John Kochurov

Ivan Alexandrovich Kochurov was born on 13 July 1871 in the village of Bigildino in the Ryazan Governorate of the Russian Empire, the son of a parish priest. He received a traditional clerical education, attending the theological school in Dankov and the Ryazan Theological Seminary before entering the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1895. That same year he was ordained to the priesthood and assigned, at his request, to missionary work in North America in the Diocese of the Aleutians and Alaska.

Upon arriving in the United States, he was stationed in Chicago, Illinois, where he served Orthodox immigrant communities of Slavic origin. He labored to organize parish life, celebrate the liturgy, and instruct the faithful. He was instrumental in the construction of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago, designed by the architect Louis Sullivan and consecrated in 1903 by Bishop Tikhon (Bellavin), later Patriarch of Moscow. Father John also helped establish and serve additional parishes in the American Midwest, traveling to scattered settlements. His decade of work in the United States made him one of the notable missionary priests of the Russian Orthodox mission at the turn of the twentieth century.

In 1907 he returned to Russia. He served for a time in Narva, in the empire's Baltic provinces, combining pastoral work with teaching. He was later appointed to the clergy of the Cathedral of Saint Catherine in Tsarskoye Selo, near Saint Petersburg, where he ministered during the First World War and the revolutionary year of 1917.

In late October 1917, when fighting between Bolshevik forces and opposing troops reached Tsarskoye Selo, Father John took part in a public service of supplication and a cross procession to pray for peace. He was arrested by revolutionary sailors, beaten, and taken outside the town, where he was shot on 31 October 1917. He is regarded as the first clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church to be killed by the Bolsheviks. His body was recovered and buried at the Cathedral of Saint Catherine.

He was glorified as a hieromartyr by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1981 among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, and by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1994. He is venerated as Saint John of Chicago in North American Orthodox usage and as the Priestmartyr John of Tsarskoye Selo in Russian usage. His principal feast is 31 October, and he is also commemorated with the New Martyrs of Russia and with the saints who labored in North America.