Joseph the Much-⁠Suffering

Saint Joseph the Much-⁠Suffering (also called Much-⁠Ailing, fourteenth century) was a monk of the Kyiv Caves Lavra, venerated in the Russian Church as a venerable saint. His commemoration is on 4 April and 28 August by the old calendar, in the synaxis of the venerable Fathers of the Caves who rest in the Far Caves (of Saint Theodosius).

Life

From his life it is known that for many years he suffered from various illnesses, which is why he is called "much-⁠suffering". In a grave illness he prayed to God and made a vow that, if He gave him health, he would serve the brothers of the Caves monastery to the end of his life. The prayer was heard. After healing he entered the Caves monastery and was tonsured a monk, and according to his short life in the Paterikon, until death he labored zealously and pleased God by fasting and prayer and served the brothers by his obedience. After his repose he was buried in the Far Caves, where his incorrupt relics also lie.

In Orthodox literature today his lot is given as an example of the Christian attitude toward illness. The doctor of medical sciences, head of the Society of Orthodox Physicians of Saint Petersburg, Archpriest Sergei Filimonov, said we should recall the monks of the Lavra, Joseph and Pimen the much-⁠ailing, to whom God sent health only shortly before the end; they stayed in illness for a reason, being saved through bodily weakness, atoning for sins that the Lord knew, and received from God the grace to heal others.

Relics and veneration

The saint's relics are in the Far Caves of the Kyiv Caves Lavra. An Old Believer literary monument of the eighteenth century, the "Life of Andrei Denisov", speaks of the incorruption of the relics: it mentions "the incorrupt holy hands of prayer of the venerable fathers of the Caves Joseph the much-⁠ailing and Elijah of Murom". It is made to understand that the fingers of these hands are folded in the two-⁠finger sign of the cross that the Old Believers consider true, as with the relics of Saint Nikita of Novgorod. Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov), in his "History of the Russian Church", on the contrary cites the relics of Saint Joseph as proof for those who hold the three-⁠finger sign: on the right hands of the venerable Elijah of Murom and Joseph the much-⁠ailing the first three fingers are joined, though not equally, and the last two, ring finger and little finger, are bent toward the palm.

The Ukrainian source says that local veneration began in the seventeenth century, when Archimandrite Varlaam (Yasynsky; 1684-1690) established the celebration of the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Far Caves. There is a kontakion of Saint Joseph, in which the saint is praised as a healer, and he is mentioned in the sixth troparion of the eighth ode of the canon to the Venerable Fathers of the Far Caves. On the map of the Far Caves of 1638 "the bones of the holy monk Joseph" are mentioned, and in an icon-⁠painter's original of the late eighteenth century he is said to be gray-⁠haired, with hair like the Apostle Andrew's, the schema on his shoulders and venerable vestments; in a lithograph of 1893 of the Lavra's press he has wavy hair parted in the middle, with gray moustache and beard.