abstract:John of Damascus (Иоанн Дамаскин) is a poem by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, first published in the January (#1) 1859 issue of Russkaya Beseda magazine. Fragments of the poem have been put to music by several composers, among them Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Taneev and Vasily Kalinnikov.
John Paul's pilgrimage retraces the steps of St Paul, the Jew who converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus and later preached in Athens and Malta on his way to Rome.