St. John Kochurov

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We know that in the

Church there are countless martyrs. Every single

day in the lives of the saints, you could read

about a different martyr, a group of martyrs.

Sometimes many at the same time. Sometimes thousands

at the same time. Forty martyrs. the ten martyrs

of Crete, and so on and so forth. These are all

magnificent stories for us to see how a Christian

can take seriously what the Lord said. Fear not,

little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure

to give you the kingdom. The martyr we're commemorating

today was a priest. So we call him a hiero martyr.

The word hiero simply means priest. And he wasn't

a martyr from far away or long ago. He's a martyr

from our own time. His grandchildren are still

living. I know a priest who is acquainted with

them. This higher martyr is John, John known

as John of Chicago and St. Petersburg. I'm going

to tell you a little story about him. A person's

life isn't told in 10, 15, 20 minutes or even

2 hours or 10 hours. Every day there's something

significant in the life of any one of you. Something

important that happens. But we'll have to skip

over that for this man and just focus on mainly

the end of his life. He's a man that took those

words of the Lord very seriously. Do not fear,

little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure

to give you the kingdom. For where your treasure

is, there your heart will be also. These words

apply to this saint, Hiram Ardijan of Chicago.

He was born in 1871 in Russia, in a city not

too far from Moscow. His father was a priest.

His grandfather was a priest. At the time, that

was quite normal. There weren't many options

for a person, the son of a priest. Except to

become a priest. And you would go to a local

seminary. And they were, the moral life and the

material life of those places was rather low.

Because not everybody wanted to be there. In

any case, he was married in 1895. Of course,

his wife. was the daughter of a priest. They

traveled to New York and then to Chicago. He

had a burning desire at seminary where he excelled

at the St. Petersburg Academy. He had a burning

desire to be a missionary, and he was invited

by Bishop Nicholas, who was the bishop of the

American diocese at the time, to come. He came

to Chicago. He knew no English at the time. But

he was assigned to minister to a rather disorganized

and scattered, you couldn't call it a congregation

because they were not yet congregated, spread

out over hundreds of miles around Chicago. For

10 years, this man diligently and with excellent

administrative skills and pastoral skills, of

course he could sing, he could chant, he could

pray. He loved the people. He brought people

together from Chicago, from Madison, Illinois,

from Streeter, Illinois, any established congregations,

growing them from hardly anything to in each

place over 200, easily in a few years. This man

was creative. He did something that I can imagine

my father doing. There was the world. the World

Exposition in Chicago, the World's Fair, and

at the Russian Exposition, there was a chapel.

It had been built in Russia, taken apart piece

by piece, brought to Chicago, and reassembled.

He asked for it, to have it. He couldn't have

the whole thing, but he had it brought to Streeter,

Illinois, about 100 miles outside of Chicago,

and they built it again. It lasted maybe 15 years,

then it was sold, sadly, to a Baptist congregation.

The various Orthodox elements were stripped out,

and eventually it's not there now. It was demolished.

He took small groups of miners and laborers and

butchers, Slovaks, Greeks, Serbs, Hungarian,

Russians, Eastern Rite Catholics, Galicians.

and built that parish. A hymn for today tells

us that he was the comfort and consolation of

the people. He ministered to them in all their

needs and cares. He guided them in a strange

land, like Abraham of Holt, and he was deeply

loved. At the exact same time, He was laboring,

and this is not a coincidence because this is

how God's providence works. With him was St.

Ticon, who arrived in America in 1898 to become

the bishop of the American diocese. Alexis Toth,

St. Sebastian Dobovich of Jackson in San Francisco,

St. Raphael of Brooklyn. St. John, this man,

Kucherov is his name, Kucherov, worked with all

of them. In 1900, the year 1900, he was terribly

homesick. His family was still there in Russia.

Not his immediate family, but his parents and

his in -laws. And so he received a blessing to

return to Russia to see them. But what did he

do? How did he spend his time? Resting from all

his labors? No. fundraising. He raised $50 ,000

over the period that he was there so that he

could build a church in Chicago, a proper church.

On the 10th anniversary of his ordination, he

received the gold cross, and Bishop Tikhon, who

greatly admired John Kocherov, said in his remarks,

in his congratulatory remarks that day, You've

faced so many difficulties. Loneliness, being

isolated from brother priests. Living in a untidy,

wet, half -ruined building with your family.

They're sick all the time. You've been sick continually.

Your congregation is spread out over hundreds

of miles. Their faith is weak. St. Ticon said,

the faith of his congregation was torn asunder

by wild beasts. Well, with this 50 ,000, St.

John managed to build the magnificent Cathedral

of the Holy Trinity in Chicago, which is something

you can see today. There will be a huge celebration

in this lovely place designed by the well -known

American architect, interestingly enough, Louis

Sullivan. In 1907, feeling again homesick, and

his in -laws needed him and his wife to return,

he came back to Russia with his six children.

And he was eventually, after six or seven or

eight years of labors in various churches and

dioceses, assigned to the immense Cathedral of

St. Catherine in the town of Tsarskoe Selo. the

Tsar's village. You have to remember this was

1916 and World War I was tearing Russia apart.

We have it in our minds because this is what

we were taught in school that Russia was terribly

backward, just filled with peasants. The church

was so corrupt. The peasants were unhappy. In

fact, the peasants had been freed. Decades before,

Russia was extremely prosperous, but it wasn't

prepared for World War I, and the devastation

and the exhaustion of the war eventually led

to the abdication of the Tsar, and into that

vacuum came the Bolsheviks. Not many of them,

but vicious enough to do whatever they felt they

had to do to gain power. In 1917, in October,

at the end of the month, the Bolsheviks seized

power in Petrograd and St. John, seeing the chaos

there and fearing what was to come, the frightful

suffering that Russia was to endure, called his

congregation to be vigilant, to remember what

Jesus said, what we heard today, where your treasure

is. There will your heart be also. Let your waist

be girded, your lamps burning, and you yourselves

be like men who wait for their master. When he

will return from the wedding, that when he comes

and knocks, they may open unto him. To be prepared.

To be ready. Blessed are the servants whom the

master, when he comes, will find watching. On

the morning of the 30th of October, 1917, That

would have been yesterday's date for us. Stopping

at the outskirts of this town of Tsarskoe Selo,

the Bolshevik forces began to bombard the city.

They shelled the city. The inhabitants of that

town, like everywhere else in Russia, did not

realize there was a civil war. The people gathered

then in the cathedral. to pray for peace. Bombs

were falling. They're praying for the end of

fighting. And they organized a cross procession.

The hundreds and hundreds of people, perhaps

thousands, processing throughout the entire city

with the cross, singing and praying. The Cossack

soldiers that were guarding that town decided

it was time to leave. They said to St. John,

time for prayer is over. Time to run. And his

response and the response of the other priests.

These are our people. This is our place. This

is our cathedral. Our brothers are coming to

us. What harm will they cause us? You see how

people that are holy always see the good. always

see their responsibility before God. And they

will carry it out, no matter what the danger.

So they stayed. On the morning of October the

31st, 1917, today is the anniversary, the Bolshevik

forces entered the town. They encountered no

opposition because the soldiers were gone. The

priests were then rounded up, accused of inciting

resistance against the attack. St. John tried

to reason with the soldiers, the Bolsheviks.

This is not true. We were praying for peace.

We were praying for God's love. We were praying

for the restoration and the end of civil strife.

We were not praying for the Cossacks or this

group or that group. The leaders made an example

of him. They punched him repeatedly, knocked

him down, abused him, dragged him out to a field,

and shot him. And he was not yet dead, and they

left him there. They came out later and shot

him numerous times until he was dead. So, we

have the first martyr of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Of which there would be countless martyrs. Not

casualties, dear people. But witnesses to the

love and glory of God. Witnesses to the kingdom

of God. Not witnesses to evil. Oh, the demons,

my friends. Legion is the name, as we heard in

that gospel. Possessed, rational men. to do horrible,

brutal, ungodly acts against their fellow human

beings. Atheism, please remember, is not a philosophy.

Atheism has no guiding principle except the self.

And the power of the passions in any one of us

can easily prevail. Where there is no authority

of God, where there is no law of God, Dostoevsky

claimed, then all things are allowed. And what

dreadful things. What dreadful things. Yes, the

sorrow on earth and the loss of so much. But

the crown of glory, but the crown of glory of

a faithful witness to Christ in the heavens,

so joy too. I'm wearing this red vestment today

because red is the color of the blood of the

martyrs. It's an embroidered vestment. Some people

may say it's a little too extravagant. But I

think of the hymn we sing on Saturday night.

The Lord is robed. He is clothed in majesty.

The Lord is girded with strength. And this is

what he does for the faithful who will stand

before him. He will robe us in glory and honor.

and especially the martyrs who stand about his

throne. Because martyrs are not afraid of losing

anything, because they know in Christ they have

everything. They have died to sin, and they've

died to death already in their baptism. And they

have the kingdom of God within themselves. Their

treasure is there in the kingdom in their heart.

And they witness, the word martyr means witness,

and they are the ones most like Christ because

they do what Christ did. They witness to God's

kingdom that is not of this world, but is for

this world. They witness to the reality of the

resurrection because they're not afraid of death.

That reality of which we partake of at every

liturgy when we receive the precious body and

blood of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ,

his resurrected and glorified body, and we become

resurrected a little bit too. Fear not, little

flock. It is your father's good pleasure to give

you the kingdom. For St. John, the treasure in

heaven, his heart was already there. Saint Tikhon

of Moscow, learning of this martyrdom as he was

attending the All -Russian Council of 1917, the

one that would elect him patriarch, he said the

following, Adorned with the martyr's crown, the

reposed pastor, John, now stands before the throne

of God amongst the chosen faithful of Christ's

holy flock. He was destined to be the zealous

parish priest and inspired witness even unto

death. Quoting the Book of Revelation, even unto

death of Christ's truth, Archpriest John Kocharov,

who met a martyr's death at the hands of the

apostates and fighters of God on 31st October

1917 in Saroskoye Selo, the first martyr under

the Bolsheviks of the Russian Church. We have

a great intercessor before God, one close to

us. Okay, you may not be a fan of the Chicago

White Sox or the Chicago of this or the Bears,

but you're a fan of Chicago now. The place of

the witness of the pastorship of this magnificent

man, this magnificent pastor. His work still

continues because we pray. We offer intercession

before him, and he answers us before the throne

of God. Through his prayers, Lord Jesus Christ,

our God, have mercy on us.