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May 28, 2012

St. John the Russian and the Collapse of the School


In 1862, after attending liturgy in the nearby Church of Saint Basil, an Orthodox woman told the Christians that the previous night she had dreamt that St. John the Russian had risen up from his coffin and gone to the neighboring school, where, with his own hands, he held up the collapsing roof. As she finished her story, they all heard a tremendous crash, and ran outside to see that the roof of the school had indeed collapsed over the schoolhouse. Expecting the twenty children to be dead, the despairing villagers ran to lift up the heavy roof beams, but to their astonishment all of the children crawled out of the debris unharmed. They told the villagers that, seconds before the roof collapsed, they had heard a terrible creaking sound and hidden under their desks. When the roof fell, the beams were supported on the desks, and no one was hurt.