the rules under which the religious censor had to preapprove the article, and it was perceived by the church hierarchy as interference into its affairs and a violation of subordination by John. The church did not know what to do with a person who suddenly claimed to be a living wonderworker with healing power (only relics were thought to have that power). The situation was discussed by the highest church organ, the Most Holy Synod, whose hierarchs were in disarray, and especially the metropolitan, Isidore, the direct supervisor of Father John, who was dissatisfied. However, they could do nothing although only after the invitation to the bed of the dying tsar in 1894 that John became immune to its criticism although he did not make any of the expected miracles there. John was widely venerated as a saint even during his lifetime because of his fame as a powerful prayer, healer, and visionary. The Ioannites sect even stated that John was a god himself, a home for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the same time. In the fall of 1907, John was appointed by Tsar Nicholas II as a member of the Holy Synod, but John did not participate in any meeting of the Holy Synod because of his serious illness. Support for Russian far right John at first condemned the participants in the Kishinev pogrom but changed his mind. He apologized to its organisers and accused the Jews themselves of the pogroms. After the Russian Revolution of 1905, he became an ally of Russian far-right radicals, also known as the Black Hundreds, who fought against left-wing activists, liberals and Jews. He was a honorary member of the Union of the Russian People and several other right-wing organizations. He became one of the most celebrated clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church who supported the creator of the Union, Alexander Dubrovin. When Dubrovin invited the hierarchs of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev as well as John to a mass meeting in November 1906, only John attended. Moreover, Metropolitan Anthonii of St. Petersburg sent Dubrovin a sharp rebuke and called his organization terrorist. John publicly consecrated the banners of the Union, thus inspiring its leaders. John was the only priest of St. Andrew's Cathedral to flee from Kronstadt during the uprising in 1905. The rest of the priests of St. Andrew's Cathedral held a procession to the rebels and urged them