Wednesday, May 27

Modern · c. 1690–1730

John the Russian

Captive confessor whose relics rest in Euboea

John was a young Russian soldier taken prisoner during Peter the Great's war with the Ottoman Empire and sold as a slave to a Turkish cavalry officer of Prokopion in Cappadocia. Refusing every inducement and threat to convert to Islam, he declared he would serve his master faithfully but would never deny Christ. He lived in the stable he tended, turning it into his cell of prayer, fasting and keeping vigil while serving with such humility that even his Muslim master came to regard him as a holy man and attributed his household's prosperity to him. John received the Holy Mysteries secretly from a nearby priest and reposed in 1730. His body was found incorrupt and became a source of miracles; in 1924 the relics were carried by the uprooted Greeks of Asia Minor to Neo Prokopion in Euboea, where his shrine draws pilgrims from across the world.

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