Ivan Ilyich Sergiev (1829-1908), known to his contemporaries as Fr John of Kronstadt, was the most revered figure of the Orthodox Church of Russia in the half-century leading up to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. In 1964 the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia formally glorified him as a Saint. St John of Kronstadt is best known through his spiritual journal My Life in Christ , that have been read by millions.