Mohawk, New York, October 14, 2021
Photo: /iveronmonastery.org
In August 2020, a church was consecrated in honor of the newly glorified St. Joseph the Hesychast in Tbilisi. In June of this year, St. Joseph the Hesychast Church at St. Joseph the Hesychast Monastery in Toliara, Madagascar, was consecrated.
And now, plans for the first Church of St. Joseph in North America have been announced. The church will be built at the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia’s Iveron Mother of God Monastery in upstate New York.
St. Joseph was canonized by the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in March 2020. Together with his disciples, St. Joseph was instrumental in reviving monasticism on the Holy Mountain and has become a shining example for all monastics. He is greatly beloved in North America, where his disciple Elder Ephraim founded 19 monasteries.
The building of the church was announced in a video featuring Orthodox actor and musician Jonathan Jackson, who played the great 20th-century elder in a recent film.
“What can I say about a man who became all flame?” Jackson asks. “What can I say about a soul who lived the silence of God? And what can I say about a man whose life was like St. Anthony the Great?”
Watch the full video announcement:
The Iveron Mother of God Monastery is a development from the previously existing St. Elizabeth Skete, just down the road from Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York. The new monastery began with the purchase of 100 acres in February 2018, just a short distance from the skete.
The monastery is dedicated to the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God and its wonderworking copies, “with a special emphasis on the Miracle of the Myrrh-Streaming Iveron Montreal icon of the Mother of God, and to Her faithful Guardian, Brother José Muñoz-Cortez who was brutally tortured and martyred in Athens on October 31, 1997.”
Those interested in donating to the construction of the church can learn more at the monastery’s website.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!
