We need to learn to trust the Lord, learn to talk to Him, talk about our affairs, ask for help simply and clearly, as we would ask for the closest and dearest person. What makes us doubt? After all, He Himself once said: "And I will say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." (Luke 11:9-10)

The first incident that showed people the great power of Father John's prayer occurred in 1880. A dignitary in St. Petersburg invited the priest to pray for him. After praying, Father John said to the sick man: "Get up, and let us pray together!"

Bishop Arseny (Zhadanovsky) wrote about Father John:

Thus, overshadowed by the grace of God, Father John first of all possessed exceptional faith. We are only approaching it, we only want to have it, but it does not warm the heart, does not completely occupy the mind and, as they say, "slides" into us. Father John, without any doubts or hesitations, believed in the Savior and in the Holy Gospel: faith was his native and eternal element, true knowledge, and not simple cold knowledge. He thought and spoke of everything related to the Divine, not as something extraneous, outside of his consciousness, but as of something personally experienced and seen, he spoke as an eyewitness. Father John was soaked in faith in Christ, like a sponge is soaked in water, and therefore he could boldly speak with the Apostle: "... I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And that now I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

A Lutheran, the widow of an Orthodox engineer from Poltava, Johanna Rudolfovna Vasilyeva, who lives in Eidkunen in Germany, after I read to her the request of the editors of Prav. Carp. Rus" about the report of miracles that occurred through the prayers of Fr. John of Kronstadt, told me the following:

"In 1902 I met on a train with an intelligent Jewish woman who was traveling from Kharkov to Kronstadt. When I asked about the reason for going there, she answered:

"I am going to thank Fr. John of Kronstadt for the healing of my daughter, who was on the verge of death. The professors sentenced her to death and refused to treat her. Then the sister of mercy, seeing my indescribable horror, gave me advice: send a telegram to Fr. John of Kronstadt – he will help. The telegram was immediately sent. A few hours later on the same day, I entered the room of the sick woman in our house and saw in extreme surprise that an Orthodox priest was standing and praying at my sick daughter's bedside. I stopped in confusion. The priest, after praying, turned and, without looking at me, silently walked through the door. His appearance was very similar to Fr. John of Kronstadt, whom I saw in the portrait of the sister of mercy. I respectfully went to see the priest off, but when I went out into the corridor, there was no one there. I asked the servants who were allowed in or out of the house. I was told that no one entered or left.

And my daughter immediately began to recover and soon, to the surprise of the doctors and everyone around her, she completely recovered.

Here, although I am a Jew, I am going to Kronstadt to serve a thanksgiving moleben, to thank Father John and to contribute my sacrifice to his charitable needs."

From the newspaper "Orthodox Carpathian Rus", No 1 of January 6, 1933.