What About Jesus?
We were travelling through Grant Park in Atlanta on Sunday afternoon when I noticed a familiar face walking along the sidewalk. He was a former fellow church member who left our church some years ago to follow Eastern Orthodoxy. He was in front of St. John the Wonderworker Orthodox Church. In fact, he was in black garb as he is now a reader for the worship services at St. John's. (By the way, St. John is no reference to the Apostle, but to St. John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco.)
We chatted briefly and he invited us to a service sometime. He especially recommended Pascha, a midnight Easter service. He then alluded to how we ought to consider attending "a real church." Now, he's a friend, so there was a teasing element to that statement; but it is representative of how the Orthodox really do consider themselves to be the "true Church." So I got home and checked out the church's website and this is what St. John's, a particular body of the "true Church," considers important enough to present to the world:
Saint John the Wonderworker Parish is the first church in the world named after Saint John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco. The Church was formed and named in 1991, at the time called Blessed John the Wonderworker as St. John was not yet canonized. When St. John was canonized in 1994, the name was changed to St. John the Wonderworker. The parish is located in Atlanta, Georgia and joined the OCA as part of the Diocese of the South under Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas in September of 2000.So, I repeat the title of this post--what about Jesus?
Over the years the parish has been able to gather several items that this beloved saint wore, including a thigh shield and two of his robes. More recently the Church was given a bone relic from his foot, the only part of his body that was not found to be incorrupt.
On this website you can find a great deal about the life of St. John by clicking on one of the navigational buttons to the left under "The Life of St. John". We also have a collection of testimonies to the ongoing miraculous intercessions of our beloved Saint. Please feel free to browse and learn of this great saint of our own century. We also have a special gift of a computer program written by one of our members called the Menologion (2.0) which includes a daily icon of the saint of the day with his or her troparion and kontakion and also the daily Bible reading. This program is written because of St. John's love of the Saints and because of his desire that all Christians should pray daily and often.
1 comment:
If you read the life of St. John Maximovitch, if you know his teachings, if you have been helped by the prayers of this Saint, then you do not have to ask "What about Jesus?"
St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco is ALL ABOUT the Lord Jesus Christ.
Like your friend, I have been led "into the deep" so to speak, led into communion with the Lord Jesus Christ, through the miraculous ministrations of this Saint.
St. John Maxmimovitch is like a letter, a loving epistle sent from the Lord Jesus Christ to bring some light into the darkness of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Hie is an Epistle like the one St. Paul wrote about in 2 Corinthians 3:2-3:
"Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart."
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"The Lives of the Saints are holy testimonies of the miraculous power of our Lord Jesus Christ. In reality they are the testimonies of the Acts of the Apostles, only continued throughout the ages. The saints are nothing other than holy witnesses, like the Holy Apostles, who were the first witnesses - of what?, of the God-man Jesus Christ: of Him crucified, resurrected, ascended into heaven and eternally alive."
- St. Justin Popovich
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