St. John of Damascus was born around the year 680 in Damascus, the capital of Syria, into a Christian family. His father, Sergius Mansur, was the treasurer at the court of the Caliph. John had an adopted brother, the orphaned boy Cosmas, whom Sergius took into his house. When the children grew up, Sergius took care of their education. At the Damascus slave market, he redeemed the learned monk Cosmas from Calabria from captivity and entrusted him with teaching children. The boys discovered extraordinary abilities and easily mastered the course of secular and spiritual sciences. After his father's death, John took up the post of minister and governor at court.
At that time, the heresy of iconoclasm arose and spread rapidly in Byzantium, supported by Emperor Leo III Isaurus (717-741). Having defended Orthodox icon worship, John wrote three treatises "Against those who Condemn Holy Icons." John's wise, inspired writings enraged the emperor. But since the author of them was not a Byzantine subject, he could not be imprisoned or executed. Then the emperor resorted to slander. On his orders, a forged letter was written on John's behalf, in which the Damascus minister allegedly offered the emperor his help in conquering the Syrian capital. Leo Isaurus sent this letter and his hypocritically flattering reply to the Caliph. He immediately ordered John to be removed from office, cut off his right hand and hang it in the town square. In the evening of the same day, John's severed hand was returned. The monk began to pray to the Most Holy Theotokos and ask for healing. After falling asleep, he saw the icon of the Mother of God and heard Her voice, informing him that he was healed, and at the same time commanding him to work tirelessly with his healed hand. When he woke up, he saw that his arm was unharmed.
Upon learning of the miracle, which testified to John's innocence, the caliph asked for his forgiveness and wanted to return his former position to him, but the monk refused. He distributed his wealth and, together with his adopted brother and fellow student Cosmas, went to Jerusalem, where he entered the monastery of Sava the Consecrated as a simple novice. It was not easy to find a spiritual guide for him. Of the monastic brethren, only one very experienced elder agreed to this, who began to skillfully cultivate the spirit of obedience and humility in the disciple. First of all, the elder forbade John to write, believing that success in this field would cause pride. One day, he sent the monk to Damascus to sell baskets made in the monastery, and instructed him to sell them much more expensive than their real price. And so, having made a painful journey under the hot sun, the former nobleman of Damascus found himself in the market in the tattered clothes of a simple basket seller. But John was recognized by his former housekeeper and bought all the baskets at the appointed price.
One day, one of the monks died in the monastery, and the brother of the deceased asked John to write something to comfort him. John refused for a long time, but out of mercy, yielding to the requests of the grief-stricken, he wrote his famous funeral troparia. For this disobedience, the elder expelled him from his cell. All the monks began to ask for John. Then the elder entrusted him with one of the most difficult and unpleasant tasks – to remove impurities from the monastery. Here, too, the monk showed an example of obedience. After some time, the elder was instructed in a vision by the Most Pure and Holy Virgin Mary to lift the ban on John's writing. The Patriarch of Jerusalem found out about the monk, ordained him a priest and made him a preacher at his pulpit. But St. John soon returned to the Monastery of St. Sava, where he spent the rest of his days writing spiritual books and church hymns, and left the monastery only to denounce the iconoclasts at the Council of Constantinople in 754. He was imprisoned and tortured, but he endured everything and, by the grace of God, remained alive. He passed away around 780, at the age of 104.