John was born in Tauric Scythia, in the Crimea. His devout parents had prayed to the Lord with many tears for the gift of a child, and from his earliest years the boy gave himself to the service of Christ. As a young man, John resolved to embrace the monastic life, and his great desire was to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. For three years he journeyed among the holy places, and then returned to his homeland.
At that time the Gothic eparchy had no bishop, for its former hierarch had been driven out by the Emperor Constantine Copronymus. The local Christians entreated John to accept the holy rank. For his consecration, the saint travelled to Iberia, present-day Georgia, where the iconoclastic heresy had not prevailed. After his return, he was compelled to flee to Amastris, hiding from the Khazar invaders.
Saint John spent four years on the Black Sea coast. Then, when the hierarch learned that the Khazar khan had died, he said with prophetic certainty: “In forty days I shall go to contend with him before Christ the Saviour.” And so it came to pass: exactly forty days later, while preaching to the people, the holy hierarch of Gothia reposed. This was in the year 790.
The relics of Saint John of Gothia were taken to the monastery of Parthenit, near Mount Ayu-Dag in the Crimea, where the saint had earlier built a church and dedicated it to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul.
