Holy Hierarch Jonah of Manchuria

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a wonderful saint of the Church who lived in recent times. He was a righteous bishop, a great ascetic, a loving and caring pastor to his flock and to all those whom he encountered. He lived much of his life in China, where he founded orphanages, schools, hospitals, and what we would call today ‘soup kitchens’ for the poor. Perhaps you are thinking that I am speaking of our beloved St John of Shanghai and San Francisco? But no, this righteous one whom we commemorate today reposed on this very day 99 years ago in 1925. Who was this man?... his name was Bishop Jonah of Hankow in Manchuria.

Bishop Jonah was born as Vladimir Pokrovsky on April 17th, 1888 to a peasant family in the Kozelsk district of Kaluga governate. Little Vladimir was orphaned early in childhood and was adopted by a deacon of the Church with the named Pokrovsky. He grew up in poverty, yet he excelled in his studies – learning Church Slavonic and graduating at the top of his class at the Kazan Theological Academy. In his third year at the academy he received the monastic tonsure, and went to Optina Monastery, where he received guidance in the monastic life from the holy Optina elders Joseph and Anatoly. It was there, in Optina, that he was ordained as a hieromonk.

He returned to the Kazan Theological Academy and was made a professor. In 1916, during World War 1, the priest-monk Jonah was assigned as a chaplain for the Russian Army. Not long after this, the terrible events of the Russian Revolution unfolded. Hieromonk Jonah was arrested and beaten to unconsciousness by the satanically-charged Bolsheviks. He was banished and sent to be tried in Siberia. By God’s providence, it was as he was enroute to Siberia that he was freed by the White Army and he was able to serve again as an Army Chaplain for a short while. As the chaos of the war and revolution continued to go on, Fr Jonah and his battalion were able to retreat across the eastern frontier of China. The hardships of their trek across the Gobi desert and then across the Pamir mountains is the stuff of legends… they suffered so much.

Having finally arrived in Shanghai, Fr Jonah was then appointed to a mission church in Beijing. In September of 1922, he was consecrated Bishop of Tianjin and appointed as rector of the St Innocent Missionary Cathedral in Manzhouli. A parishioner of the Cathedral wrote the following reflections about the arrival of their new bishop: ‘Everybody remembers the arrival of the bishop in Manzhouli. All expected him to be full of greatness, importance, and inaccessibility. But Bishop Jonah knew where and to whom he was going. He knew who and what awaited him. The destitute were waiting for him, and he came to them. He has come not just as a prince of Church but as a loving friend and father—modestly, with affection and consolation for all. All were amazed by the extraordinary simplicity and availability of the archpastor upon his arrival. As a bright icon lamp lit in Manzhouli, the activity of Bishop Jonah has lit up like the face of Christ, calling to sufferers: “Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give rest to your souls.” All felt joy, for they understood that not all is lost when they have heard the vigorous appeal: “There is a way out—belief in God and love for your neighbors.” With this appeal for belief in God and love for neighbors began Vladika’s archpastoral activity. But words were not enough. Work was required. Huge work was needed. And work has begun... Not sparing his strength and health, and forgetting himself, he has given himself to the service of God and neighbors.’

Bishop Jonah poured himself out in his service to his flock… and that flock consisted not just of his Orthodox parishioners, but of every soul he met in the surrounding community. Seeing the needs of so many suffering children, he founded an orphanage. The childrens’ shelter Bishop Jonah had established was his joy and consolation. When he grew weary, he would go and ‘spend time with the youngsters,’ as he would say. By the time of his death, the orphanage had space for forty children ages five to fourteen. There was a free elementary school and high school for up to five hundred students, with a cafeteria that fed two hundred people per day for free. An outpatient clinic provided medical aid and medicines to the poorest people of Manzhouli, free of charge. A library and reading room was set up for the people of Manzhouli, where books were also sold.

In the three short years of his episcopate, he fulfilled Christ’s principal commandment of love of neighbor to such a degree that it would take even a diligent worker several decades to do as much. The dimensions and strength of this activity were remembered equally by the Orthodox and non-Orthodox. His Eminence Melety, then Bishop of Zabaikal, precisely summed up Bishop Jonah’s activity: ‘He fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, took in strangers, clothed the naked, and visited the sick.’

Bishop Jonah truly held all his flock and everyone’s sorrows in his heart. At the still young age of 37, that loving heart developed physical problems and it was not long before he found himself on his deathbed. He was able to have confession and to receive the Holy Mysteries. He bade farewell to everyone, and, as Archbishop Melety read the prayers for the departure of the soul, he breathed his last and departed to the Lord.

The night of his repose, he appeared to a young boy who was paralyzed, telling him to ‘take his legs’, as he no longer had need for them. The boy awoke the next morning completely healed and able to walk.

The appreciation for the ascetic labors and the righteous life of Bishop Jonah was kept alive by all those that knew him. In response to the unanimous voice of Bishop Jonah's contemporaries —archpastors of the Far East, his clergy and flock—and revering his labors and accomplishments in the vineyard of Christ, the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia determined in 1996 that Bishop Jonah of Hankow should be joined to the choirs of saints. The main service for this glorification took place right here at our Cathedral in San Francisco.

What a remarkable and wonderful saint we have in St Jonah of Manchuria! May his memory be kept by all of us Orthodox Christians struggling to live our Christian lives in these modern times. As St Jonah demonstrates for us, sanctity is possible in all places and in all times because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever!