When we moved back to England in 1997, we did not know to which saint or saints to dedicate our then small family community. So for a time we commemorated the names of the two local saints, St Edmund and St Felix. It was only in 2004 that it was revealed to us who to dedicate our church to in our situation. By that time, with Russians, Romanians, English and other parishioners present, we would need a multinational saint. But who?

Then one Saturday evening before the vigil service we saw a monk entering the church. He was very short, quite stocky and wearing his monastic veil which was moving as if in a breeze. Before we could speak to him, the monk had disappeared. We realised from photos that this monk was St John of Shanghai and he was going to take charge of us, after seven years of being ignored, despised and indeed persecuted by bishops and others.

Since then, in 2008, we bought – miraculously and through him – our own church, without help from any bishop. We now worship in the largest church in the world dedicated to St John. He has protected us from a rapacious man who wanted to take possession of our church and, on failing, then wanted to close it. St John has worked miracles and showed us myrrh and fragrance from our icons. He has comforted us constantly to this day.

We should not forget that St John’s title was ‘of Shanghai and Western Europe’. He spent thirteen years here, in Geneva, Paris, Brussels, London and elsewhere, whereas he spent less than four years in San Francisco, which was where they crucified him. And indeed he reposed not in San Francisco, but in Seattle. It was in Western Europe that we saw his missionary identity, preaching to all nationalities and understanding different needs.

All who are interested in the life of St John of Shanghai will have seen the infamous photo of 9 July 1963. This photo shows him sitting as a defendant in a court room in San Francisco. Sitting beside him were the only three bishops who supported him, one a Serb, Bishop Sava. St John had been put on trial with the approval of other ROCOR bishops from the Synod, who had to their shame also suspended him from his see. He awaited his crucifixion.

Today we recall that St John was born in what is now the Ukraine, the country that ten years ago the US made into its sacrificial lamb. Here too St John shows us the way forward as our inspiration. In February 2022, all our parishioners left their passports at the door. Russians and Ukrainians, Romanians and Moldovans and our 21 other nationalities forget their passports and stand together in solidarity. We have only one passport: Christ, Who unites us.

This is also the passport of St John, who alone can bring unity to the whole tragically divided Diaspora. The universal saint, he lived in exile in Serbia, Macedonia, China, the Philippines, Western Europe, North Africa and North America. His parents lived in exile in Venezuela. Many of his spiritual children took refuge in Australia. He served in Slavonic, Greek, Mandarin, French, Dutch and English and venerated the saints of the Old West. And so do we.