To this day, St. John [Maximovitch] remains a great wonder-worker and intercessor. The biography of his ministry to the Orthodox Church began at Baptism (1896) in a small Russian/Ukrainian village, long before the Bolshevik Revolution began, and ended by reposing in Christ during a pilgrimage with the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God in Seattle, Washington (1966) while serving as Archbishop of the San Francisco Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia (ROCOR).

Blessed Serpahim [before monastic tonsure: Eugene Dennis Rose, 1934-1982] translated this text from its 1933 Russian original, and added a 9-page Introduction plus various photographs of St. John and icons of the Virgin Mary. A useful index of subjects and names completes this brief, but popular, 87-page book. Seraphim was converted to Orthodoxy in 1962, and continued to serve under John as his spiritual father (mentor) until the time of John's repose.

After John's repose in 1966, Seraphim left San Francisco along with all materials held by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood to take up semi-eremetical life in the woods of northern California. The Brotherhood exists today by the same name as an Orthodox-book publishing house. (It holds the copyright to the book under review.) Boxes of John's untranslated writings went with Serpahim and another Orthodox man to the woods. Among the papers, the two later discovered this 1933 manuscript in a calendar. Comparing the date of the original manuscript to John's biography, its publication in 1933 by the St. Job of Pochaev Brotherhood (Czechoslovakia) occurred just prior to John leaving Belgrade as a newly-consecrated bishop to shepherd the Orthodox Church of Shanghai.

Acknowledging conventions of speech required to identify years of birth and death (1896-1966), the Orthodox view of St. John's biography assumes a version of Christian anthropology that might sound unfamiliar to many North Americans and other descendants of western European emigrants now scattered throughout the world.

Lack of familiarity requires that I say something about the book's tacit Orthodox context, which the author--then Bishop John--merely assumed that his reader understood to be the vessel of Truth in Christ. To be sure, the book unsettles many readers in the USA and elsewhere who believe that the Holy Scriptures contain all authority essential to Christian faith and order as an irrefutable conviction. However, St. John's ethos in this book adheres to an Orthodox conviction about Christian authority that opposes "sola Scriptura."

A tacit Orthodox ethos once explicated in a lexicon of sorts, if you will, provides rationale for three words that appear at the start of this review: "to this day." Indeed, St. John remains alive and well in the ministry of Christ and devoted to the Mother of God long after his repose. For example, pilgrims to venerate St. John's remains in the basement of the Kazan Cathedral in San Francisco still experience wonders through St. John's intercessions on their behalf.

From the Ukraine, John and his parents fled the Bolsheviks to settle in Belgrade (Serbia, former Yugoslavia), where John completed university education in theology at the University of Belgrade. Later John professed Christ as an Orthodox monk (tonsured). Thereafter, having reached the canonical age of 30 for ordinands, John was ordained to the priesthood, and within 10 years was ordained bishop. He left Belgrade on assignment headed for Shanghai (China). In Shanghai he served the duration of the Second World War. Afterward, John fled the Chinese Revolutionaries, under the insurgent army's general Mao Tse-Tung, who were invading Shanghai. In addition, around 5000 Orthodox Christians made the exodus with John as shepherd. Others in Shanghai chose to become "new" martyrs of the Orthodox Church.

In the book's Introduction (p. 16), Seraphim illustrates how John taught theology by interrupting others during his service in Shanghai. For example, he interrupted a catechetical lesson in which a student correctly identified the Prophets' names from the category called "minor prophets" in Hebrew Scriptures, but John said that in God's eyes "there are no minor prophets!"

John's interruption of the catechism class was said to have rattled the teacher's nerves. Nevertheless, intuitive timing for this classroom interruption combined with early adolescent students perceiving a tête à tête between bishop and teacher, left an indelible mark about the value of all prophets in God's eyes. Furthermore, the example marks John's simplicity of spirit especially as bishop, by participating in a catechism class and giving students in the classroom that day, as well as us readers through Seraphim's rehearsal of it, a remarkable chestnut to crack in order to consume the meat inside. Why not call it simply parabolic?

Archbishop John fostered love and devotion to the Mother of God by way of things he wrote and preached (dogma), and how he revered the Blessed Mother's graphic revelations in scared icons and Holy Scripture (veneration). Consistent with an ancient ethos of "doing" Orthodox theology, Archbishop John wrote and spoke from the heart of love and delight.

During his four years in San Francisco (1962-66), Archbishop John orchestrated building the Diocesan cathedral, which was dedicated to the "Joy of all Who Sorrow Icon of the Mother of God." [The original icon has resided within the Annunciation Cathedral of the Kazan, inside the Kremlin, since 2005. In 1920, pious Christians had taken the Kazan icon of the Virgin Mary for veneration by the faithful in exile.] The Kazan icon has been blessed as protector of ROCOR ever since the icon crossed into Serbia in 1920.

The archbishop's love and devotion were evident throughout his life. One might wonder how John's superb knowledge about the Theotokos could present the topic with ease and economy of scale. Blessed Seraphim (Rose) remarks: "Perhaps most of all one is impressed by the utter 'simplicity' of Archbishop John's writings" [emphasis his, p.17]. Not academic or stiff as it could have been from his pen, this book presents images of the Theotokos so sublime that a child can receive them, but scholars might well trip to refute them. I suspect that simplicity, as John's, comes from being sure that what he writes is true plus knowing his subject well.

St. John's simplicity in doing theology was foreshadowed by a complex letter that (St.) Cyril of Alexandria sent Nestorius, and to circulate among Nestorian bishops, following the Third Ecumenical Council (431 AD). The Council was the occasion when the assembly adopted a Greek word to describe the mystery of the Virgin Mary in reference to the two natures of Christ. Thereafter, the word would be considered dogma of the Church, so the stakes ran high. However, it was not a new word. After more than two centuries of widespread use except by the Church of Antioch, the Council identified the Virgin Mary as "Theotokos," translated Mother or Birthgiver ("-tokos") of God ("Theo-"). Opposing the word, Nestorius and many others from Antioch referred to Mary as Christotokos, or Christ-bearer.

Archbishop John created a simple way to teach Cyril's complex statement of dogma concerning the Council's use of Theotokos. John reframes the terse rhetoric by Cyril, such as the following:

"Confessing the Word to be made one with the flesh according to substance, we adore one Son and Lord Jesus Christ: we do not divide the God from the man, nor separate him into parts, as though the two natures were mutually united in him only through a sharing of dignity and authority (for that is a novelty and nothing else), neither do we give separately to the Word of God the name Christ and the same name separately to a different one born of a woman; but we know only one Christ, the Word from God the Father with his own Flesh." -- Letter entitle 'The Epistle of Cyril to Nestorius with the Twelve Anathematisms.'

"We know only one Christ...with his own flesh," emphasizes not only the two natures of Christ (1st & 2nd Councils) in the child born of Mary, but also grounds these natures in the human experience of the Mother of God. Christ was born of Mary in whose womb his members were formed. Therefore, St. John depicts the Theotokos as one who bears and delivers both natures of Christ. In doing so, John cuations the reader to do the same, "...so as not to fall into blasphemy" (John quotes from St. Ephraim the Syrian, "To John the Monk" (p.63).

To blaspheme the Theotokos, according to John, would occur if someone were to deny that the Theotokos did not bear the child who was both human and divine, by offering herself to God in obedient service. This point is the core of his book. Stated another way, looking at an icon of the Theotokos in prayerful veneration by repeating blessed hymns from sacred tradition will "please" the Theotokos, John teaches.

Why wish to please the Theotokos, we might ask? According to this ancient belief among Orthodox Christians, the Mother of God was born with the same temptations to sin as the rest of us, an Orhtodox dogma that John discusses on several occasions. But she chose to live her life in perfect obedience to God, which is why she became the new Mother of the human race. By pleasing the Mother of God, Orthodox Christians model themselves by her example in Holy Scripture and sacred Tradition to become perfected in Christ. Thus, pleasing the Mother of God is part of the Mystery of salvation in Christ that St. John Maximovitch discloses in this book. ( )

St. John Maximos explains and justifies the veneration of Mary, the Theotokos, by going through the various historical attempts to reduce/eliminate the honor given her. he then explains the reaction of the church and thus shows why the veneration of Mary is perfectly reasonable. The book is quite short and an easy read. Very interesting read. ( )