Manila, Philippines, February 24, 2022
Photo: phvieparchy.org
A new medal of honor named for St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco has been established in the Diocese of Philippines and Vietnam of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The “For Merits” medal is an “award” and encouragement for clerics, monastics, and laity for their labors and services to the Orthodox Church in pastoral ministry, theological, academic, and administrative activities, the revival of spiritual life, the restoration of churches, missionary, charitable, social and educational works at the diocesan level, the diocese reports.
The medal has three degrees, each with an iconographic relief of St. John, and the English inscription: “St. JOHN THE ABP. OF SHANGHAI AND SAN FRANCISCO.”
The great wonderworker St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco took a large group of orphans under his care to Tubabao Island after communist rule came to China in 1949. His flock lived in an international refugee camp that he blessed every night.
The local Filipinos still remember St. John as a holy man who protected the island from typhoons during his time there.
In August 2019, Guiuan, in the Eastern Samar Province of the Philippines, officially established July 2 as St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco Day on the municipal level.
Read more about the connection between St. John and the Philippines in the article, “When the Philippines Welcomed Russian Refugees.”
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