Part V
Among those who knew and loved Vladika, the first response to the news of his sudden death was: it cannot be ! And this was more than a reaction to the suddenness of the event; for among those who were close to him there had unaccountably developed the notion that this pillar of the Church, this holy man who was always accessible to his flock - would never cease to be! There would never be a time when one would not be able to turn to him for advice and consolation ! In one sense, in a spiritual sense, this has since turned out be true. But it is also one of the realities this world that every man who lives must die.
Vladika was prepared for this reality. While others expected of him many more years of fruitful service to the Church of Christ - for he was a relatively young hierarch - he was readying himself for an end which he had foreseen at least for some months, and the very day of which he apparently knew in advance.
To the manager of the orphanage where he lived, who had spoken in the spring of 1966 of a diocesan meeting to be held three years later, he indicated, "I will not be here then. " In May, 1966, a woman who had known Vladika for twelve years - and whose testimony, according to Metropolitan Philaret, is "worthy of complete confidence" - was amazed to hear him say, "I will die soon, at the end of June... not in San Francisco, but in Seattle.... " Metropolitan Philaret himself testifies of Vladika's extraordinary final farewell to him when returning to San Francisco from the last session of the Synod which he attended in New York. After the Metropolitan had served the customary moleben before traveling, Vladika, instead of sprinkling his own head with holy water, as is always done by hierarchs, bent low and asked the Metropolitan to sprinkle him; and after this, instead of the usual mutual kissing of hands, Vladika firmly took the Metropolitan's hand and kissed it, withdrawing his own (see Orthodox Russia, 1966, no. 18.)
Again, on the evening before his departure for Seattle, four days before his death, Vladika astonished a man for whom he had just served a moleben with the words, " You will not kiss my hand again. " And on the day of his death, at the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy which he celebrated, he spent three hours in the altar praying, emerging not long before his death, which occurred at 3:50 p. m. on July 2 (June 19, OS), 1966. He died in his room in the parish building next to the church, without preparatory signs of any illness or affliction. He was heard to fall and, having been placed in a chair by those who ran to help him, breathed his last peacefully and with little evident pain, in the presence of the miracle working Kursk Icon of the Sign. Thus was Vladika found worthy to imitate the blessed death of his patron, St. John of Tobolsk.
Today Archbishop John reposes in a chapel in the basement of the San Francisco cathedral; and there a new chapter has begun in the story of this holy man. Just as St. Seraphim of Sarov told his spiritual children to regard him as living after his death, and to come to his grave and tell him what was in their hearts, so our Vladika also has proved to be hearing those who revere his memory. Soon after his death a onetime student of his , Fr. Amvrossy P., saw one night a dream (or a vision, he could not tell which): Vladika, clad in Easter vestments, full of light and shining, was censing the cathedral and joyfully uttered to him just one word while blessing him: "happy. "
Later, before the end of the forty-day period, Fr. Constantine Z., long Vladika's deacon and now a priest, who had lately been angry at Vladika and had begun to doubt his righteousness, saw Vladika in a dream all in light, with rays of light shining around his head so brightly that it was impossible to look at them. Thus were Fr. Constantine's doubts of Vladika's holiness dispelled.
Many others have seen Archbishop John in unusual dreams that have a particular significance or message. Some affirm that supernatural help has been granted them. The modest gravechapel, soon to be adorned with icons by Pimen Sofronov in remembrance of Vladika, is the witness already of how many tears, confessions, heartfelt requests....
The manager of the St. Tikhon Zadonsky Home and long a devoted servant of Vladika, M. A. Shakmatova, saw a remarkable dream. A crowd of people carried Vladika in a coffin into St. Tikhon's Church; Vladika came to life and stood in the royal doors anointing the people and saying to her, " Tell the people: although I have died, I am alive !"
It is yet too early to be able even to grasp the fact that we, cold and sinful, living in this evil age, have been witnesses of such a glorious phenomenon - the life and death of a saint ! It is as if the times of Holy Russia have returned to earth, as if to prove the fact that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). Amen.
Eugene Rose 1966