By Linda Badger

The Richmond District is the only neighborhood in San Francisco that can boast of an actual saint in residence. 

 The Holy Virgin Cathedral on Geary Boulevard and 26th Avenue was built, in part, by a priest of the “Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia,” canonized after his death as Saint John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco.  

To this day, Cathedral visitors venerate St. John, whose remains, or “incorrupt relics,” can be viewed in a golden shrine in the nave. St. John was believed to work miracles on behalf of the sick and suffering. People still write to the cathedral from all over the world, asking that their notes be placed under St. John’s shrine, seeking his blessings for loved ones who are sick or suffering.  

St. John spent the last years of his life – from 1963 until 1966 – living in the Richmond District, overseeing the completion of the cathedral and ministering to the sick in his community.  He lived at St. Tichon’s Orphanage, which he founded, near 15th Avenue and Balboa Street.  

Many in his congregation remember him with great fondness and admiration. Less than five feet tall, he had boundless energy and worked tirelessly, visiting the sick in local hospitals and jails, acting as a father to the orphans at St. Tichon and strictly adhering to the tenants of his faith.  His former altar boys remember getting his blessings before school exams and his insistence on their religious duties. One of his former altar boys recounted that when St. John figured out that he and his friends were sneaking out of service early, one by one, to meet at the Alexandria Theatre, St. John held him by the hand for 30 minutes, causing him to miss the movie.  

St. John was born Michael Maximovitch in 1896, in Southern Russia, which is now part of Ukraine. Educated as a lawyer, his family fled to Yugoslavia during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Always a man of faith, he studied theology in Belgrade, was ordained as a priest, and sent to Shanghai in 1934, where thousands of White Russians  immigrated.  

While in Shanghai, St. John founded an orphanage for children living on the streets as well as a home for seniors. One of the orphans sheltered by St. John, wrote, “I am forever grateful, very grateful to St. John for my life … for his inspiration to the orphans, his generosity, charity to the people of the streets of Shanghai, his unconditional love, always.” In Shanghai, St. John became known for his selfless devotion to others, especially children. He made certain the orphans were cared for during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, visiting and blessing them nightly in defiance of wartime curfews. While others were shot for such defiance, St. John was allowed to come and go. The orphans believed the Japanese soldiers simply could not see him.    

In 1949, St. John was forced to flee once again when the communists took over in China. St. John, the Shanghai orphans, and 5,000 Russian immigrants were given temporary refuge in Tubabao, an island in the Philippines. For two years, they lived in a tent city in the tropical jungle until, in 1951, St. John traveled to Washington, D.C. and successfully convinced Congress to amend its restrictive immigration laws to allow his flock to establish permanent residence in the United States – a feat many see as indeed miraculous. 

While many of his fellow Russian immigrants and 24 Chinese orphans relocated to San Francisco, St. John was called to serve in Paris and Brussels until 1962, when he returned to his flock, as the Archbishop of San Francisco, to aid in the completion of the Holy Virgin Cathedral on Geary Boulevard.

St. John died suddenly while visiting Seattle in 1966. Beloved by all, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors amended a City Ordinance to allow him to be interred at the Holy Virgin Cathedral. In 1994, he was glorified as a saint.  

St. John was a humble man, renowned for his ascetic lifestyle, but the Cathedral he helped build on Geary Boulevard is far from humble. It is a landmark in the Outer Richmond, with five towering onion domes covered in 24 carat gold leaf. A walk inside reveals an interior that resembles a golden jewel box, glowing with chandeliers, mosaics and frescos rivaling those in Europe. There followers can pay respects to St. John the Wonderworker, blown by the winds of war from Russia, China, the Philippines and Europe to his final resting place in the Richmond District.  

To learn more about The Holy Virgin Cathedral, visit sfsobor.com.