"Forgive me for Christ’s sake and remember me in your holy prayers. Write my name in your prayer book…" – this was the last wish of the ever-memorable Bishop Jonah (Pokrovsky) of Hankou, who earned universal love and respect through his intensely ascetic life and vigorous social and public activities. Regarding Christian spiritual struggle, the archpastor, who reposed 100 years ago, said the following: "Spiritual struggle should consist in being a living example to people, and sometimes even a reproach. To strive to facilitate spiritual enlightenment and purification for everyone possible; spiritual struggle is to forget oneself and one’s own wellbeing, to be a support for all who wish to lean on you; spiritual struggle is to be a voice crying in the wilderness about the imperfection of our lives, about the need for its correction and possible improvement; spiritual struggle is not some abstract idea, but a living, active, real living for others."
Immediately after Bishop Jonah’s repose on October 7/20, 1925, a remarkable event affirmed the depth of his holiness. He appeared in a dream to a young boy with a severe leg ailment, telling him: "Take my legs – I no longer need them – and give me yours.”
The late Archpriest Nicholas Kiklovich, a cleric of the Harbin Diocese, later recounted this miracle: "With [Vladyka’s] death, this love and feeling of respect for him did not stop; to the contrary, people began to love and esteem him even more – not as an ordinary mortal man, but as a saint of God; this was especially so after the healing by Vladyka of the sick adolescent Nikolai, whom medicine could not help and had left him to his own devices. And at that time, when human help appeared powerless to save the suffering lad, and his family had fallen into despair over the future of this child, then God’s might came to aid the sufferer by the intercession of newly departed Bishop Jonah. Now a hale and hearty man of twenty-seven, Nikolai, who was healed in the night and hour of Bishop Jonah’s death, is married with two teenage daughters, has a house and manages his household. Just a month ago, in his apartment, he recounted in detail to the writer of this narrative the story of his healing. After the wonderful vision of newly departed Bishop Jonah, he immediately awoke and rose that night absolutely healthy, threw away his crutches, and started walking around his room."
This boy, Nikolai Dergachev, remained healed for the rest of his life and lived to an advanced age, passing away only in the summer of 1994 in Kurgan, Russia.
Bishop Jonah’s funeral itself reflected the extraordinary reverence he inspired. Metropolitan Methodius of Harbin & Manchuria presided, accompanied by a great host of clergy and 8,000 worshippers – even though the entire [Russian] population of Manchuria numbered only 10,000!
In the years following his repose, devotion to Bishop Jonah continued to grow. A collection of miraculous events attributed to his prayers was published, and each year deepened the faithful’s conviction in his intercession. From dawn until dusk, pilgrims visited his grave to pray, to pour out their grief, or to seek a blessing before life’s important undertakings. Brides and grooms came before their marriage; workers stopped by to kiss the icon and cross on the hierarch’s grave before beginning their day; and the residents of the orphanage and assisted living facility he had founded developed a lasting tradition of venerating his grave.
By the mid-1990s, many of St. Jonah’s spiritual children longed to recover his remains and transfer them to Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY, where they could be venerated by all who cherished his memory. In February 1994, representatives of the "Society of Former Manchurians" from San Francisco traveled to China and received permission to search for his burial place. That July, on the feast of St. Vladimir – Bishop Jonah’s baptismal name – they began excavations near the altar wall of St. Innocent Cathedral, which had been destroyed in 1964. Sadly, the relics were never found and were likely lost during the demolition of the cathedral, whose stones were later scavenged by the local population.
At its second session in 1994, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad, having heard a report by Archbishop Anthony (Medvedev; +2000) of San Francisco & Western America on the attempts of the Society to locate Bishop Jonah’s remains, resolved: "To convey the blessing of the Council of Bishops to the Manchurians and to commend their zeal and devotion to the memory of St. Jonah, and to thank them for their efforts to find his remains."
Two years afterward, in 1996, the Council of Bishops formally resolved to glorify St. Jonah. His glorification was celebrated on Sunday, October 7/20, 1996, the date of his repose, in San Francisco, Chicago, and in Geelong near Melbourne, Australia.
In 2016, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church added the name of St. Jonah to the calendar of saints for universal veneration. Yet the effort to honor him had begun even earlier: in April 1991, Bishop Gabriel of Khabarovsk – formerly the deputy abbot of the Pskov-Caves Monastery – issued an appeal "to submit materials about the life of His Grace, Bishop Jonah, and accounts of his labors and spiritual feats, by which he labored unto the glory of Holy Orthodoxy" ("Harbin," № 4, April 1991).
Through his prayers, may the Lord – wondrous in His saints – help us to fulfill the commandment that the glorified hierarch held above all: to love one another. Only then can we truly call ourselves his admirers, for, as the divine Chrysostom wrote, “the true veneration of a saint is to imitate him."
Archpriest Serafim Gan
