Joseph of Vatopedi

Geronda Joseph of Vatopedi (1921-2009), also called Joseph the Younger, was a Cypriot monk and Athonite elder, one of the chief disciples of Saint Joseph the Hesychast and the spiritual father of Ephraim, the present abbot of Vatopedi. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.

He was born on 1 July 1921 in the courtyard of the monastery of the Holy Unmercenaries at Giolou, in the Paphos district of Cyprus, to a family of Greek peasants, his mother being Eugenia; he was given the name Socrates. He grew up at Drousia, where he lived until he was fifteen. In 1937 he entered Stavrovouni Monastery as a novice and was tonsured with the name Sophronios, under the guidance of Elder Kyprianos, until 1946.

In 1946 he moved to Little Saint Anne's Skete on Mount Athos to join the brotherhood of Saint Joseph the Hesychast. He received the name Joseph on 11 April 1948 and so was called Joseph the Younger, to distinguish him from his spiritual father. In 1951 he moved with the brotherhood to New Skete, closer to the sea. He was a disciple of Joseph the Hesychast for thirteen years, until the latter's death in 1959, then built himself a wooden hut and from 1967 lived in the Cell of the Annunciation at New Skete. In 1975 Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios I invited him to be spiritual father of Koutloumousiou Monastery, where he remained until 1977. On the advice of Paisios the Athonite he moved in 1977 to the Monastery of the Holy Cross at Minthis, Cyprus, where he was ordained abbot on 25 March 1978; there Athanasios of Limassol, now a metropolitan, and Ephraim, the abbot of Vatopedi, entered his brotherhood. He returned to Athos on 26 October 1981 and lived in the Cell of the Annunciation at Kapsala, then from April 1982 at Koutloumousiou, and from August 1983 again at New Skete, where other disciples joined him.

On 23 April 1987 he moved to Vatopedi Monastery, and his brotherhood followed him in October 1989. He stayed there for the rest of his life. His disciple Ephraim became abbot of Vatopedi. He wrote sixteen books, among them the life of Saint Joseph the Hesychast, translated into English. He passed to the Lord on 1 July 2009, on his eighty-⁠eighth birthday, and his funeral was served at Vatopedi. His remains were exhumed on 8 October 2021.