Saint Joseph, Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia — October 17 / October 30 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, October 17 according to the Julian Calendar (October 30 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Joseph, Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia.

Saint Joseph, Catholicos-Patriarch (Jandierishvili), labored in the Dodo Monastery. “For his many virtues” he was appointed bishop of the see of Rustavi. Saint Joseph had been granted by God the gift of working miracles. Once his deacon fell ill with a tumor of the stomach, and the illness grew so severe that death seemed unavoidable. When the bishop entered the sick man’s room, the patient could neither breathe nor speak. Saint Joseph “saw the affliction, and his gentle heart was moved with compassion.” He left the sufferer and withdrew to a chapel to pray. After fervent prayer he returned to the sick man and, because he shunned the praise of men, said casually that for such an illness the proper remedy was charcoal from a hazel stick. He cast into the fire a staff carved from his own hazel wood, ground it in water, made the sign of the cross over it, and gave it to the sick man to drink. The tumor subsided that very moment, and on the third day the patient was fully healed. Distinguished by such humility and wonderworking, the bishop was elected Catholicos in 1755 in place of Anthony I. Despite the burden and honor of the office, Saint Joseph remained a great ascetic monk: “Whenever they made up his bed in the patriarchal residence, he would secretly place a mark upon it, and the next day they would see that he had not lain on the bed at all, but had prayed alone all night with tenderness.” As Prince Ioane writes, “he set his Church in good order, and then left his throne.”

In 1764, like Saint Gregory the Theologian, Catholicos Joseph humbly gave up the Catholicosal throne for the peace of the Church. He went to Akhmeta and “lived a true monastic life.” The saint tended a vineyard with his own hands and gave most of the harvest to the poor. In that region droughts and hail are very frequent and often destroyed nearly the whole harvest, yet during Saint Joseph’s labors there, “neither did the rain fail the vineyards, nor did destructive hail come.” By his prayers he healed the sick and restored sight to the blind, and for this the local people loved him dearly.

Saint Gabriel the Younger (commemorated March 17) writes with joy that he “once saw him” and “twice kissed that holy hand.”

In 1770, “thus in holiness, advanced in years, he gave up his soul to God.”