At the beginning of his priesthood, the priest's wife often reproached him for completely forgetting his family and home, but Father John answered briefly: "I am a priest, what is there to do? This means that there is nothing to say – I belong not to myself, but to others."

And here is what one of Father John's contemporaries writes.

As a page, I went to Father John in Kronstadt together with a friend. When we boarded the steamer in Oranienbaum, it turned out that Father John was returning with the same steamer, to whom we immediately approached and had the good fortune to talk with him all the way and learn from his instructions.

When the steamer docked at Kronstadt, it turned out that Father John was already waiting there. In the street adjacent to the pier, beggars stood in two rows in rows, about two hundred people. Father John, having come ashore, approached them and began to give them alms. At the same time, we were fortunate enough to be eyewitnesses to the clairvoyance of Father John. One of the passengers near us, a young intellectual of a rather cheeky type, whispered to his neighbor, a student, in a low voice, pointing to Father John, who was handing out money at the other end of the street: "Encouragement of parasitism!" When Father John finished handing out, he returned to the pier, where those young people were still standing, waiting for a cabman, and said, addressing them: "We must all be merciful to the poor, for it is written in the Scriptures: blessed is he who looks upon the poor and the needy, in the day of death the Lord will deliver him, but we, priests, are obliged to take care of the poor even more, since it is said there, "The beggar is left to eat you!"

Healer and miracle-worker St. John of Kronstadt

Отец Иоанн с молодости обладал даром целительства и чудотворения.

Однажды отца Иоанна пригласили в Петербург к знатной женщине, которая никак не могла разрешиться от бремени. Когда батюшка прибыл в дом, доктора сказали: поздно, плод умер во чреве, у матери – сепсис, и, скорее всего, она тоже умрет. Отец Иоанн попросил всех удалиться из комнаты роженицы. У ее кровати он опустился на колени и стал просить Господа спасти мать и ребенка. Через полчаса батюшка вышел к ожидающим в соседней комнате родственникам и сказал: «Богу было угодно воскресить младенца. Родился мальчик. Мать жива».