Saint John (Gomolko) was born in 1842 in the family of an officer. In 1865, he came to the Glinskaya Desert, where he began an inner struggle with passions. In 1874, he was tonsured into the mantle with the name Isaiah, in 1880 he was ordained as a hierodeacon, and in 1884 — as a hieromonk. In 1888, he became the abbot of the desert and was elevated to the rank of igumen. He opened a House of Labor for teaching literacy and crafts to orphaned boys, erected the Distant Skete, and organized the publishing activities of the monastery.
In 1906, he accepted the schema with the name John. He suffered persecution from General P. Mitropolsky, who achieved his dismissal in 1912. The saint, leaving the desert, performed a miracle by walking across the water to the other side of the river.
After his death, he was buried in the brotherly cemetery of the desert. On May 8, 2008, he was canonized among the locally revered saints, and on November 30, 2017, the Archdiocesan Council of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to glorify him, establishing the date of remembrance on September 22 in the Synaxis of the Glinsk Saints.
