Once, St. Archbishop John said night prayers in his cell. And the demon climbed into his wash basin. The saint baptized this vessel with water, and the demon could not go out. Then he prayed to John to let him go. The saint agreed, but with the condition that the demon would take him that night to Jerusalem and bring him back. Unclean promised to fulfill the will of John.
The demon turned into a saddled horse, and the saint sat on it. Finding himself in Jerusalem, John went to the Church of the Holy Resurrection, where the sepulcher of the Lord is located. The doors opened before him by themselves. John prayed, bowed to all the shrines, then left the church, sat on a demon, and that same night was again in Veliky Novgorod, in his cell.
The demon, leaving the cell of St. John, asked him not to tell anyone about what had happened, threatening otherwise to slander the saint.
One day, John, having a soul-saving conversation with many people, spoke about his journey to Jerusalem, but he seemed to be talking not about himself, but about someone else.
From that day on, the demon began to slander the saint. He turned into a woman, and people saw a harlot coming out of John's cell. According to the demonic obsession with the eyes of visitors, women’s clothes and shoes appeared in his cell.
The townspeople decided to expel Archbishop John from Novgorod. When the people approached his cell, the demon ran out of it in the form of a damsel. The townspeople tried to catch the girl, but to no avail. John was captured and, not listening to his excuses, condemned as a harlot. He was taken to the Great Bridge, on the Magus River, and put on a raft so that he sailed out of the city down the river.
But the raft sailed upstream, up the river to the monastery of St. George. And the saint meanwhile prayed for the Novgorodians. Seeing this miracle, people realized that they had condemned the archbishop wrong, due to demonic obsession. Then the priests with a cross and an icon went along the riverbank after the saint, begging him to return to his bishop's place. John quietly, without overtaking the procession, swam against the tide. And people who used to slander the archbishop also walked along the shore, asking the saint to forgive them. Having overtaken the saint and the procession, they fell to their knees. The priests also approached them and together began to beg John. Then the saint heeded them, sailed to the shore, went on land, forgave everyone and blessed. All together went to the monastery of St. George.
The monks of the monastery did not know that Archbishop John was coming to them. But at that time in the monastery there lived a holy fool who had the gift of insight. He reported all the archimandrite. The monks solemnly met St. John. And having performed a prayer service in the monastery, he returned to the hierarchal throne in Veliky Novgorod.
John himself told the sacred cathedral and other people about his journey on a demon and about everything that happened to him. And then the prince and the city governors, in consultation with the people, put up a stone cross in the place where the saint had sailed. This cross stands to this day as a warning to everyone.
