The Life of Father John (Iacob) the Romanian as described in the book ‘ In the Footsteps of Jesus»

An account of some of the miracles of St John
The Miracles of Saint John Jacob Performed
During His life

Father loanichius Paraiala (his spiritual child),
as a result of a strike at the right elbow, had got
an infection, and after a few years of suffering
had got a tuberculosis of the bones. He had an

open wound at his elbow, and through the in-
fected wound, at the same time with the matter

that drained all the time, there began to come
out chips and pieces of decomposed bones.
Then the abbot of the monastery took father
loanichius to a hospital in Jerusalem where the
doctors decided that the father’s arm had to be
cut, to which he said: ‘If I am to die from this, I
want to die with all my limbs complete’, and he
refused all medical intervention, running away

from the hospital. When he arrived at the mon-
astery, Saint John began to bandage him up, and

to wash his wound with tea plants, and after a few
washings the wound closed and healed.
Father loanichius said that as soon as Saint

John put his hand on him, he felt a great quiet-
ness, the pains left him, and he was filled with a

holy peace and joy, so that he felt no kind of pain
.any more.
His arm recovered, but in exchange, it became
rigid from the elbow.
After the moving of Saint John at the cave
of Saint Anna from Hazeva, father loanichius

Paraiala carried with the donkey of the monas-
tery some pieces of board, and some pieces of

plate taken from some plate barrels, in order to
separate the cell of Saint John. While going on a

narrow and winding path, the donkey was fright-
ened by a bird that flew out of the bush, and it

threw father in an abyss of almost 20 metres.
Then father loanichius broke the same arm
also from the elbow, he hurt his head and legs,
and he could hardly get out of the abyss, and he
could hardly arrive at the cave of the Saint who,
when he saw him, was frightened too, by the way
he looked.
He washed him, he tied his wounds, and his
right hand was hanging from his elbow because
the bones that had been caught and blocked were
now broken, and his arm
Then Saint John tore a shirt, and with some
towels wrapped up around his neck, he tied his
arm a little bent from the elbow, and in a short

time it cured again, and his right arm remained
that way a litlle bent and fixed, so that he couldn’t
even do the cross.

But the way he was, he worked in the gar-
den, in the kitchen, he made bread and com-
munion bread, he cleaned the church, he lit the

icon lamps, and he did all the other obediences,
because for a long time only he and father abbot
Ambrose had been in the monastery.

So, this way, Saint John healed father Ioan-
ichius twice.

When Saint John was at the Monastery of St.

Sava, there came a lot of old Bedouins or pil-
grims that fell ill on the way to the monastery,

and as soon as he put his hands on them, the

pains relieved them, and in a short time they re-
covered. The Moslem Bedouins that had known

him tell about these, and they used to call him
the doctor of the monastery.
When Saint John was at the cave one night,

right at midnight some Jews came with their lan-
terns lighting, searching the caves where once

hundreds of hermits had lived there. These were
raking and digging, looking for old patrimony
objects.
Not far from the cell of the Saint it was a cave

in which there were put tens of skulls, and hun-
dreds of bones of the Holy Fathers that had end-

ed their lives in the caves.
When the robbers came near that cave, the

Saint saw their flash lights, and heard them talk-
ing what they were planning to do.

Then Saint John with his hands up to the sky
cried: ‘God, will you allow those outlaws break
the quietness of your elected ones?’ And a great
miracle happened right on the spot because the
mountain fell down covering the entrance mouth
of the cave, and the robbers ran away frightened
falling at the bottom of the abyss from where
they could hardly get out wounded, and nobody
could disturb the peace of those saints.
There it became real God’s word that: if you
have as faith as a mustard seed, you will move the
mountains, too.

Here is how at Saint John’s pray the moun-
tain quaked, and it did not allow those outlaws

to come nearer and to disturb the peace of His
Saints.
When Saint John lived at the cave, a Greek
monk called Mitrofan, who was a painter came

from the Holy Mountain. When he saw the lone-
liness and the quietness of the desert, he told

Saint John that he wanted to come there too, but
that first he had to go home to put order into his
problems, and then he would come, but the saint
told him: ‘If you want to come, come as you are

now, and if you want to go to put order into your
house, you will never come.’
Then father Mitrofan returned to the Holy
Mountain, and he began to paint again some

churches for two years with the thought of gain-
ning some money,so that he won’t be in need of

anything when he came in the desert.
Father Mitrofan had an apprentice that worked
with him at the paintings.
That one stole him some bmshes, and other
materials of great value, and the father scolded
him, after which at night the· apprentice waited
for him on a path and killed him.
So the prediction of Saint John became real,
that if he did not come the way he was, then he
would never come.
Another miracle performed by Saint John
through his word when he was alive, it is told

by His Reverence himself in what follows. I ex-
press exactly the words and lines written by Saint

John: ‘Two years ago when father Sava came for

the first time to the Jericho being very ill and dis-
appointed, I wrote these lines to him and I asked

him to keep his courage, and not to abandon us.
Here is what I wrote to him then – here are the
lines to father confessor Sava:
Keep the poverty of old age a little more,
Stop on the edge of life,

And first, think:
To whom do you leave your sons?
There where the Heavenly Height
Will see you, Holy Saint Sava,
He will ask you the question,
About the state of our souls.
So, prepare your disciple,
Which is worth taking your place,
Ahead the flock so poor,
And then you move in peace!
So, writing to him those lines, our old Father
listened to me, and with God’s gift he gained
strength and he lived two years more.’