In 2004, in the city of Mulino in Oregon, an astonishing and wondrous event took place. It concerns a God-fearing woman of Russian descent, a member of the Church of the New Russian Martyrs, where Fr. Sergios Svesnikov served as a priest. In this parish are preserved as a treasure the epimanikia (clerical cuffs) of St. John.
This woman, who was in her last week of pregnancy (actually a short time before her due date), went for her last general appointment. During the appointment, they were shocked when the doctor diagnosed that the child was dead in the mother's womb. Immediately they told her that she would experience contractions and that she would give birth to a dead baby. She fainted and was mourning. When she came to her senses, they prepared to give her medicine to speed up contractions and induce labor. She told them to stop immediately, and asked them to call her priest, Fr. Sergius. When he learned what occurred, he told them to not do anything, but to wait.
A short time later he arrived at the hospital, bringing the epimanikia of St. John. Holding the epimanikia he signed her with the sign of the Cross on her womb, and to the great astonishment of all, the baby's heart began to beat again, as the portable ultrasound showed!
The child was born a short time later, alive and healthy, and was named John in honor of the Saint.
St. John Maximovitch
