John the Hermit of Bohemia

Saint John the Hermit (John of Bohemia, called in the story also Ivan the Croat) is regarded as the first Czech hermit, who lived forty-⁠two years in a cave in the forests of Bohemia, near Prague, where Prince Bořivoj I, husband of Saint Ludmila, met him. He is commemorated (according to our record) on 24 June. Our sources show no particular Orthodox canonization: his name is entered in the list of the Synaxis of the Carpatho-⁠Russian Saints. His veneration comes chiefly from the Bohemian tradition; the account is a legend.

Who he was

According to one supposition, he was the son of Gostomysl, prince of the Obodrites, killed in 844 in battle with the army of Louis the German. His three Lives are: the Slavic legend "of the hermit Ivan, son of the Croatian king", part of the "manuscript of the Rumyantsev Museum", which arose in Little Rus' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the capitular legend, and the account in the "Czech Chronicle" (1541) of Václav Hájek of Libočany.

The Slavic legend

Bořivoj, prince of the Moravians, a Christian of the Greek rite, saw a hind one day while hunting and shot it with his bow. The wounded animal ran into a thick forest, under mountains from which pure water flowed, and lay down. From it so much milk was poured out that Bořivoj's men drank their fill. Soon a fearful, shaggy man came down from the mountains and addressed the prince, calling him by name: "Why did you kill my hind?" The prince and his men were greatly frightened. The prince asked who he was and what he did there. He answered: "I am Ivan the Croat, I live in this desert serving God for forty-⁠two years, no one has seen me to this day except you. This animal was given to me by God for food." Bořivoj called him to eat with him, but he answered: "Send me a priest." The prince sent him a priest and a horse. He did not mount the horse but went on foot to the church, received the Holy Mysteries, but ate and drank nothing else. Then he returned to his desert. Taking ink and paper, he wrote that he was the son of the Croatian king. He reposed and was buried with honour by Bořivoj, and after the burial God gave the people many healings.

The capitular legend and veneration

According to the capitular legend, demons tempted the hermit, who resolved to leave his desert, but Saint John the Baptist appeared to him and gave him a cross "for the driving away of all adversaries". According to tradition, Bořivoj built a chapel under the rock in which the hermit's cave was; in its place a large church was built and a monastery founded. In 1584 the monks of the monastery found the relics of Saint John, hidden by the brothers in the time of the Hussite wars. According to the account, he received the Holy Mysteries in the church of the fortress of Tetín.