John

Venerable John is commemorated on 17 November (new style) in the Greek synaxarion, together with Zacharias the cobbler. Their story is told in the synaxarion of Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite.

John was a rich and high official of Constantinople, but he despised worldly things and led a humble, monastic life. He spent his nights at vigil in churches. One night, finding the doors of Hagia Sophia closed, he waited outside and saw a man coming surrounded by light. The man made the sign of the cross before the gates, and the doors opened by themselves; he went in, prayed and came out, and the doors closed again. John followed him to a small house near the stairs of the Holy Martyr Julian and learned that the man was Zacharias, a cobbler by trade, husband of Maria.

Zacharias, though married, lived with his wife in virginity by agreement, and gave half of his earnings to the poor. He lived, according to the synaxarion, in the seventh century. A verse of the synaxarion says that Zacharias and John together had, through vigil, a mind like that of the cherubim.