who served with him, playfully knocking them on the head with his staff”; that during services he would “bend over to play with a small child”; and that “children were absolutely devoted to him despite his usual strictness” (Vita Prima). The bishop who corrected liturgical errors on the spot and allowed no talking in the altar would, the moment the service ended, tap his altar boys on the head with his crozier and laugh with them.

The combination is the key to his whole ascetic character: the severity was turned inward, the gentleness outward. He spared himself nothing — not sleep, not food, not shoes, not the comfort of a chair-back — and spared others, especially the small and the helpless, everything he could. The same man who crouched freezing on a belfry through a winter night was the man the orphanage children ran to; the same hand that would not pull a blanket over its own owner pulled blankets over sleeping students and signed them with the Cross. His ascesis was not a flight from people but the discipline that made his ceaseless service of them possible — and the wonders that gathered around his name (see Wonderworking Accounts) were, his contemporaries believed, the overflow of exactly this hidden life.

References

Rose, Fr. Seraphim, and Abbot Herman (Podmoshensky). Blessed John the Wonderworker. 3rd rev. ed. Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1987 (the Vita Prima). (No sleeping in a bed since the tonsure; the Bitol students and Archbishop Averky; the Shanghai bell-tower; E. G. Chertkova’s Paris memoir; “ate once a day at 11 p.m.”; bread from the altar in the strict weeks; barefoot serving and shoe-giving; the shoes “under the armpits”; liturgical exactness and reverence in the altar; joking with the altar boys and devotion of children.)
Mileant, Bishop Alexander. The Life and Miracles of St. John (Maximovitch). orthochristian.com/54575.html. (Not slept in a bed “for forty years”; rest “in a sitting position, or bent over on the floor”; daily Liturgy and Communion when unable to serve; the single late meal and the Lenten fasting; cheapest Chinese fabric and sandals “always without socks, no matter what the weather”; the Paris “Saint Jean Nus Pieds” testimony of the Catholic priest; daily morning-and-evening service in San Francisco even when sick.)
Fr. Herman (Podmoshensky). “The Price of Sanctity.” orthochristian.com/71942.html. (“He would never lie down to sleep; he never even allowed himself to lean on the back of a chair”; Mrs. Shakhmatova’s testimony of the freezing belfry prayer.)
Perekrestov, Archpriest Peter (ed.). Man of God: Saint John of Shanghai & San Francisco. San Francisco: Holy Virgin Cathedral / Nikodemos, 1994/2015. (The collected witness anthology compiling these testimonies of his ascetic regimen.)