Ioann (John) of Novgorod

   The son of a priest, Ilya was himself priest of the Church of St. Blaise south of the Novgorod Kremlin. The church was rebuilt in 1407, destroyed during the Second World War, and has been rebuilt again; it still stands today. It is believed that Ilya was his first monastic name, thus his baptismal name is not known.

  

   Ilya was appointed bishop of Novgorod by Metropolitan Ioann of Kiev in 1165. He was the first to hold the title of archbishop in Novgorod after the office was elevated to the archiepiscopal dignity a few months later. Nifont (1130–1156) held the title as a personal honor.

   Ioann carried out a number of construction projects in Novgorod along with his brother, Gavril (also known as Grigorii), who succeeded him as archbishop (1186–1193).

   He died on September 7, 1186 and is buried in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in the west gallery next to the Predtechenskaia Porch. He was originally buried below the floor in the Martirievskii Porch (where his brother is still buried), but his relics were later moved. His relics were desecrated during the Soviet anti-religious campaigns on April 3, 1919. They are now in a new sarcophagus with a new sarcophagial effigy (from the 1990s) covering it.

   Ioann appears in a number of medieval tales (some of them set centuries after his death) as the quintessential archbishop of Novgorod. (He is almost always referred to as Ioann in them). The most famous tale depicts him conquering a devil and forcing it to transform itself into a horse and fly him to Jerusalem and back in a single night. In Jerusalem, he took the measurements of the Holy Sepulchre. This tale was developed to explain how a chapel matching the exact measurements of the Holy Sepulchre was established in the Cathedral.