Church of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco (Uzhhorod)

The Church of St John of Shanghai and San Francisco in Uzhhorod belongs to the Mukachevo eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - so both the community's own site and the eparchy's own publication write, the latter having described the hierarchical Liturgy served in this church on its patronal feast^{1, 2}. The community explains its choice of heavenly patron in its own way: St John (Maximovitch) was linked to Transcarpathia through his spiritual sons, who studied at the seminary in Bitola, and he once wrote to the confessor of the Mukachevo monastery, Archimandrite Vasilii (Pronin), asking him to tell him about the churches of Uzhhorod and to send their photographs¹.

The liturgical life of the parish began on 4 April 2010 with the first Liturgy in a site hut fitted out as a temporary church¹. Building started on 15 June 2011, the cornerstone was consecrated on 3 July of the same year, and on 19 January 2014 the first Liturgy was served in the lower church, built into the foundation beneath the altar of the upper church to come¹. The lower church, with an altar in honour of the finding of the relics of St John, was consecrated on 12 October 2016 and the foundation of the whole church on 2 July 2020; the upper church is being built still¹.

The church holds particles of the incorrupt relics of St John and of fifteen other saints, a copy of the wonderworking Pochaiv Icon of the Mother of God, and the pillow on which the saint's body lay in its reliquary; the icon "She Who is Quick to Hear" is venerated separately¹. The community keeps its patronal feast twice a year, on 2 July and on 12 October¹. The Uzhhorod youth brotherhood in honour of St Alexis of Carpatho-Russia operates at the church, and an eparchial youth centre is going up beside it, part of which - a classroom, a refectory and a utility room - was consecrated on 22 October 2017¹. The church itself stands in the Shakhta neighbourhood, where three regional hospitals and a territorial centre of social services are located¹.

The community broadcasts its services on a channel of its own, opened on 7 April 2016³. The services come out in pairs - the evening vigil the day before and the Liturgy in the morning - and more than two hundred of them are gathered in a year³. Beside them the channel runs a line of teaching of its own: expositions of passages from the Book of Genesis, short talks, recordings of a family club and of round tables³.