Venerable Joseph of Volotsk — October 18 / October 31 (Julian Calendar)

Venerable Joseph of Volotsk (in the world, John Sanin) was born in 1439 near the city of Volokolamsk, into the pious family of John (in monasticism, Ioanikios) and Marina (in the schema, Maria). When he was seven years old, the boy was entrusted for his upbringing to Arsenius, a devout and learned monk of the Exaltation of the Cross Monastery in Volokolamsk. Distinguished by rare understanding, the youth learned the Psalms by heart in a single year and the Holy Scriptures in the next. He became the monastery church’s psalm-reader and chanter. His contemporaries marveled at the saint’s remarkable memory: he recited from memory the readings from the Psalter, the Gospel and the Apostle prescribed by the Typikon.

The blessed one was twenty years old when he resolved to offer his life to the Lord and left his family home. He came to Borovsk, where in February 1460 he was tonsured a monk by Venerable Paphnutius of Borovsk.

The saint spent eighteen years in that monastery. In 1477, after the repose of Paphnutius of Borovsk, he was ordained hieromonk and, in keeping with the holy abbot’s testament, was entrusted with the leadership of the community. Father Joseph resolved to correct and make stricter the rule of the monastery according to the typika of the Kiev Caves, of the Holy Trinity of St. Sergius, and of the monasteries of Kirillo-Belozersk, which the brotherhood received with displeasure. The blessed one therefore left the monastery with seven like-minded monks and set out into the forests of Volokolamsk to found a new monastery. Their arrival there was marked by a miracle: a sudden storm swept through the forest and felled the trees, as though clearing the monastic site. The brethren eagerly set about building, and Venerable Joseph labored beside them. Wearied by the day’s work, the monk spent his nights in prayer. In a short time the number of monks in the monastery reached one hundred.

Abba Joseph sought to set an example of self-restraint and moderation in everything for his spiritual children, and outwardly he differed from them in nothing. He was the first to go to church, read and chanted together with the others, preached, and was the last to leave. At night the abbot would walk through the church and the cells, a faithful guardian of the brethren’s peace and vigilance. If he overheard idle talk, he would let the monks know of his presence by knocking, and then humbly withdraw.

Venerable Joseph gave his chief attention to ordering the inner life of the monks. He strictly oversaw the keeping of the monastery’s rule, which was founded on complete poverty, the cutting off of one’s own will, and constant labor. The brethren held everything in common. Without the abbot’s blessing no one could bring anything into the cells, not even books or icons. By common agreement, the monks left part of their meal for the poor. Labor, prayer and personal struggle filled the life of the brethren, and the Jesus Prayer never left their lips. Abba Joseph regarded idleness as the chief weapon of demonic temptations, and the abbot himself always took on the heaviest obediences. Many monks of the community were occupied in copying liturgical books and the writings of the holy fathers, so that the Volokolamsk library soon became one of the finest among the monastic libraries of Russia.

The chosen servant of the Lord reposed in the year 1515, at the age of seventy-six.