Blessing from St John of Shanghai

On December 11, on the 26th Sunday of Pentecost, at the parish in honor of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God in Manila, a shrine was greeted – part of the vestments of St. John of Shanghai. The relic – a gift from the Ascension Church on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in Moscow and from its cleric, Priest Dmitry Sorokin – was delivered to the Philippines by George (Daniel) Foronda, colonel of the International Cossack Brotherhood, representative of the Cossacks in the Philippines.

St. John, as we know, was unmercenary and did not have many vestments. Probably, our parish now has a piece of the very vestments in which the saint walked around the island of Tubabao in 1949-1951. It is significant that such a greeting from the saint came to us unexpectedly, but immediately after the foundation stone of the future church in his honor was blessed on the island of Tubabao.

On the same day after the prayer service to St. John, three parishioners passed the rite of catechumens, and then the “great” blessing of 4 “chariots” was performed.