John the Theologian is one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. He authored one of the Gospels, the final book of the New Testament – the Apocalypse – and three Epistles, which were also included in the biblical canon. John the Theologian was the youngest disciple of Jesus. Tradition holds that he witnessed the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, was present at Jesus' interrogation, followed Him to Golgotha and remained near the Saviour when He was crucified. It was to him that the Lord entrusted the care of the Mother of God after His death: ‘Here is your mother.’ 

John the Apostle is called the patron saint of icon painters. He is believed to have appeared to a boy who was tending geese and taught him to paint. Under the emperor Nero the Apostle was persecuted for his faith: sacred texts say that he was forced to drink poison and then thrown in a cauldron of boiling oil, but John managed to survive. After that, he was banished to the island of Patmos, off what is now Turkey, where John converted all the islanders to Christianity and destroyed all the idols. John the Theologian was the only primary disciple of Jesus who lived for more than 100 years and died a natural death.

The author of the icon is not known, but researchers suppose that the painter received his schooling in Moscow. In his work, he used techniques applied by icon painters of the Armoury: eyes like in secular portraits, special deep shades of colours on the face, smooth colour blending and the lit parts of the figure illuminated with gold and silver. The painter used egg-based paints with expensive imported pigments. 

Before the Russian Revolution, the sacred image of St. John the Theologian was kept in the Yugskaya Dorofeeva Hermitage. In the 1920s, when they opened a children’s commune in the monastery, its icons were handed over to the Rybinsk Museum. At present, the Hermitage is submerged under the waters of the Rybinsk Reservoir.