John of Ustyug

Saint John of Ustyug was a fool for Christ in the city of Ustyug. He fell asleep on 29 May 1494 and was canonized by the council of Makarius in 1547. The Church commemorates him on 29 May by the old calendar, with the six-⁠stichera service.

He was born near the Holy Trinity monastery of Gleden, in the village of Pukhovo. His parents, Sava and Maria, were wealthy farmers and moved to the town of Orlets on the river Yug. About 1480, widowed, his mother took monastic vows at the convent of Orlets with the name Natalia and became its abbess. A Serbian source says that John was kept by his mother beside her during her abbacy, and there he took on the appearance of a fool for Christ.

After his mother's death he began to live as a fool for Christ at Ustyug. He settled in a small church house near the cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God, resting on the rubbish heap and going entirely naked, girded only with a torn shirt. He endured insults, mockery and beatings from frivolous people. He constantly endured hunger and thirst and took nothing from anyone. Even in his lifetime he received the gift of wonderworking. He died young, on 29 May 1494, and was buried near the Dormition cathedral.

Over his relics a wooden church was later built, and between 1656 and 1663 a stone cathedral bearing his name. At the place of his birth, in the village of Pukhovo, a chapel was built, a wooden church (1674) and a stone church (1760 to 1764). Here on the feast of the Holy Spirit a cross procession came from the Gleden monastery.