Mt. Athos, August 31, 2020
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St. Joseph the Hesychast, one of the greatest 20th-century saints of the Orthodox Church, reposed on August 28, the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos in 1959.
In March, he was canonized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, with his feast established as August 16/29, the day after the Dormition. Thus, on Saturday, his feast was officially celebrated for the first time throughout the Orthodox world.
In America and Canada, St. Joseph is especially venerated as the spiritual “grandfather” of the brotherhoods and sisterhoods of the many monasteries founded by Elder Ephraim, who was a spiritual child of St. Joseph for many years. The newly-glorified saint’s precious skull is treasured at St. Anthony’s Monastery in Florence, Arizona, where Elder Ephraim spent the last decades of his life.
The feast of St. Joseph was also marked with special zeal on the island of Paros, where he was born in 1898, with a hierarchical Divine Liturgy celebrated by Metropolitan Kallinikos of Paronaxia.
Watch several videos from the service below:
St. Joseph was also especially celebrated on Mt. Athos, where he labored for decades in asceticism and attained great spiritual heights. His spiritual children are responsible for reviving many of the famous Athonite monasteries.
Watch part of the service in honor of St. Joseph at Vatopedi Monastery on Mt. Athos, where his spiritual child, Elder Joseph of Vatopedi, served as abbot until his repose in 2009:
On July 22, the first parish church in the world dedicated to the newly-glorified St. Joseph the Hesychast was consecrated in Tbilisi, Georgia. In June, construction on a Church of St. Joseph the Hesychast was finished in Madagascar, which will serve as the church for the first male monastery in the nation.
