Saint John Maximovitch Metropolitan of Tobolsk

Early Life and Education

Sources place John's birth in 1651 at Nizhyn (Nezhin), then within the Cossack Hetmanate. He belonged to a noble Cossack family and is described as the only one of seven sons to give himself to the service of the Church. He studied at the Kiev Academy (the Kiev-Mohyla Collegium), from which he graduated, and remained there for a time as a teacher of poetics, rhetoric, and Latin.

He was tonsured a monk at the Kiev Caves Lavra and was noted for his preaching and learning. Accounts differ in detail — some place his tonsure in 1676 and others in 1680 — but they agree that the Lavra was the setting of his monastic profession.

Episcopate at Chernigov

John was appointed archimandrite of the Eletsky (Chernigov Eletsk) Monastery in 1695 and soon afterward became Archbishop of Chernigov; sources variously give his consecration as 1696 or January 19, 1697. At Chernigov he organized a collegium modeled on the Kiev academy — remembered as among the first such schools in the Russian Church — and established a printing press for the publication of theological works.

It was in this period that John composed and translated much of his written output, including the work for which he is best known.

Metropolitan of Tobolsk and the Siberian Mission

In 1711 John was raised to the rank of metropolitan and appointed to the Tobolsk and All Siberia cathedra, one of the largest and most demanding sees of the Russian Church. There he devoted himself to the pastoral care of a diocese stretching across the vast Siberian land and to the enlightenment of its peoples.

The mission of the Russian Orthodox Church to China is linked to his episcopate: in 1714 he sent Archimandrite Ilarion (Lezhaisky) to Beijing, an undertaking remembered as the first Spiritual Mission of the Russian Orthodox Church in China. John died in 1715, by tradition while at prayer and on his knees. He was glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1916, and his relics rest in Tobolsk.

Writings

John is remembered as a prolific spiritual writer. His best-known work is the Iliotropion (also rendered Heliotropion, 'Sunflower'), which he drew from a Latin source and which treats the conforming of the human will to the will of God. It was long regarded within the Orthodox tradition as a standard treatment of its theme.