St. John Maximovitch was born Michael Maximovtich on June 4, 1896 in the village of Adamovka in what was then southern Russia.

He attended Poltava Military School from 1907 to 1914 and then Kharkiv Imperial University from which he graduated with a law degree in 1918.

In 1921, he and his family fled Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution and civil war. They immigrated to Belgrade in what was then Yugoslavia where St. John enrolled in the University of Belgrade and earned a degree in theology.

In 1926 Metropolitan Anthony tonsured him a monk and then ordained him hierodeacon. He took the monastic name John after Saint John Maximovitch of Tobolsk who is his distant relative. He was elevated again to hieromonk that same year.

On May 28, 1934, St. John was consecrated bishop and sent to Diocese of Shanghai to serve the Russian diaspora in China. In 1946, he was named Archbishop of China.

After the end of World War II, the civil war in China resumed, and St. John and his flock once again were forced to flee a communist takeover. By 1949, most of the ethnic Russians living in Shanghai had become refugees in other countries. St. John traveled to Washington, D.C. to help secure immigration visas for his parishioners.

In 1951, St. John was transfered to the Archdiocese of Western Europe in Paris, and then in 1962, St. John was sent the Diocese of San Francisco in the United States where he oversaw the completion of the cathedral dedicated to the icon "The Mother of God Joy of All Who Sorrow" despite strong community opposition.

He died on June 19, 1966, in Seattle, Wastington while accompanying the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God on a tour. He was entombed in the cathedral Joy of All Who Sorrow in San Francisco.

In 1994, St. John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco was officially canonized.