Ivan Ilyich Sergiev

Ivan Ilyich Sergiev (1829-1908), known to his contemporaries as Fr John of Kronstadt, was the most revered figure of the Orthodox Church in Russia in the half-century leading up to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. In 1892 Andrew Dickson White, co-founder of Cornell University, became the American First Minister to Russia. He wrote in his memoirs that Fr John "...enjoys throughout the empire a vast reputation as a saintly worker of miracles...His picture is to be seen with the portraits of the saints in vast numbers of Russian homes, from the palaces of the highest nobles to the cottages of the humblest peasants."

Fr John's veneration grew even greater after his death, and in 1964 the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia formally recognized him as a Saint. His Feast is kept on October 19 and December 20 (o.s.).