The life of St John of Novgorod
John was made archbishop of Novgorod in 1165 and led that see for more than two decades.
Two stories from his years in office have long outlived the plainer facts of his governance. Tradition tells that he once found an evil spirit hiding in his own washbasin and trapped it there with the sign of the cross; tormented, the spirit begged release, and John granted it on one condition, that it carry him overnight to Jerusalem and back so he could venerate the Holy Sepulchre, which it did, taking the form of a horse for the journey. The Church also remembers him in connection with the defense of Novgorod during a Suzdal siege in 1170, when an icon of the Mother of God carried onto the city's walls is said to have turned toward the attackers and wept, throwing their ranks into confusion and breaking the siege.
He is remembered as a wonderworker whose plainer labors, a monastery raised with his own brother, a diocese governed for decades, have been folded into these larger stories the Church still tells of him.
