Repose and Relics

The repose of Archbishop John (Maximovitch) in Seattle on July 2, 1966, while accompanying the Kursk-Root Icon; the six days his unembalmed body lay in the San Francisco cathedral he had built; his entombment in the sepulchre beneath the altar; the October 1993 examination of his remains, found incorrupt; and the open shrine where his relics have rested since the 1994 glorification.

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

The Repose: Seattle, July 2, 1966

Archbishop John reposed on July 2, 1966 (June 19, Old Style), in Seattle, Washington, while accompanying a tour of the wonderworking Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God through the parishes of his diocese (Wikipedia, “John of Shanghai and San Francisco,” citing his repose “while visiting Seattle”; OCA, “Saint John [Maximovitch], Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco” — “reposed during a visit to Seattle … while accompanying a tour of the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God”). The icon, ROCOR’s most venerated palladium, had been brought to the St. Nicholas parish in Seattle, and the Archbishop had come to serve before it.

According to the accounts gathered from those present and reproduced in the standard lives, on the morning of his death St. John served the Divine Liturgy in the St. Nicholas church and then remained in the altar in prayer for some three hours after the dismissal — an unusual lingering that those around him afterward read as a preparation for death (OrthoChristian, “‘On the Day of His Death, St. John Prayed Unusually Long in the Altar,’” recollections of eyewitnesses; OCA life). When he at last emerged, he went to the room set aside for him in the parish house adjoining the church, beside the very icon he had accompanied. There he was heard to fall; those who ran to him lifted him into a chair, and he breathed his last quietly, with little evident suffering (OrthoChristian, “On the Day of His Death”). These circumstances — death after the Liturgy, in the presence of the Mother of God’s icon — are reported uniformly across the ROCOR sources and are pinned here to those attestations rather than asserted as independently documented fact (per METHODOLOGY §3.5).

The ROCOR hagiographic tradition records that St. John had foreknowledge of his death: he is said to have indicated to those near him that his end was approaching, and the lives transmit the report that he had said he would die in Seattle (Blessed John the Wonderworker, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 3rd rev. ed., 1987). Such foreknowledge belongs to the discernment for which he was already famous in life (see wonderworking-accounts.md); it is reported here as the attestation of the lives, not as documented fact (per METHODOLOGY §3.5). That his death came in the church, after the Liturgy, before the Kursk-Root Icon — the same icon that had accompanied the Church Abroad out of Russia — was received by the faithful as a fitting end to a life wholly given to the services of the Church.

The Funeral: San Francisco, July 1966

St. John’s unembalmed body was flown to San Francisco, to the Cathedral of the Most Holy Theotokos “Joy of All Who Sorrow” on Geary Boulevard — the cathedral whose completion he had overseen amid bitter controversy (see completion-of-the-cathedral.md). There, in an open coffin, the body lay in state for six days while the funeral was delayed to allow bishops to travel from across ROCOR; Metropolitan Laurus (then a younger hieromonk-archimandrite) and Archbishop Averky journeyed from Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville (Perekrestov, “The Opening of the Relics, and Glorification of St. John Maximovitch,” OrthoChristian).

The funeral itself, served on the sixth day, was presided over by Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky) of New York, First Hierarch of ROCOR (tsarnicholas.org, “Saint John (Maximovich) of Shanghai and San Francisco, 1896–1966,” reproducing the standard account). The lives uniformly attest the extraordinary scene at the open coffin: across six days in the warm summer, the body showed no sign of decomposition — witnesses recorded that “Vladyka lay as one sleeping,” his hands soft and his color natural (tsarnicholas.org; Blessed John the Wonderworker). This early, pre-burial absence of decay is reported as the testimony of those present and is treated here as attestation, not forensic finding (per METHODOLOGY §3.5).

The funeral drew immense crowds — clergy and faithful from the whole San Francisco community and far beyond — and popular veneration of the Archbishop as a saint began at once, the very controversy of his last years giving way to a flood of grief and devotion (Perekrestov, OrthoChristian).

Burial in the Sepulchre Beneath the Cathedral

St. John was buried in a sepulchre (crypt chapel) constructed beneath the cathedral, under the main altar of the Joy of All Who Sorrow Cathedral (OCA life: “laid to rest in a crypt chapel under the main altar of the new cathedral”; Wikipedia: “entombed beneath the altar of the Holy Virgin Cathedral”). The sealed metal coffin was placed in this sepulchre, which from the first became a place of pilgrimage.

Veneration at the tomb, 1966–1993

Through the twenty-seven years between his burial and the opening of his relics, faithful descended to the crypt in steadily growing numbers. Archpriest Peter Perekrestov, who served at the cathedral, describes the development of this devotion precisely: “People began going to his tomb before the glorification, as was the case with Blessed Xenia in St. Petersburg” — and the prayer of the faithful shifted over time from intercession for the reposed Archbishop to intercession to him: “Initially they prayed for Vladika John, but then they started praying to him, leaving him their lists of names” (Perekrestov, “The Opening of the Relics, and Glorification of St. John Maximovitch,” OrthoChristian). Visitors left written petitions at the tomb, lit candles, and returned to report answered prayers; “numerous miracles occurred,” and “his veneration was growing at a rapid pace” (Perekrestov, OrthoChristian).

Perekrestov is emphatic that this devotion arose from below: “the veneration of Saint John and the process of his glorification began as a grassroots movement and was not one directed from above” (Perekrestov, OrthoChristian). The accumulation of testimonies of intercession at the tomb formed the documentary substratum that would later support the formal glorification (see glorification-1994.md).

The 1993 Examination of the Relics

In preparation for the long-discussed glorification, the ROCOR authorities undertook the formal examination of St. John’s remains. The sepulchre was opened on October 12–13, 1993 (Perekrestov gives the opening on October 13, 1993; Wikipedia: “exhumed and examined in 1993”). The examination was conducted by Archbishop Anthony (Medvedev) of San Francisco and Western America, the ruling hierarch and chief promoter of the cause, who — as Archpriest Peter Perekrestov, a participant, recounts — invited Archbishop Laurus (whom he trusted closely) together with several priests, including an archimandrite, to witness the opening (Perekrestov, “The Opening of the Relics, and Glorification of St. John Maximovitch,” OrthoChristian).

Perekrestov’s first-hand account is the named report to which the finding of incorruption is pinned (per METHODOLOGY §3.5). He records that the rusted metal casket would not open — the corroded lock failed — until Archbishop Anthony “crossed himself, closed his eyes, and started reading the 50th Psalm,” after which “the lid opened with ease.” Within, after twenty-seven years of burial without embalming, the body was found intact: in Perekrestov’s words, “His face and body were intact — they were incorrupt — and we were laying eyes on true relics” (Perekrestov, OrthoChristian).

A second opening followed in the months before the glorification, during which the clergy reverently prepared the relics for enshrinement: they “washed St. John’s relics using water, oil, and rosewater” and “changed his vestments,” then left the body in the sepulchre until the day appointed for the glorification, July 2, 1994 (Perekrestov, OrthoChristian). This careful washing and vesting is the traditional preparation of a saint’s relics for translation to an open shrine.

In the discipline of this collection, incorruption is reported as the attested observation of the commission and named witnesses — Archbishop Anthony, Archbishop Laurus, Archpriest Peter Perekrestov, and the attending clergy — and not advanced as a proven physical miracle; the Church’s reception of such a finding is a theological act, and its evidentiary character is precisely the witness of those who saw it (per METHODOLOGY §3.5; corroborated in orthodox-europe.org, “A Recollection of the Uncovering of the Incorrupt Relics of St John the Wonderworker”).

The Open Shrine Since 1994

At the glorification on July 2, 1994 (see glorification-1994.md), the relics were transferred from the crypt into the nave of the cathedral and placed in a shrine (reliquary) open to public veneration. Perekrestov describes the moment at the All-Night Vigil when “the Metropolitan came up to the reliquary, untied the icon of St. John … and everyone could see St. John’s relics” (Perekrestov, OrthoChristian). Since that day the relics have rested in this open shrine in the cathedral’s nave, where they are venerated continuously by pilgrims from across the Orthodox world (Wikipedia: “His relics occupy a shrine in the Holy Virgin Cathedral’s nave in San Francisco”).

The shrine has made the Joy of All Who Sorrow Cathedral one of the principal Orthodox pilgrimage destinations in North America. The relics are vested and visible (the face covered by an icon-mask), and the practice of leaving written petitions at the shrine continues there as it once did at the crypt — a continuity of devotion now in its sixth decade. Pilgrims of many jurisdictions venerate the relics; the cathedral keeps the saint’s principal feast with great solemnity, and the Western American Diocese has marked his anniversaries with large gatherings, including the twentieth (2014) and thirtieth (2024) of the glorification (Western American Diocese anniversary schedules; OrthoChristian, “Enormous attendance at the 30th anniversary of glorification of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco,” 2024). The relics’ presence in the very cathedral St. John labored to complete — and beneath which he first lay — binds the building’s contested history to its later vindication: the church raised amid bitter dispute became the reliquary of the bishop who built it.

Reports of healings and answered prayers at the shrine have continued without interruption since 1994, gathered and published in successive editions of the lives and in the cathedral’s own records (Perekrestov, ed., Man of God). In the discipline of this collection these are reported as the testimonies the sources preserve, named and dated where the sources allow, and not advanced as independently verified events (per METHODOLOGY §3.5). For the broader pattern of wonderworking in his life and after his repose, see wonderworking-accounts.md.

See Also

References

  • Perekrestov, Archpriest Peter. “The Opening of the Relics, and Glorification of St. John Maximovitch.” OrthoChristian. https://orthochristian.com/80365.html — first-hand account of the October 1993 examination and the 1994 glorification.
  • Rose, Fr. Seraphim, and Abbot Herman (Podmoshensky). Blessed John the Wonderworker: A Preliminary Account of the Life and Miracles of Archbishop John Maximovitch. 3rd rev. ed. Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1987.
  • Perekrestov, Archpriest Peter, ed. Vladyka John: The Man of God (also published as Man of God: Saint John of Shanghai & San Francisco). Eng. ed., Holy Virgin Cathedral / St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.
  • “Saint John [Maximovitch], Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco.” Orthodox Church in America. https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2016/07/02/206392
  • “‘On the Day of His Death, St. John Prayed Unusually Long in the Altar.’” OrthoChristian. https://orthochristian.com/140325.html
  • “Saint John (Maximovich) of Shanghai and San Francisco, 1896–1966.” tsarnicholas.org, July 2, 2022 (reproducing the standard ROCOR funeral account).
  • “John of Shanghai and San Francisco.” Wikipedia (used to locate dates and burial location; cross-checked against the OCA and ROCOR sources above).
  • “A Recollection of the Uncovering of the Incorrupt Relics of St John the Wonderworker.” ROCOR Europe. https://orthodox-europe.org/content/st-john-relics/