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Journey to Saint Joasaph of Belgorod. Saint Joseph of Belgorod

Saint Joasaph of Belgorod is usually depicted on icons with a stern look on a reserved face. His zeal and uncompromisingness in matters of faith and piety can truly be compared with that of the prophet Elijah. However, the Holy Church calls the Bishop of Belgorod not only the “rule of faith,” but also the “image of mercy.” What made this wondrous saint, strict ascetic and caring archpastor so famous?

Chosen One of the Mother of God

The entire life of Saint Joasaph, Bishop of Belgorod, was marked by God's special care for him, and most importantly by the patronage of the Queen of Heaven. The future saint was born in 1705 on Christmas Day Holy Mother of God. In honor of the righteous parent of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the boy was named Joachim. The saint's parents belonged to the noble Cossack family of Gorlenko. They lived in the town of Priluki, then part of the Poltava province, in Little Russia.

The future archpastoral service of Joachim was announced to his father in one unusual vision. One evening, sitting on the porch of the house, he saw the Mother of God standing above the horizon. An angel stood next to her, and Joachim prayed on his knees in front of them. AND Holy Virgin at the same time she said approvingly: “Your prayer is satisfactory to Me,” after which the angel clothed the worshiper in the bishop’s robe. However, Joachim’s father soon forgot this vision itself and was able to remember only after the death of his son.

At the age of seven, the boy entered the Kyiv Academy to study. Already at this time, he developed an ardent desire to accept monasticism, which was fully established by the age of sixteen. However, he knew that his parents would not approve of this, who dreamed of seeing in their son the successor of their glorious family and the heir to their estate. For this reason, in one of the last courses of study, without the knowledge of his parents, Joachim retired to one of the monasteries near Kiev, where he underwent training for two years. At this time, Joachim’s servant remained in Kyiv, who, receiving letters from his parents, brought them to the monastery and sent them answers from Kyiv.

Only after taking monastic vows with the name Hilarion, the young man informed his parents about this, asking them for forgiveness for the grief he had caused. He was tonsured a monk in 1727 on the feast of the Entry into the Temple of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When he was tonsured, he received the name Joasaph - in honor of the holy Indian prince, whose memory was celebrated the day before. The very next year, Joasaph was ordained as a hierodeacon and began teaching at the Kyiv Academy.

Pastoral ministry

Archbishop Raphael (Zaborovsky), who soon became Metropolitan of Kyiv, immediately drew attention to the rare spiritual gifts of the young monk, and brought Joasaph closer to him. He himself ordained him as a hieromonk and later appointed him rector of the Mgar monastery near Lubny. Having humbly accepted the new obedience, the young abbot set about restoring the monastery, which was then in a dilapidated state. Despite his significantly deteriorating health, Joasaph managed to significantly transform and improve the economy of the monastery, including the construction of a large fraternal building. Twice Saint Athanasius of Constantinople, considered the patron saint of the Lubensk monastery, appeared to Abbot Joasaph in a subtle dream. In these visions, Saint Athanasius expressed his patronage and support to the new abbot of the monastery.

However, there were not enough funds for construction work to restore the main cathedral of the monastery. Then Abbot Joasaph went to Moscow and St. Petersburg in order to find funds. The trip turned out to be so successful that with his sermon Joasaph was even able to attract the attention of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna herself. It was she who subsequently allocated the amount necessary for the restoration of the cathedral. In addition, by her Highest order, Abbot Joasaph was awarded the title of archimandrite, and after a while he was also appointed abbot of the Sergius Lavra, while remaining abbot of the Lubensky Monastery.

And here Archimandrite Joasaph accomplished a lot of work during the short period of his governorship - about three years. Almost completely under his leadership, all the Lavra buildings that were damaged by the recent fire were restored, including the restoration of the paintings of the temples, and under his leadership the famous bell weighing 4,000 pounds was cast. Also, through the efforts of Archimandrite Joasaph, the Lavra's courtyard in Moscow was restored.

Bishop of Belgorod

In 1748, in St. Petersburg, Joasaph was elevated to the rank of Bishop of Belgorod and Oboyan. Thus began his archpastoral labors. It must be said that the saint received a very large and extremely poor pulpit. Without sparing his strength and health, the bishop zealously began to fulfill the new duties assigned to him. He himself traveled to even the most remote parishes of his diocese, delving into all the existing difficulties and problems. At the same time, the saint usually stayed with the poorest rural priests, without depriving them of his archpastoral advice and guidance.

Rule of Faith

Bishop Joasaph was especially zealous about observing the church charter, monitored the moral character of the clergy, and cultivated a reverent attitude towards shrines. He put a lot of effort into raising the level of spiritual education and making it accessible to low-income families. There are several cases known that clearly characterize his vigilant care for the parishes of his diocese.

Once, having stayed overnight in the house of a rural priest, the bishop could not sleep, being overwhelmed by an incomprehensible fear. Then, driven by an inexplicable instinct, he discovered in this house the Holy Gifts wrapped in paper, hidden between the dishes. For the rest of the night the saint stood in prayer in front of the shrine, asking God for forgiveness for the negligence of the clergyman, and the next morning he severely reprimanded this priest, after which he deprived him of his rank.

Another time, also touring his diocese, the saint, in a subtle dream, learned that something unusual was happening in one of the churches. Waking up, he hurried to inquire about the nearest temples. They actually pointed him to a church, the same as the one the bishop had seen in his dream. Arriving there, he discovered that during the Divine Liturgy one of the ministers was drunk. Saint Joasaph immediately demoted him on the spot.

"WITH Among the clergy of his diocese there was a priest who lived to be one hundred and thirty years old. Everyone considered this a special blessing from God. However, Saint Joasaph saw with his spiritual gaze a different, hidden reason for such longevity.”

The life of the saint mentions another equally amazing and instructive incident. Among the clergy of his diocese there was a priest who lived to be one hundred and thirty years old. Everyone considered this a special blessing from God. However, Saint Joasaph saw with his spiritual gaze a different, hidden reason for such longevity. He asked this priest if he had any important unconfessed sin. After thinking carefully, he actually remembered one forgotten incident. One day he served a Liturgy in his church, after which a local landowner arrived and ordered him to serve another one. Fearing being punished, the clergyman also celebrated the second Divine Liturgy. At the same time, he clearly heard a voice in the altar forbidding him to do this, threatening him with a curse. In response, the priest himself cursed the speaker and celebrated the Eucharist.

After hearing this story, Bishop Joasaph became indignant. He realized that the priest had cursed the angel assigned to guard that temple. Afterwards, the saint ordered the gathering of a camp church - in the very place where that church had previously stood, they served the Liturgy. At the same time, the bishop himself confessed to the old clergyman, after which he peacefully departed to the Lord during the service.

Finding of the Peschanskaya Icon

Thanks to the unusual gift of spiritual vision, which Saint Joasaph was granted, today we have another Orthodox shrine - the Peschanskaya icon Mother of God, which is still one of the most revered in Ukraine. Her miraculous discovery occurred in 1754. And it happened as follows. On the eve of these events, Saint Joasaph had an unusual dream: in an unfamiliar temple, an icon of the Mother of God was neglected. From her the bishop heard the words: “Look what the servants of this temple have done to My Face. My image was appointed for this country as a source of grace, but they cast it into rubbish.” Soon after this, Bishop Joasaph, while touring the parishes of his diocese, had the opportunity to visit a church near the city of Izyum near Kharkov. He recognized her as the one he had seen in his dream. In the vestibule, to his horror and surprise, he saw an icon behind which coal from the censer was thrown. The bishop suddenly fell to his knees in front of her and began to ask forgiveness from the Mother of God for the negligence of the clergy. Then he himself indicated the place of honor in the temple where the image should be placed, explaining that God’s special grace rests on it. Soon, through prayers in front of this icon, numerous miracles began to be performed, which do not stop to this day.

Image of mercy

Saint Joasaph was not only strict and exacting, but at the same time he had the same merciful heart as that of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker. Obviously, imitating the latter, he tried to help people secretly so that they would not know the name of their benefactor. In connection with this, one day even such a curious incident happened to him. Bishop Joasaph had a custom: on the eve of major church holidays, he sent his cell attendant to the homes of poor people with gifts. At the same time, the cell attendant left a bag with gifts at the door, knocked and ran away. But one day it happened that on the eve of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, the saint’s cell attendant fell ill. Not wanting to deprive the poor of gifts, Bishop Joasaph himself decided, dressed in simple clothes, to take them to the people. However, when he returned home, his own watchman did not recognize the disguised ruler. Thinking that he was a thief, he grabbed the saint and even hit him. Moreover, the morning after this event, the bishop did not punish his watchman at all, as one might have expected, but, on the contrary, praised him for his vigilance.

Prayer Book and Miracle Worker

It is known that Saint Joasaph of Belgorod was endowed with an extremely rare gift of clairvoyance. The following case can serve as confirmation of this. One day, residents of one of the villages on the eve of the Trinity Day came to the bishop to ask for his prayers, since there was a severe drought and they could lose their harvest. The saint ordered his coachman to prepare the sleigh for the trip to this village by morning. People were surprised, believing that the ruler was mistaken, but he confirmed his order to prepare the sleigh. Much to everyone’s surprise, snow actually fell in the morning, which soon melted, which saved the harvest.

Repose of the saint

The saint foresaw his death in advance. When he went to Priluki to visit his parents in 1754, parting with his Belgorod flock, he said that they saw each other in last time. Returning from Priluki, he stopped in one of the villages, where he became very ill and lay in this condition for about two months. On December 10 (23), 1754, Bishop Joasaph quietly reposed. It is known that at the same time the abbot of one of the monasteries of the Belgorod diocese had a vision: he was at a reception with the bishop, and he, standing at the window and pointing at the sun that was rising, said: “As this sun is clear, so bright I appeared at this hour to the throne of God."

Through the prayers of St. Joasaph of Belgorod, may the Lord have mercy and save us, for he is good and a lover of mankind!

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Saint Joasaph was born in the small town of Priluki, Poltava province, on September 8, 1705, on the day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, into the eminent noble family of Gorlenko. Named in Holy Baptism by the name of Joachim, the parent of the Most Holy Theotokos, the infant Joachim (later Saint Joasaph) was always under the special protection of the Most Pure Lady. Parents of St. Joasaph was very God-fearing and lived according to all the rules Orthodox Church. Father - Andrei Dimitrievich Gorlenko, was a sheepskin, i.e. was in charge of the bunchuk - the military banner under Hetman Daniil Pavlovich Apostol, whose daughter Maria Danilovna he was married to.

The Gorlenko family at that time was distinguished by its particular religiosity, love of poverty and charity. Growing up in such a family, the young lad Joachim was distinguished by a great religious disposition from an early age. Even in the years of Joachim’s adolescence, the Merciful Lord proclaimed His Holy will about his future in a miraculous vision that was revealed to Joachim’s father Andrei Dimitrievich.
One evening he was sitting on the porch of his house and suddenly, at sunset, he saw the Mother of God standing beyond the horizon in the air with an Angel and at their feet his son Joachim, kneeling and offering prayers to the Mother of God. Then he heard the words of the Most Holy Theotokos: “Your prayer is sufficient for Me,” and at that moment the Angel of the Lord flew down and clothed Joachim in the bishop’s mantle

In the eighth year of his life, Joachim was sent to the Kyiv Academy to study the sciences, and especially the verbal ones. The pious lifestyle of semi-monastic life at the academy, the abundance of shrines in the city of Kiev - the mother of Russian cities, and especially the acquaintance with the monastic ascetics of the Kiev-Pechersk - all this contributed to the fact that already in the 11th year of his life Joakim Gorlenko fell in love with monasticism, at 16- om year of life, by the time the end school education, the intention to be a monk was firmly established in him and completely took over his will, and in the 18th year of his life in Joachim the thought of renouncing the world and accepting monasticism finally matured and became established.

Soon Joachim left the academy and retired to the deserted and strictly ascetic life of the Kiev-Mezhigorsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, in which he devoted himself entirely to monastic obedience - the preparatory stage for accepting monasticism. Here Joachim loved to retire to pray in a cave on a mountain. The young novice’s zeal for prayerful deeds, mortification of the flesh and subjugation of its spirit at this time reached the point that during the course of the trial he did not even eat boiled food, contenting himself with the most meager, austere food.

After a 2-year trial, the ascetic Joachim Gorlenko, at the age of 21, on October 27, 1725, accepted the ryassophore and was named Hilarion in monasticism. On November 21, on the feast of the Entry into the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos, 1727, 22-year-old Hilarion, after renouncing all worldly things, was tonsured into the mantle with the name Joasaph. The following year, on January 6, 1728, the monk Joasaph was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon.
A year later, Hierodeacon Joasaph was appointed teacher of the lower class at the Kyiv Academy. His obedience to the teacher continued for three years.

In 1732, the newly appointed Archbishop Rafail Zaborovsky visited the Kiev Academy. Hierodeacon Joasaph greeted him with a poetic speech. The archpastor noticed high spiritual talents in Joasaph Gorlenko, brought him closer to himself and on September 13, 1734 appointed him an examiner at the Kyiv See, and on November 8 of the same 1734, at the age of 30, he ordained Hierodeacon Joasaph to the rank of hieromonk.

The future Saint Joasaph begins to work in the field of pastoral service. First in the Kiev Brotherhood Monastery, and then in the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral. Archbishop Raphael, seeing the zeal and hard work of the young shepherd, blesses him (in 1737) to serve in the fairly populated Lubensko-Mgarsky Transfiguration Monastery as abbot of the monastery.
Here the young abbot showed himself to be a hardworking, fair, loving and very caring manager of the Lubensky monastery. . While continuing to manage the Lubensk monastery, both in the previous and subsequent times, Abbot Joasaph led a strictly ascetic life. At that time, the future saint had to work a lot to restore the destroyed economy of the monastery. There were no funds to restore the main monastery church and other buildings, and in 1742 the abbot went to St. Petersburg to collect donations for the Church of God. In St. Petersburg, Abbot Joasaph received the highest attention of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. The pious Empress, who loved church splendor and diligently visited churches and monasteries, graciously accepted the petitioner and ordered him to be given 2000 rubles for the construction of the temple. Among the reasons that disposed the Empress to donate to the construction of the temple in the Lubensky monastery is the touching and very edifying word of Abbot Joasaph about the love of God.
On August 16, 1744, on the direct orders of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and after some time he was summoned to Moscow, where on January 29, 1745, Archimandrite Joasaph was appointed vicar of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, leaving him the abbot of the Lubensky Monastery.

During his service in the Lavra, Archimandrite Joasaph proved himself to be a very zealous and useful co-worker of its rector, the Holy Archimandrite of the Lavra and Archbishop Arseny of Mogilyansky. Experiencing bodily illnesses stemming from an overly strict ascetic life, but without becoming impoverished in spirit, Archimandrite Joasaph with excellent zeal here tamed spiritual self-will, delved into constant service to God, rose from strength to strength in personal feat, internal spiritual struggle and worked very hard for the benefit of the holy monasteries entrusted to him.

But the service of Archimandrite Joasaph in the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra was not long. On March 15, 1748, the highest decree was issued on the appointment of Archimandrite and Vicar Joasaph as bishop of the Belgorod diocese. On June 2 of the same 1748, the reverent Archimandrite Joasaph was consecrated Bishop of Belgorod and Oboyan. The ordination of Archimandrite Joasaph took place on the Sunday of All Saints, in the St. Petersburg Peter and Paul Cathedral, in the presence of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna and the Highest Family.

On August 6, 1748, on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the newly ordained Saint Joasaph arrived in his diocesan city of Belgorod in the morning at the time of the Divine Liturgy. Despite his poor health and exhaustion from the long journey from St. Petersburg to Belgorod, he celebrated the Divine Liturgy on this day in the Holy Trinity Cathedral.

This is how the great saint of God, Saint Jaosaph, began his archpastoral service. Filled with the deepest humility and love for God and neighbor, he took up the reins of archpastoral service with great zeal and zeal.
In order to raise the educational and religious-moral state of the parish clergy, from the first year of his accession to the Belgorod see, the Right Reverend Joasaph, despite poor health, annually made a survey of his vast diocese and stayed not in the deceased palaces of the rich, but in the poor huts of peasants or simple rural houses priests. Receiving shelter in the aforementioned dwellings, Saint Joasaph devoted the night time to prayer, and in the morning, after the Divine Liturgy, he instructed his flock in the Orthodox Christian faith and piety.

He could be seen either in Belgorod, or in Kharkov, or in a large village, or in a remote village. The vigilant saint made sure that the pastors of the Church of Christ were filled with deep reverence for church services and shrines.

Often, guided by a mysterious premonition, Saint Joasaph revealed the innermost thoughts of his neighbors. One day the saint gathered priests from all Belgorod and surrounding churches to his bishop’s house. Among the shepherds there was one 130-year-old elder priest, to whom Saint Joasaph turned his attention. The long life, advanced old age and bent condition of the elder aroused the saint to further study of his life. The loving and meek Archpastor Joasaph urged the elder priest to reveal his conscience to him, to repent of his sins. The elder priest told how, when he was a priest in the village of N, on one holiday he performed the early Divine Liturgy, fearing severe corporal punishment from an autocratic, harsh landowner , he also served the later (second) Divine Liturgy for him, despite the fact that after the proskomedia an invisible voice from unknown where and from whom, coming from someone, told him: “Stop, what are you doing?” Do not dare, but if you dare, you will be cursed." “I,” the priest said to St. Joasaph, “did not judge and boldly answered: “You be cursed,” and continued to perform according to the rites as it should be. The saint shuddered at this explanation and said: “What have you done? You cursed the angel of God, the guardian of that place, both of you are bound by the curse to this day. This is the reason for your longevity.” The saint did not say anything more then, but leaving the priest with him for several days, he ordered him to find a camp church. Early in the morning, the Right Reverend Joasaph set off with the camp church outside Belgorod, where the previously abolished wooden church was located. The Right Reverend ordered the elder priest to perform the proskomedia, and at the end of the last one, to begin the Divine Liturgy. During the liturgy, the saint stood in the altar on right side. At the end of the liturgy, the saint called the elder priest and ordered him to read, “Now you are releasing your servant, Master...” all the way to the end. After reading this prayer, the archpastor, blessing the elder priest, said: “I forgive you and absolve you from all your sins.” Reconciled by the prayers of the saint with God, the angel who guarded the holy throne, and his conscience, the elder priest in full vestments began to weaken and, sinking under the throne on which he had just offered the propitiatory Sacrifice, gave up his spirit to God

In 1754, when the saint arrived in the village of Zamostye (now a city in the Kharkov region), in the vestibule of the local church, he noticed the icon of the Mother of God standing in the corner, near which coal and garbage were piled. Vladyka stopped and looked at the icon with reverence for a long time, then, overshadowing himself sign of the cross, fell on his knees before the icon and exclaimed: “Queen of Heaven! Forgive the negligence of Your servants, for they do not see what they are doing.”
“In this image,” the bishop said to the dean accompanying him, “the grace of God abounds; in it the Most Holy Lady reveals a special sign of Her intercession for this village and the whole country.” The saint entered the temple and indicated a place for the image of the Most Holy Theotokos behind the left choir and ordered it to be placed in place of the dilapidated icons that were there. From that time on, the glorification of the icon, called “Peschanskaya” throughout the south of Russia, began. The construction of a temple for her on the Sands and her transfer to a new temple, foreseen by the saint, took place only in 1826

Having boundless mercy and love for his neighbor that knew no limits, Saint Joasaph was especially distinguished by his deeds of mercy and charity to the poor and needy. So, before the great Christian holidays, he used to send a devoted cell attendant to the dwellings of poverty, to people known to him for extreme poverty with alms (money and clothes).
All works of mercy of St. Joasaph tried to create in such a way “that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3). But the Lord sometimes revealed to people their secret benefactor. Once, on behalf of the Vladyka, a cell attendant, having bought firewood at the market, ordered the driver to take it to the yard of a poor family, but not to say from whom it had been sent. The mistress of the house, a widow with three young children, wanted to ask the cabman who had sent the firewood, but, looking up, she saw Saint Joasaph in the air “in radiance.”

The whole life of St. His Joasapha was an unceasing service to God, an unceasing walk before Him. The saving teaching of Christ was his native element. His appearance and all aspects of his life were a reflection of the ascetic spirit with which the life of Saint Joasaph was imbued. The ever-memorable Saint Joasaph “had a fasting appearance, a somewhat stern appearance, with an expression of thoughtful meekness, gray hair and a small gray beard.” Strict towards others, the saint was even stricter towards himself. In his home life he observed strict simplicity and monastic modesty. The severity of St. Joasapha was an expression moral purity and a strictly ascetic mood that permeated his entire life.

Possessed of a prayerful mood that reached the limits of contemplation, the blessed archpastor performed a bloodless sacrifice with copious tears. When the clock struck, the saint said a prayer, which he himself composed and which became known as the prayer of St. Joasaph of Belgorod.
“Blessed be the day and hour in which my Lord Jesus Christ was born for my sake, endured crucifixion and suffered death. O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, at the hour of my death accept the spirit of Thy servant, while on a journey, through the prayers of the Most Pure Mother and all Thy saints, for blessed art thou unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Shortly before his death, St. Joasaph went to the Kyiv diocese and to hometown Priluki, for a meeting with parents. Saying goodbye to his Belgorod flock, he said that they would no longer see him alive, asked everyone for forgiveness and, in turn, forgave and blessed everyone.

St. Joasaph's meeting with his parents was very touching. The venerable elder-father of the saint, filled with joy on the occasion of his meeting with his son-bishop, wanted to bow to the ground to pay due honor to his son and at the same time recognized the need to observe the prerogatives that befit a father. To achieve this goal, the saint’s father, who met his son as he was leaving the carriage, deliberately dropped his cane and, holding it close, bowed to the ground to the saint passing at that time. Noticing this action of the parent, the saint bent down with tears at his feet and hastened to raise his father’s cane. In this kindred embrace, the son's respect for his father and the father's reverent respect for his son met and kissed.

Having visited his native nest, St. Joasaph went back to Belgorod in mid-September 1754. But according to the saint’s prediction, he was not destined to see Belgorod alive again. Stopping in the village of Grayvoron, where his bishop’s patrimony was, St. Joasaph became seriously ill and, after spending more than two months on his sickbed, receiving the holy Mysteries: repentance, communion and unction, on December 10, 1754 at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, he quietly surrendered his spirit to God, having lived 49 years, 3 months and 2 days.

At the hour of the blessed death of St. Joasapha, abbot of the Khotmyzh monastery, Isaiah, had the following significant dream during his afternoon rest. As if he was with Archpastor Joasaph in Belgorod, and the saint, standing at the window, pointed him to the east and to the brightly rising sun, shining with a blinding light, and said: “As clear as this sun is, so brightly did I appear at this hour to the throne of God.” On December 15, after the funeral liturgy in the home church of the Grayvoron bishop's house, the body of the deceased St. Joasaph was sent to Belgorod for burial.

Two and a half months after the blessed death of St. Joasaph's honest body stood open in the tomb in the Holy Trinity Cathedral, without indulging in decay and without losing its usual color and appearance. In this incorruption, many of the believers in the Triune God saw a sign of the grace of God resting on the saint. The body of the deceased archpastor remained unburied until the end of February 1755, because the appointed Holy Synod to perform the burial of the honorable body of St. Joasapha of Pereyaslavl and Borisopol, His Eminence John Kozlovich was delayed by river floods.

Only on February 28, 1755, in the co-service of a large host of shepherds of the Church of God, the coffin with the body of the ascetic archpastor Joasaph was placed in the crypt (in the southwestern part of the Belgorod Holy Trinity Cathedral), which was built by order of the deceased saint.

2 years after the burial of St. Joasaph some of the spiritual ranks cathedral, knowing the holy life of the archpastor, they secretly went to his tomb and opened the coffin. At the same time, not only was the saint’s body incorruptible in all its components, but even his very clothes, the cover and the coffin itself were not touched by even the slightest corruption, although sufficient dampness was felt in the air when the crypt was opened. The rumor about this soon spread everywhere, and began to attract many sick people to the saint’s tomb, who, after performing funeral services for the saint who had presented himself, were allowed to see his incorruptible relics, and by their faith received healings.

This is how Saint Joasaph of Belgorod, the great torch of the Orthodox Christian faith, lived and worked in the field of Christ, fought a good fight and rested in the Lord.

THE LIFE OF OUR FATHER IN THE SAINTS ST. JOASAPH, BISHOP OF BELGOROD

Saint Joasaph of Belgorod was born in Ukraine in the city of Priluki in the Poltava region (now Chernigov region) on September 8 (old style) 1705, on the day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, into the gentry family of Gorlenko. Named in Holy Baptism by the name of Joachim, the parent of the Most Holy Theotokos, the infant Joachim (later Saint Joasaph) was always under the special protection of the Most Pure Lady. Parents of St. Joasaph was very God-fearing and lived according to all the rules of the Orthodox Church. Father - Andrei Dimitrievich Gorlenko, was a sheepskin, i.e. was in charge of the bunchuk - the military banner under Hetman Daniil Pavlovich Apostol, whose daughter Maria Danilovna he was married to,

One evening he was sitting on the porch of his house and suddenly, at sunset, he saw the Mother of God standing beyond the horizon in the air with an Angel and at their feet his son Joachim, kneeling and offering prayers to the Mother of God. Then he heard the words of the Most Holy Theotokos: “Your prayer is sufficient for Me,” and at that moment the Angel of the Lord flew down and clothed Joachim in the bishop’s mantle

In the eighth year of his life, Joachim was sent to the Kyiv Academy to study the sciences, and especially the verbal ones. The pious lifestyle of semi-monastic life at the academy, the abundance of shrines in the city of Kiev - the mother of Russian cities, and especially the acquaintance with the monastic ascetics of the Kiev-Pechersk - all this contributed to the fact that already in the 11th year of his life Joakim Gorlenko fell in love with monasticism, at 16- In the 18th year of his life, by the time he graduated from school, the intention to be a monk was firmly established in him and completely took over his will, and in the 18th year of his life, the thought of renouncing the world and accepting monasticism finally matured and became established in Joachim

Soon Joachim left the academy and retired to the deserted and strictly ascetic life of the Kiev-Mezhigorsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, in which he devoted himself entirely to monastic obedience - the preparatory stage for accepting monasticism. Here Joachim loved to retire to pray in a cave on a mountain. The young novice’s zeal for prayerful feats, mortification of the flesh and subjugation of its spirit at this time reached the point that he continued and practiced not even eating boiled food, being content with the most meager, harsh food

In 1732, the newly appointed Archbishop Rafail Zaborovsky visited the Kyiv Academy. Hierodeacon Joasaph greeted him with a poetic speech. The archpastor noticed high spiritual talents in Joasaph Gorlenko, brought him closer to himself and on September 13, 1734 appointed him an examiner at the Kyiv See, and on November 8 of the same 1734, at the age of 30, he ordained Hierodeacon Joasaph to the rank of hieromonk.

Here the young abbot showed himself to be a hardworking, fair, loving and very caring manager of the Lubensky monastery. During the continuation and management of the Lubensky monastery, both in the previous and subsequent times, Abbot Joasaph led a strictly ascetic life.

At that time, the future saint had to work a lot to restore the destroyed economy of the monastery. There were no funds to restore the main monastery church and other buildings, and in 1742 the abbot went to St. Petersburg to collect donations for the Church of God. In St. Petersburg, Abbot Joasaph received the highest attention of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. The pious Empress, who loved church splendor and diligently visited churches and monasteries, graciously accepted the petitioner and ordered him to be given 2000 rubles for the construction of the temple. Among the reasons that disposed the Empress to donate to the construction of the temple in the Lubensky monastery is the touching and very edifying word of Abbot Joasaph about the love of God.

On August 16, 1744, on the direct orders of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and after some time he was summoned to Moscow, where on January 29, 1745, Archimandrite Joasaph was appointed vicar of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, leaving him the abbot of the Lubensky Monastery.

Often, guided by a mysterious premonition, Saint Joasaph revealed the innermost thoughts of his neighbors. One day the saint gathered priests from all Belgorod and surrounding churches to his bishop’s house. Among the shepherds there was one 130-year-old elder priest, to whom Saint Joasaph turned his attention. The long life, advanced old age and bent condition of the elder aroused the saint to further study of his life. The loving and meek Archpastor Joasaph urged the elder priest to reveal his conscience to him and to repent of his sins. The elder priest told how, when he was a priest in the village of N, on one holiday he celebrated the early Divine Liturgy, fearing severe corporal punishment from the autocratic, harsh landowner, he also served the late (second) Divine Liturgy for him, despite the fact that after Proskomedia, an invisible voice originating from no one knows where or from whom, told him: “Stop, what are you doing?” Do not dare, but if you dare, you will be cursed.” “I,” the priest said to Saint Joasaph, “did not judge and boldly answered: “You be damned,” and continued to perform according to the rites as it should be. The saint shuddered at this explanation and said: “What did you do? You cursed the angel of God, the guardian of that place, and both of you are bound by the curse to this day. This is the reason for your longevity." The saint did not say anything more then, but leaving the priest with him for several days, he ordered him to find a camp church. Early in the morning, the Right Reverend Joasaph set off with the camp church outside Belgorod, where the previously abolished wooden church was located. The Right Reverend ordered the elder priest to perform the proskomedia, and at the end of the last one, to begin the Divine Liturgy. During the liturgy, the saint stood in the altar on the right side. At the end of the liturgy, the saint called the elder priest and ordered him to read “Now you are releasing your servant, O Master...” all the way to the end. After reading this prayer, the archpastor, blessing the elder priest, said: “I forgive you and absolve you from all your sins.” Reconciled by the prayers of the saint with God, the angel who guarded the holy throne, and his conscience, the elder priest in full vestments began to weaken and, sinking under the throne on which he had just offered the propitiatory Sacrifice, gave up his spirit to God.

“In this image,” the bishop said to the dean accompanying him, “the grace of God abounds; in it the Most Holy Lady shows a special sign of her intercession for this village and the whole country.” The saint entered the temple and indicated a place for the image of the Most Holy Theotokos behind the left choir and ordered it to be placed in place of the dilapidated icons that were there. From that time on, the glorification of the icon, called “Peschanskaya” throughout the south of Russia, began. The construction of a temple for her on Peski and her transfer to a new temple, foreseen by the saint, took place only in 1826.

Having boundless mercy and love for his neighbor that knew no limits, Saint Joasaph was especially distinguished by his deeds of mercy and charity to the poor and needy. So, before the great Christian holidays, he used to send a devoted cell attendant to the dwellings of poverty, to people known to him for extreme poverty with alms (money and clothes).
All works of mercy of St. Joasaph tried to create in such a way “that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3). But the Lord sometimes revealed to people their secret benefactor. One day, on behalf of the Vladyka, a cell attendant, having bought firewood at the market, ordered the driver to take it to the yard of a poor family, but not to say from whom it had been sent. The mistress of the house, a widow with three young children, wanted to ask the cabman who had sent the firewood, but, looking up, she saw Saint Joasaph in the air “in radiance.”

The whole life of St. His Joasapha was an unceasing service to God, an unceasing walk before Him. The saving teaching of Christ was his native element. His appearance and all aspects of his life were a reflection of the ascetic spirit with which the life of Saint Joasaph was imbued. The ever-memorable Saint Joasaph “had a fasting appearance, a somewhat stern appearance, with an expression of thoughtful meekness, gray hair and a small gray beard.” Strict towards others, the saint was even stricter towards himself. In his home life he observed strict simplicity and monastic modesty. The severity of St. Joasapha was an expression of moral purity and a strictly ascetic mood that permeated his entire life

Possessed of a prayerful mood that reached the limits of contemplation, the blessed archpastor performed a bloodless sacrifice with copious tears. When the clock struck, the saint said a prayer, which he himself composed and which became known as the prayer of St. Joasaph of Belgorod.
“Blessed be the day and hour in which my Lord Jesus Christ was born for my sake, endured crucifixion and suffered death. O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, at the hour of my death, accept the spirit of Thy servant, while on a journey, through the prayers of the Most Pure Mother and all Thy saints, for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Shortly before his death, St. Joasaph went to the Kyiv diocese and his hometown of Priluki to meet with his parents. Saying goodbye to his Belgorod flock, he said that they would no longer see him alive, asked everyone for forgiveness and, in turn, forgave and blessed everyone.

Date of St. Joasaph and his parents were very touching. The venerable elder-father of the saint, filled with joy on the occasion of his meeting with his son-bishop, wanted to bow to the ground to pay due honor to his son and at the same time recognized the need to observe the prerogatives that befit a father. To achieve this goal, the saint’s father, who met his son as he was leaving the carriage, deliberately dropped his cane and, holding it close, bowed to the ground to the saint passing at that time. Noticing this action of the parent, the saint bent down with tears at his feet and hastened to raise his father’s cane. In this kindred embrace, the son's respect for his father and the father's reverent respect for his son met and kissed.
Having visited his native nest, St. Joasaph went back to Belgorod in mid-September 1754. But according to the saint’s prediction, he was not destined to see Belgorod alive again. Stopping in the village of Grayvoron, where his bishop’s patrimony was, St. Joasaph became seriously ill and, after spending more than two months on his sickbed, receiving the holy Mysteries: repentance, communion and unction, on December 10, 1754 at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, he quietly surrendered his spirit to God, having lived 49 years, 3 months and 2 days.
At the hour of the blessed death of St. Joasapha, abbot of the Khotmyzh monastery, Isaiah, had the following significant dream during his afternoon rest. It’s as if he was with Archpastor Joasaph in Belgorod, and the saint, standing by the window, pointed him to the east and to the brightly rising sun, shining with a dazzling light, and said: “As this sun is clear, so brightly did I appear at this hour to the throne of God “.On December 15, after the funeral liturgy in the home church of the Grayvoronsky bishop's house, the body of the deceased St. Joasaph was sent to Belgorod for burial.

Two and a half months after the blessed death of St. Joasaph's honest body stood open in the tomb in the Holy Trinity Cathedral, without indulging in decay and without losing its usual color and appearance. In this incorruption, many of the believers in the Triune God saw a sign of the grace of God resting on the saint. The body of the deceased archpastor remained unburied until the end of February 1755, because the Holy Synod appointed to bury the venerable body of St. Joasapha of Pereyaslavl and Borisopol, His Eminence John Kozlovich was delayed by river floods.

2 years after the burial of St. Joasaph, some of the clergy of the cathedral, knowing the holy life of the archpastor, secretly went to his tomb and opened the coffin. At the same time, not only was the saint’s body incorruptible in all its components, but even his very clothes, the cover and the coffin itself were not touched by even the slightest corruption, although sufficient dampness was felt in the air when the crypt was opened. The rumor about this soon spread everywhere, and began to attract many sick people to the saint’s tomb, who, after performing funeral services for the saint who had presented himself, were allowed to see his incorruptible relics, and by their faith received healings.
This is how Saint Joasaph of Belgorod, the great torch of the Orthodox Christian faith, lived and worked in the field of Christ, fought a good fight and rested in the Lord.

Reliquary with the relics of St. Joasaph the Wonderworker of Belgorod

How the relics of Saint Joasaph were found

On September 17 (4), 1911, the first discovery of the relics of St. took place. Joasaph of Belgorod, it was then, a century and a half after his death, that Saint Joasaph was glorified by the Church. The initiator of the canonization of Saint Joasaph was Emperor Nicholas II. The glorification was scheduled for September 4, it was assumed that on this day royal family will be in Belgorod, however, due to the deterioration of the situation at the fronts, the tsar was unable to attend the canonization celebrations. Only in December 1911 did the august family visit Belgorod and venerate the relics of the saint.

In September 1911, great celebrations took place in Belgorod; they lasted a whole week.

Processions of the cross from neighboring dioceses came to the city; Belgorod, whose population numbered 40 thousand people, was visited by 200 thousand pilgrims!

To accommodate them, an entire “pilgrimage camp” was organized outside the city, with tents, temporary wooden barracks, outpatient clinics, canteens and even temporary water supply. I visited him Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna (she and Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich represented the royal family at the celebrations in Belgorod).

To venerate the newly discovered relics, people stood in line for about a day (the cave where the relics were located could accommodate no more than 50 people).

With the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, as is known, the actual destruction of the Church was organized. A campaign was carried out to “expose the relics.” The relics of saints were “confiscated” from churches and monasteries, put on public display, then transferred to museums for storage, buried or destroyed.

During this ungodly campaign, the relics of St. Joasaph were taken out of Belgorod, and no one knew what became of them - there were no archival records, no traces could be found of what the “whistleblowers” did with the relics.

However, by the providence of God in 1991, the relics of the saint were miraculously found in the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, they were brought to Belgorod and laid in the Transfiguration Cathedral, where they rest to this day.

We present the story of a man who witnessed the miraculous discovery of the relics of the saint on February 28, 1991:

We lived opposite the Kazan Cathedral. At that time there was still a museum in the cathedral. But the services were also already underway, modestly, near the altar. I went to confession and received communion there.

My husband worked at the PIK cooperative. With two friends, they restored the ornament under the main dome of the Kazan Cathedral.

Near the exit to the dome there was a storeroom where they changed clothes. And between the storeroom and the exit to the dome there is a small room littered with all sorts of rubbish. They constantly walked back and forth through it.

And then that day, one of my husband’s friends suddenly saw, among the gravel, pebbles and all sorts of rubbish, something black, long, wrapped in black velvet. My husband Tolya and the eldest in the cooperative came up, and together they began to see what it was. They pulled back the edge of the velvet, and Tolya was the first to see: a leg! Yellowish, dried out, but still light, not black, not rotten, not bones!

They were amazed by what happened. Of course, they didn’t unpack any further - they got scared. We had already become a little churchgoers by then, traveled to monasteries, and understood a thing or two about relics.

It was lunch time for them. Tolya ran home - I was sitting at home, pregnant - and said: “Ira, we found the relics! We don’t know who. Imperishable. As we said about them, we immediately ran from the museum and took them away. Maybe cut off a piece of velvet?”

I was scared: “Where do we need such a shrine in the house? We are not worthy."

The relics were taken immediately to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. They were not exhibited, they did not know whose they were. Then the commission came to the consensus that it was St. Joasaph of Belgorod. When they were transferred to Belgorod, there was a solemn service in the Transfiguration Cathedral. ( Irina Y., St. Petersburg)

In the photo: September 17, 2011, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the relics and glorification of St. Joasaph, Bishop of Belgorod, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' led the service of the Divine Liturgy on Cathedral Square in Belgorod.

Belgorod. Interior of the Transfiguration Cathedral. Reliquary with the relics of St. Joasaph. On September 17, 1911, in accordance with the decision of the Holy Synod, approved by Emperor Nicholas II, the solemn glorification of St. Joasaph took place in Belgorod. His incorruptible relics were transferred from the cave and placed in a precious reliquary (tomb) in the Holy Trinity Cathedral. On September 17, 2011, in Belgorod, with a large crowd of guests and pilgrims, celebrations dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the canonization of St. Joasaph, Bishop of Belgorod, wonderworker, took place.

DAYS OF GLORIFICATION OF ST. JOASAPH OF BELGOROD

Stanislav Minakov

Truly: Belgorod, the entire Belgorod region began to prosper when they again found themselves under the protection of St. Joasaph of Belgorod, that is, when his honest relics, miraculously found in St. Petersburg along with the relics St. Seraphim Sarovsky, returned to the city.

Three years ago Russian Orthodoxy celebrated 100 years since the glorification of St. Joasaph, which took place in 1911 on the initiative and with the direct assistance of Sovereign Nicholas II Alexandrovich. On the morning of September 16, 2011, religious processions went on for several days to Belgorod from Rovenki, Alekseevka, Stary Oskol, Krasny, Prokhorovka, Krasnaya Yaruga, Grayvoron, Gubkin and other cities and districts of the region, as well as from the regions of Ukraine neighboring the Belgorod region , gathered at five suburban points and moved along the streets of Belgorod to the Holy Trinity Boulevard. The final point of their movement was the newly built church-chapel on Holy Trinity Boulevard, next to house number 20, in the name of St. Joasaph, Bishop of Belgorod, wonderworker.

As this year, so then, the relics of the heavenly patron of Belgorod from the Transfiguration Cathedral on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord were transferred two blocks away to the St. Nicholas-Joasaph Church in the old cemetery, where not only the famous stone from Joasaph’s “cave” is located, but also for a century and a half the shrine containing the saint’s holy relics stood, but also some of the bishop’s personal belongings.

In the St. Nicholas-Joasaph Cathedral, Archbishop John of Belgorod and Stary Oskol on the eve of the anniversary celebrations, together with the clergy of the diocese, re-vetted the relics of St. Joasaph of Belgorod. The new vestments, sewn to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the canonization, are similar to those depicted on the icon of the saint. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the priesthood, after a prayer service and reading an akathist to St. Joasaph, carried a reliquary on their shoulders (a new one was made for the anniversary) with holy relics and, with a large number of parishioners, proceeded along the streets of Popov, Cathedral Square and Holy Trinity Boulevard to the new church-chapel .

Now, with the advent of the new Joasaph Chapel on Trinity Boulevard, new ritual city religious procession. First, the casket with the relics of the saint is brought here, and then returned to the Transfiguration Cathedral, where it remains the whole year, until the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. This path is invariably accompanied by those walking and standing on the sidewalks, praying, singing and crying, idle and not idle curious, involved and outsiders. Along the route of the crayfish, the streets are strewn with a path of autumn flowers and pine needles. Many then pick up these memorial flowers from the ground and take them with them.

Now the relics of St. Joasaph once a year, for the fourth time since 2011, return briefly to their original resting place.

Let us recall the story of the honest relics of St. Joasaph and his “cave.” It is known from hagiographic literature that before traveling to his homeland, the saint, foreseeing the approach of his death, ordered the construction of a burial crypt near the wall of the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Belgorod monastery of the same name. Which was done in the southwestern part of the temple chapel.

The holy relics were venerated not only by the priesthood and ordinary believers Russian Empire, but also Catherine II, Alexander I, Nicholas I, Nicholas II

After the death of Bishop Joasaph of Belgorod and Oboyan on December 10, 1754, who reposed in Grayvoron after a serious two-month illness, the body remained for 2 months without decay in the coffin, delivered to Belgorod, which amazed the parishioners who flocked in, and, in a sense, corresponded to their ideas about the sanctity of the life of the deceased. In the “cave” built in the basement, the saint’s shrine stood for 156 years (from 1755 to 1911). In it, the holy relics were worshiped not only by the priesthood and ordinary believers of the entire Russian Empire, who flocked here in large numbers, but also by the Russian monarchs Catherine II, Alexander I, Nicholas I, Nicholas II. The passion-bearer Emperor Nicholas II and his august family visited Belgorod in 1904 and 1911. At the celebrations themselves for the canonization of the saint, initiated, as in the case of St. Seraphim of Sarov (canonized in 1903), by the Sovereign himself, on September 4 (17 according to the New Art.), 1911, the holy venerable martyr Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna and Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov.

By the way, in March 1908, Grand Duchess Elizabeth prayed in a cave of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in front of the tomb of Bishop Joasaph, who was not yet canonized as a saint.

In 1920, the godless authorities removed the relics of the saint for atheistic propaganda. The place of his original burial was filled up in the 1930s-1950s.

In 1920, the godless authorities removed the relics of the saint for atheistic propaganda, the monastery was dismantled, and a residential quarter was subsequently built on this site. The place of the saint's original burial - a crypt, popularly called a "cave", was filled up in the 1930s-1950s.

The relics of the saint, kept in the archives of the Museum of Religion and Atheism in the Kazan Cathedral in Leningrad and miraculously surviving there, like the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov, were found at the very beginning of the 1990s and returned to the Church.

As a result of historical research, with the help of electrical prospecting carried out by specialists from the Belgorod mining research institute VIOGEM, after archaeological excavations in May 2009, the cave was discovered. In mid-2011, a chapel was built next to the cave, and a glass dome topped with a statue of an angel with a cross was installed above the cave itself.

At the time of canonization, up to 400 miraculous healings from the relics of St. Joasaph were recorded. Archbishop John of Belgorod and Stary Oskol also told his story in the anniversary year of glorification: “One day we came to the relics of the great wonderworker with an official delegation. It was evening. We venerated the relics. At that moment a veteran was brought in Afghan war in a stroller. As a result of the wound, his legs were paralyzed and he could not move independently. And when they brought him to the relics, he kissed himself - and suddenly... (and we were already leaving the temple) everyone heard such a cry! It was that man shouting. He shouted that he felt his legs immediately after venerating the relics. Then he jumped out of the stroller and began running around the temple. It happened before our eyes! All members of the delegation - high-ranking officials of Russia - became witnesses, and for us, eyewitnesses, it was a shock! One can only imagine what a shock it was for the man himself!”

It was that man shouting. He shouted that he felt his legs immediately after venerating the relics. He jumped out of the stroller and started running around the temple

They say that when in 1911 there was a procession during the canonization of the saint, many, especially those suffering from diseases of the legs and arms, were healed, and there was even a crunching sound when the relics were carried. A lot of evidence has been preserved about this.

I will note such an effective fact, which I witnessed directly and even filmed on video: when on September 16, 2011, the shrine with the relics of St. Joasaph was carried at the very turn from Popov Street to Cathedral Square, in order to then go out onto Trinity Boulevard, one of the elderly women, standing in the crowd, suddenly began to writhe, cough terribly and scream in a terrible voice, which I had heard before, say, in the Trinity Cathedral Pochaev Lavra, where those possessed by demons are brought for proofreading.

At 5:30 p.m. on that sunny September day, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' arrived at the chapel (having completed a two-day visit to the Lugansk diocese). The arrival of His Holiness the Patriarch at the temple-chapel was awaited by many hundreds of believers, among whom was a group of pilgrims from the Vinnitsa region of Ukraine, who delivered a large icon of St. Joasaph and its icon case, on the glass of which the image of the saint was miraculously imprinted. Now in the Vinnitsa church both the icon itself and the amazing glass are displayed side by side for worship. And on the night of September 16-17, when St. The relics of St. Joasaph were in the new Belgorod chapel, the Vinnitsa residents installed miraculous glass next to the saint’s shrine.

The effect of imprinting a holy image on the glass of an icon case is known in the case of the Mother of God icon “Look at Humility” in the Kiev Vvedensky Monastery (in August 1993, the image of the Virgin Mary and Child was displayed on the glass that covered the icon, but did not touch it). The glass of the Kyiv icon case was examined by scientists several times using the latest equipment, but the nature of the phenomenon could not be established.

The Primate of the Russian Church performed a minor consecration of the chapel on Holy Trinity Boulevard, after which he went down the underground passage into the crypt of the chapel, where he read a prayer to St. Joasaph and venerated his venerable relics.

The Patriarch addressed the flock, noting: “The discovery of the incorruptible relics of St. Joasaph, the very fact of which is a wondrous manifestation of Divine grace, is an event of enormous spiritual significance in life modern Russia, in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church. And how wonderful it is that today, when we remember the centenary of the glorification of the saint, his relics are among us - in such a beautiful place as an open and restored cave, created by the will of the saint, which became his resting place, here - in Holy Belogorye.”

On that day, a gala evening took place at the Belgorod Academic Drama Theater named after M. S. Shchepkin, after the official part of which the participants were shown the play “The Tale of Joasaph.”

On the same day in Belgorod, the Archival Department of the Belgorod Region opened the virtual exhibition “Heavenly Patron of St. Belogorye.”

The fate of Saint Joasaph is very unifying: in the world Joachim Andreevich Gorlenko, named in honor of the parent of the Most Holy Theotokos, was born in Ukraine, September 8 (19), 1705, in the village of Zamoste, Prilutsky district, Chernigov province (now Poltava region), in the family of Colonel Andrei Dmitrievich Gorlenko and the daughters of Hetman Daniel the Apostle Mary; served in Russia, was rector of the Mgarsky Monastery, abbot of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, where the largest bell tower was built under him, loved to visit Kharkov. The ministry of Saint Joasaph, of course, is the inseparable beginning of Great and Little Russia. Saint Bishop Joasaph in the Kharkov region is called the saint of “Belgorod and Kharkov”; his image is placed on the common icon of the Saints of the Sloboda region.

And in 1754, the year of his death, in the Kharkov region, in Zamosc, a suburb of the city of Izyum, on Peski, among the coal in the vestibule of the Church of the Ascension, the saint found the Icon of the Mother of God of Peschanskaya, which has since been revered as a protector from the attacks of infidels; The story of Her miraculous stay with the Russian troops on the fronts of the First World War is known.

In 2009, this Image “came” in a procession with the people of Kharkov on September 17 to the Transfiguration Cathedral in Belgorod, to the shrine of the saint. And the all-night service from September 16 to 17 of the anniversary year 2011 near the new chapel was also overshadowed by the Image of the Mother of God of Sands, but different.

If measured by numbers, then new times will probably give way to the numbers of a hundred years ago.

Then up to 200 thousand pilgrims arrived in Belgorod, which was a quiet district town in the Kursk province with a population of 40 thousand people! A hundred years later, according to Archbishop John of Belgorod, “starting from August 28, 1911 and on the days of celebrations, 16-20 thousand pilgrims venerated the relics of the saint every day. About 100 thousand settled in the “camp” of pilgrims - a kind of city of pilgrims, in which 2,000 tents, 6 wooden barracks, canteens, and teahouses were located on a hill. Many water taps were installed and 5 dispensaries were established. Some of the pilgrims slept right in the open air.” Nowadays, with a population of Belgorod of up to 400 thousand people, according to local police estimates, 10 thousand people gathered for the anniversary Liturgy on the morning of September 17, 2011. It seemed to us that it was twice as much, but that’s not the case. The general atmosphere of the holiday in the city was and remains undeniable, but it is also undeniable that the years of godlessness have greatly devastated us.

The author of these lines had the opportunity, on his way to the new Joasaph chapel on the anniversary night, to walk through Belgorod, where churches were open for confession. I went to two of which it is reliably known that Bishop Joasaph presided over services in them - the Smolensk Cathedral (1706) and the Assumption-Nicholas Church of the Martha and Mary Convent (1701-1703, built with funds from Peter I, donated before the Battle of Poltava). At 11 p.m., four people were praying before confession in the Smolensk Cathedral, and one in the Assumption-Nikolaev Cathedral at midnight. This temple of the convent hosted several dozen pilgrims and pilgrims for the night, some resting in wooden chairs, some on the floor, some on the pre-altar podiums.

The Orthodox confessed abundantly only near the new chapel, one might say, near the relics of the saint. Several priests received confession, and all the time people stood waiting for them. Just as the queue to the chapel did not last until three o’clock in the morning to venerate the relics and receive the cross of anointing on the forehead.

Not everything is measured by numbers. And in spiritual affairs, in the spiritual army, they fight not with numbers, but with skill

However, not everything is measured by numbers. And in spiritual affairs, in the spiritual army, they fight not with numbers, but with skill.

On September 17, 2011, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' celebrated the Divine Liturgy on Cathedral Square in Belgorod. The throne was installed under a special canopy near the building of the drama theater, built in the late 1950s on the site of the Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery, founded in 1622, destroyed in godless times. After reading the Gospel, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill delivered a sermon on the significance of the spiritual feat of St. Joasaph for our time: “Today, on the day of remembrance of the transfer of the relics of St. Joasaph, Bishop of Belgorod, we solemnly celebrate the centenary of his glorification. We gathered in such large numbers on the central square of Belgorod in order to remember his holy name, turn to him in prayer, ask for his intercession before God for our Fatherland, for all of historical Rus', for our Church, for the people, for the holy Belgorod land and about this city<…>To understand the meaning of the service that Saint Joasaph performed, you need to pay special attention to the words of the Apostle Paul, which were read to all of us today for edification. The Apostle writes to the Corinthians: “Let everyone understand us as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God; But the stewards work to ensure that everyone remains faithful” (1 Cor. 4:1-2).<…>We are talking about building the Kingdom of God, we are talking about creating human salvation, we are talking about achieving main goal human existence.<…>The example of Saint Joasaph confirms the wonderful words spoken by the great Father of the Church Gregory of Nyssa, who said that every word must be accompanied by action, and a word without action is vain and unfruitful.

Let me draw your attention to the famous words about the good shepherd, which were heard during the reading of the Gospel of John in the square this morning: “But a hireling, not a shepherd, whose sheep are not his own, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and runs; and the wolf plunders the sheep and scatters them. But the hireling flees because he is a hireling, and does not care about the sheep.” These words allow us to think about ourselves, and about our attitude towards our Fatherland, about who and how we entrust the fate of the Motherland.”

At the vernissage "St. Joasaph - heavenly patron Saint Belogorye" in the "Belexpocentre", the governor of the Belgorod region E. Savchenko emphasized: "Today we celebrate not only the centenary of the canonization of St. Joasaph, but also the twentieth anniversary of the discovery of his relics on the land of Belgorod. These twenty years we have invisibly felt his presence, his participation in the positive transformations that are taking place in the Belgorod region. And this exhibition, which I invite all Belgorod residents to see, speaks about the truth, about the strength, about the beauty of Orthodoxy.” These are the words of a man who feels enormous responsibility for the fate of the region and the people living in it.

“We see what Belgorod has become - beautiful, prosperous, spiritual! This would have been impossible without the help and heavenly protection of St. Joasaph."

It is interesting that almost the same idea was expressed to us in a personal conversation by a parishioner who was waiting at the new Joasaph chapel for the arrival of the Patriarch. She rightly noted: “We see what Belgorod has become - beautiful, prosperous, spiritual! This would have been impossible without the help and heavenly patronage of St. Joasaph, whose holy relics were brought here in 1991!”

Here we also include the words of His Holiness the Patriarch: “I am deeply convinced that many of the successes that are obvious today and which mark the life of the Belgorod region are connected precisely with the blessing of St. Joasaph. May this blessing continue to extend to the Belgorod land and to all of Holy Rus'.”

“The chosen warriors of courage and the heir of Christ's flock, the good shepherd, the lamp of faith, shining on the candlestick of Belgrade, the nourisher of the poor and the prayer book for the people to Christ God, let us sing praises to you servant of your Lord from our hearts crying out to your love: Rejoice, Holy Hierarch Joasaph of Christ, wonderworker marvelous!

Saint Joasaph of Belgorod

Joasaph of Belgorod, in Baptism - Joachim, belonged to the illustrious Gorlenko family, known throughout Little Russia.

His father, Andrei Dimitrievich, was a military man and rose to the rank of colonel. Both he himself and his wife, Maria Danilovna, were pious and God-fearing people. Planning the future of their son, the couple wanted him to inherit noble estates and follow in his father's footsteps. But Divine Providence outlined a different path for him.

When Joachim was a child, the Lord revealed His will for the boy through his father. Once, sitting on the porch, he saw the Virgin Mary in the rays of the sunset. The Most Pure Virgin stood in the air, She was accompanied by an angel, and Joachim was at Her feet. He knelt before Her and prayed heartily. Then the Mother of God announced that his prayer had been heard. At that very moment, a Heavenly angel flew down and clothed Joachim in the mantle of a bishop. Stunned by this turn of events, the father suddenly asked the Lady, what does She leave for them, the parents? He did not hear an answer.

Joachim was brought up in the fear of God and Christian love. The time came, and his parents, despite the sadness of the upcoming separation, sent him to study at the Kyiv Academy. Here, with the assistance of God, he was kindled with the desire for monastic life.

By the time he completed his education, in the 16th year of his life, Joachim had already disposed his heart to take monastic vows. However, having returned to his parents and fearing to sadden them with this plan, for the time being he hid his heartfelt attitude.

Path of the Novice

Some time later, Joachim, citing the need to complete his educational course, left for Kyiv. Then he went to the deserted Transfiguration of the Savior Kiev-Mezhigorsk monastery.

Having entered the monastery, he devoted himself to humble obedience and prayer. Sometimes, when circumstances permitted, he would retire to a cave for contemplation and prayer.

Fearing that his stay at the monastery might be interrupted through parental intervention, Joachim left a servant in Kyiv, and he, receiving messages from home, delivered them to the monastery. As Joachim composed reply letters, the servant sent them home on his behalf.

In 1725, Joachim, having passed the tests required for a novice, accepted the ryassophore with the name Hilarion. After this, he opened up to his parents, fervently asking their forgiveness for his deception and for deciding to take such an important step without their blessing.

Monastic life

Two years later, in 1727, Hilarion the Rassophore was summoned to the Brotherhood of Kyiv. Here he was tonsured into a mantle and received a new name - Joasaph (in memory and honor of the Indian prince Joasaph).

In January 1728, Joasaph was ordained as a hierodeacon and assigned to the Kyiv Academy as a lower-class teacher.

He worked as a teacher for three years, after which the spiritual authorities sent him to collect donations (for the repair of academic buildings) throughout the territory of Little Russia.

In 1734, Hierodeacon Joasaph was appointed to the position of examiner at the Kyiv department.

Soon he was ordained a hieromonk.

In 1737, Archbishop Rafail Zaborovsky appointed Father Joasaph as abbot of the Lubensko-Mgarsky Transfiguration Monastery. He humbly fulfilled the will of the bishop, although due to the same humility he did so reluctantly: he did not consider himself, a sinner, worthy of such a high title.

Another monastery, Krasnogorsk, as well as several local churches came under the leadership of the abbot.

Despite the difficulties associated with leading the brethren and the monastic economy, as well as ill health, Father Joasaph did not weaken the severity of his ascetic deeds.

In September 1744, with the assistance of Empress Elizabeth, he was awarded the title of archimandrite. Soon he was called to Moscow. Here, in January 1745, Father Joasaph received an appointment to the position of abbot of the Holy Trinity St. Sergius Monastery. This obedience lasted until June 1748.

Episcopal ministry

In 1748, Archimandrite Joasaph was consecrated Bishop of Belgorod and Oboyan.

In August of the same year he arrived at the department in Belgorod. On the day of his arrival, despite fatigue from the long journey and physical illness, he served the Divine Liturgy in the cathedral.

The diocese entrusted to the saint was distinguished by the depressing poverty of its inhabitants. Many children of clergy, and especially orphans, did not have sufficient funds to pay for their content in theological schools. This affected their educational level. Reacting to the situation, the saint, as best he could, provided financial assistance to those in need.

In order to improve the diocese and improve the situation, he personally traveled around the territory, not excluding remote regions. In order to raise the moral level of the population, he visited the homes of his charges, both rich and poor, and taught them lessons in Christian morality.

He made a lot of efforts to raise the spiritual and moral level among the clergy, vigilantly monitoring not only how the divine service was performed, but also the inner disposition with which the shepherds performed the priesthood. One of his demands, for example, obliged priests who were in a quarrel with other priests not to begin worship until they came to reconciliation.

For violation of church charter and personal orders, the saint could subject the disobedient to severe punishment.

So, one day, while surveying the diocese, he stopped at the house of a priest. At night the saint suffered from insomnia and inexplicable fear. Suddenly, looking closely, he discovered that on the shelf, next to kitchen utensils, in one of the paper wrappers, are the Holy Gifts. The bishop was horrified by what he saw. Carefully placing the shrine on the table, he prayed all night, asking God to avert the terrible punishment from the priest. The next morning, Saint Joasaph explained to the shepherd what his mistake was, and then deprived him of his rank.

Another time, upon inspiration from above, entering one of the temples, he discovered a drunken cleric and also stripped him of his title.

Due to special zeal and the highest righteousness, Father Joasaph acquired such closeness to the Creator that he was endowed with the gift of clairvoyance from Him.

One day he called the priests to him for a conversation. One of them stood out for its unusually rare age: he was 130 years old. After the conversation, having blessed the invitees, the bishop dismissed them to their own affairs and turned to the elder with the question, what kind of sin binds him, and why can’t he die for so long? The elder, as if he did not know the excessive sin behind him, and considered his longevity to be the result of Divine mercy, was amazed, but under the watchful gaze of the bishop he still understood what kind of sin he was talking about. Once upon a time, when he was still young, such an incident happened to him. He served the Liturgy and was about to leave. But at that moment he was stopped by the landowner's envoy, who demanded that he serve the Liturgy a second time, for the sake of his master. The shepherd tried to explain that this was impossible in principle, since it contradicted the canons, but his explanations were unsuccessful. Then, fearing the wrath of the landowner, he chose to obey. When I began to perform the service (on the same throne), I heard a mysterious voice demanding that I stop. The priest wavered, but the fear of the master turned out to be stronger than the fear of the Lord, and he continued to commit lawlessness. The voice again told the priest not to dare to do evil, so as not to fall under the curse. The priest, in madness, snapped: Be damned yourself!, and continued to sing the liturgy.

Hearing this story, the saint was taken aback and pointed out to the elderly shepherd that he had cursed the Heavenly Messenger, the guardian of the place. Then he ordered the erection of a camp church and a service at the site of that sacrilege. Divine Liturgy. After this, he absolved the elder from his sins. Having been cleansed by repentance and reconciled with the Lord and the angel, the elder rested. His body was buried there, and the saint personally participated in his funeral service.

Last days of earthly life

Shortly before his death, Saint Joasaph wished to meet his parents. Having asked permission from the Synod, he said goodbye to his flock in a Christian manner and left for Priluki.

Coming out to meet his beloved son, the father experienced confusion. As a Christian, he had to bow to the bishop, but as a father he himself could count on bowing. When the son got out of the carriage, the father, as if by accident, dropped his cane. As soon as he bent down to pick it up and at the same time bow, the son understood his plan, bowed to his parent and handed him the fallen cane. Then they hugged.

After staying in his father's house, Saint Joasaph went to Belgorod. It was September 1754. Along the way, in the village of Grayvoron, he fell ill and died two months later. Just before his death, he confessed his sins and partook of the Body and Blood of Christ. Death occurred on December 10, 1754.

Troparion to Saint Joasaph of Belgorod, tone 3

Beloved Saint Christ God, / you were the rule of faith and the image of mercy for people, / through vigil, fasting and prayer, you shone like a bright lamp, / and you appeared glorified by God, resting in incorruption in body, but standing before the Throne of God in spirit, / you exude glorious miracles. / Pray to Christ God that He may establish our Fatherland in Orthodoxy and piety and save our souls.

Troparion to Saint Joasaph of Belgorod, tone 2

A wonderful prayer book from childhood, / chosen by God to the saint of Christ Joasaphah, / you show the rule of faith and the image of mercy to everyone through a pious life, / and with faith you abundantly exude healing to those who flow to you. / Pray to Christ God that he may establish orthodoxy, peace and piety in the Russian state and save our souls.

Kontakion to Saint Joasaph of Belgorod, tone 8

Who can confess the many different exploits of your life? / Who can count the manifold mercies of God shown by you? / But your boldness is with the Most Pure Mother of God and the All-Bountiful God, who knows good things, / in the tenderness of our hearts we call to you: / do not deprive us of your help and intercession, / to the saint of Christ and miracle worker Joasapha.

Prayer 1

O Saint Joasaph of Christ, wonderworker of Belograd! We believe in sins and unworthiness, as the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are on their prayer, and for this sake we resort to your prayers and ask your intercession for us, according to the apostolic verb, with hope, as if your love will no longer disappear. In our sins and illnesses we have become like smoking flax and a broken reed, and while we live, we live by the grace of God and through the prayers of His righteous One. So you, righteous father, incline your heart to our prayer, and through your intercession give peace and blessing to the Christian family from the Lord. Strengthen Orthodoxy, and drive away the attacks of the evil and lawless on the Church of God. Pray to the Heavenly Father to deliver us from enemy invasion, from civil strife and national turmoil, from destructive epidemics and deadly plagues, from famine, fire, flood and other troubles and circumstances. Ask Christ God for strength for our souls and the health we need for our bodies, and healing for sickness: walking for the lame, sight for the blind, strengthening for the weakened, consolation for the sad, and deliverance from all sorrows. But unite the fallen vines of Christ again with you, even as you yourself were deemed worthy to be a partaker, so that by you the most honorable and magnificent Name of Our God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, may be glorified, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Prayer 2, spoken before the holy relics of the saint

O great servant of God and glorious miracle worker, Saint Joasaph! From distant and near cities and villages, having come together to pray in the place of your deeds and kiss your many-healing relics, from the depths of our hearts we cry to you: with a rod of goodness, like a good shepherd, protect the lost sheep of the flock of Christ, into these courts of the Lord, protect us from temptation, heresies and schisms, teach us to be wise in our heavenly wanderings: enlighten our scattered mind and direct it to the path of truth, warm our cold heart with love for our neighbor and zeal for fulfilling the commandments of God, revive our weakened will by sin and negligence with the grace of the All-Holy Spirit: and yes Following your pastoral voice, let us preserve our souls in purity and truth, and thus, helping God, we will achieve the Heavenly Kingdom, where together with you we will glorify the Most Honorable and Magnificent Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

Saint Joasaph of Belgorod (in the world Gorlenko Joachim Andreevich) came from a Ukrainian noble family. His grandfather was the famous hetman of the Zaporozhye Army Danilo Pavlovich Apostol (1654-1734).

Parents of St. Joasaph was very God-fearing and lived according to all the rules of the Orthodox Church. Father - Andrei Dimitrievich Gorlenko, was a sheepskin, i.e. was in charge of the bunchuk - the military banner under Hetman Daniil the Apostle, whose daughter he was married to. He was a humble and meek man who devoted himself most of all to the inner spiritual life, was distinguished by his great love of poverty and his inclination to solve problems of moral perfection. Last years Andrei Dimitrievich spent his life completely alone, in a small house built in the forest near Priluka (the city in which the Gorlenko family lived), and the family remained in Priluki, where he went only on holidays.

Mother of St. Joasafa - Maria Danilovna, was also distinguished by sincere piety, firm commitment to Orthodox faith, excellent zeal for the temples of God and respect for the clergy and monasticism.

In general, it must be said that the life of the Gorlenko family was distinguished by particular religiosity, love of poverty and charity. Their home life followed church rules - the fasts and rituals of the Orthodox Church were strictly observed, special penances were prescribed - reading the Psalter several times or New Testament. They knew both God's commandments and the covenants of the Fathers and tried to fulfill them.

The future saint was born in the town of Priluki, Poltava province September 8, 1705- on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, during the liturgy, and was named in honor of the Godfather Joachim. In addition to him, there were two more children in the family: brother Andrei and sister Praskovya.

From an early age, the youth Joachim was distinguished by a great religious disposition, which pleased his parents, but at the same time, despite his weak build, they intended him to be the heir of their honors and estates. His father often thought about the fate of the child. In one of these hours, he was given a vision indicating the future ministry of his son: Joachim stood on his knees at the feet of the Mother of God, and an angel of God covered the child with a bishop’s mantle. " Your prayer is sufficient for me“- the Most Pure Mother of God lovingly said to the boy.

At the age of 8 the boy was sent to study in Kyiv Theological Academy, for the study of sciences, especially verbal ones, where all the Little Russian nobility received their education. The Kiev Academy at that time served as the main stronghold of Orthodoxy in its fight against Roman Catholicism. The monastic trend dominated there: all the teachers were monks, and the students wore cassocks. All this contributed to the fact that already in the 11th year of his life Joakim Gorlenko fell in love with monasticism, in the 16th year of his life, by the time he completed his school education, the intention to be a monk was firmly established in him and completely took over his will, and in the 18th year life in Joachim, the idea of renouncing the world and accepting monasticism finally matured and became firmly established. Knowing in advance that his parents would not approve of his desire to become a monk, Joachim hid his high good intention from them for two years, testing himself in every possible way.

Joachim left his devoted servant in Kyiv to communicate with them, and he himself entered the Mezhigorsky Monastery as a novice (obedience is a preparatory step for accepting monasticism). Here Joachim led a strict monastic lifestyle. He loved to retire to a cave in a mountain to pray. The young novice’s zeal for prayerful deeds, mortification of the flesh and subjugation of its spirit at this time reached the point that during the course of the trial he did not even eat boiled food, contenting himself with the most meager, austere food. The degree of Joachim’s spiritual perfection is evidenced by his surviving work “The Warfare of Seven Honest Virtues with Seven Mortal Sins.” And so that his parents would not find out about his entry into the monastery and would not take him from there, he, through his servant in Kyiv, sent them letters as if from Kyiv.

This went on for two years. After a 2-year trial in the Kiev-Mezhigorsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, the ascetic Joakim Gorlenko, at the age of 21, on October 27, 1725, accepted the ryassophore with the name Hilarion.

Upon accepting the ryassophore, he revealed his secret to his parents through his faithful servant, asking their forgiveness for accepting it without their permission and blessing, i.e. Rasophor. With many tears and sadness, they accepted this as the will of God and sent their blessing to their son.

Another 2 years later Hilarion took monastic vows with the name Joasaph. The following year, on January 6, 1728, the monk Joasaph was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon.

A year later, Hierodeacon Joasaph was appointed teacher of the lower class of the Kyiv Academy. His obedience to the teacher continued for three years, after which in August 1732 the future saint, according to the order of the Kyiv archbishop, went to collect donations throughout Little Russia for the repair of academic buildings.

Having noticed high spiritual gifts in Hierodeacon Joasaph, on November 8, 1734, at the age of 30, he ordained to the rank of hieromonk.

In 1737, Father Joasaph “out of extreme reluctance, but God’s will” appointed abbot at the Lubensky Mgarsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. The 32-year-old young hieromonk Joasaph accepted the honorary appointment with unspeakable humility.

The life and work of Abbot Joasaph in the Lubensky Transfiguration Monastery was complex and difficult. A lot of work had to be done to restore the destroyed economy of the monastery. After all, even before his arrival at the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery in 1728, its cathedral church completely collapsed, and in 1736 a secondary fire destroyed all the wooden buildings of St. monastery. It was as if the monastery had to be created anew. It was necessary to build new stone fraternal cells, fences and other economic buildings necessary for the monastery; it was necessary to repair the cathedral monastery church with a collapsed dome.

The caring abbot Joasaph, not paying attention to the weakness of his health, decided at all costs to find means to bring the Lubensky monastery entrusted to him into proper condition. To collect donations for the construction of the monastery church, with the permission of the Kyiv Metropolitan, he set off on September 10, 1742 on a long journey to the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Arriving in Moscow, Abbot Joasaph was honored to serve in the court church in the presence of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Here he spoke a word about love for God and neighbor. This sermon, striking in its depth and power, paralyzed the empress so much that she ordered him to be given 2,000 rubles for the construction of the temple.

Soon, in 1744, on the direct orders of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, Fr. Joasaph was elevated to the rank of archimandrite, and then appointed vicar of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra leaving him the abbot of the Lubensky Monastery. During his service in the Lavra, he showed himself to be a very zealous and useful co-worker of its rector - the holy archimandrite of the Lavra and Archbishop Arseny of Mogilyansky. The latter, as a member of the Holy Synod, was in St. Petersburg for most of the year and therefore, in the management of the Lavra, he was forced to rely on his closest and most reliable collaborator - the governor, Archimandrite Joasaph.

During these years, he acquired extensive administrative experience and showed himself to be a strict faster and a tireless man of prayer. In addition to external devastation, internal disorder also had to be overcome, since new times brought the ungodly spirit of luxury and wine drinking to the great Sergius monastery. But the strict zealot of piety, Archmadrite Joasaph, strictly fought against all vices, restoring piety and purity of morals among the monastics.

By decree of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna at the 43rd year of birth, Fr. Joasaph was appointed Bishop of Belgorod and Oboyan. Elizaveta Petrovna was personally present at his consecration, which took place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. For 6 years he ruled a vast diocese, which included over 1000 parishes. There were few clergy in it - the flock was ignorant and superstitious. The abandoned field required its cultivator. Boundless mercy, love and condescension for weaknesses, and along with them, commanding severity and inflexibility of will characterize the saint.

Most of the Reverend Joasaph's time was spent traveling around the diocese. According to legend, he examined all the churches of the diocese. He tried to make his visits not burdensome for the parishes, and performed services in churches. He preferred to stay not in the houses of rich landowners, but in the dwellings of priests or peasants, and often stood the whole night in prayer. The results of the inspections were recorded in the saint’s notes, where he wrote: “ don’t make ugly decorations, don’t attach handcuffs, scarves to icons and holy crosses... bad schismatic icons and bad images on papers on the walls... select and distribute to those who brought».

Joasaph subjected negligent clergy to reprimands and removed them from office. When the saint learned that a certain priest, in order not to heat the temple in winter, had built a large “washbasin” in his house, in which he baptized children, Joasaph ordered “to punish the priest in spiritual rule with whips, so that he would not repair inventions, but would maintain the place what is necessary according to the rules of the Church.”

The saint forbade priests who were in a quarrel with each other to perform divine services until they had made peace with each other. He forbade clergy to keep the Holy Gifts in their homes under the threat of being defrocked. Once, having stopped for the night in the house of the parish priest, who was absent at that time, St. Joasaph could not sleep because of the extraordinary fear that gripped him. The saint began to examine the folded pieces of paper lying on the shelf along with the household dishes. Great was the horror when he noticed that the Holy Gifts were kept in one of these folded pieces of paper. Having placed the shrine in front of him on the table, St. Joasaph, kneeling, spent the whole night until Matins in prayer, turning away the heavenly punishment on the careless shepherd. But he did not escape earthly punishment: when the priest-owner of the house appeared in the morning, the Saint immediately deprived him of his holy rank and even expelled him from the clergy.

Once at a meeting of the clergy, Saint Joasaph saw a priest who was 130 years old. Having seen some secret, the saint detained him to find out the reason for such longevity, and the priest repented to him of what he had done terrible sin: a local landowner, who was late for the liturgy, forced him with his threats to perform it a second time, which is prohibited by the holy canons, not to mention the fact that the church was single-altar. Before the frightened priest had time to make his first exclamation, he heard a mysterious and menacing voice: “ Stop, what are you doing?"The priest shuddered, but continued the liturgy. The voice continued: “ Don’t be daring, if you dare, you’ll be damned!"Distraught, the unfortunate man replied: " You yourself are damned!- and performed the liturgy. The saint was horrified when he heard his confession. " You unfortunate thing, what have you done?- he exclaimed. — You cursed the Guardian Angel of that holy place. This is the reason for your longevity«.

Immediately he went with the priest to the place where the church had previously stood. It had been plowed away a long time ago. There he ordered him to perform the Divine Liturgy and at the end of it to read the prayer of St. right Simeon the God-Receiver: " Now dost thou release thy servant, O Master...“Then he blessed him and read the resolution of sins. The elder’s head bowed on the saint’s shoulder, and, reconciled with God and his conscience, he died quietly. The saint himself performed the funeral service for him and buried him in this very place.

On one of his trips to the monastery in the village of Ustinka, Saint Joasaph was stopped in the forest by robbers, who, recognizing the bishop, immediately changed their intention and stood under the blessing. The Bishop resolutely refused: “ I don’t bless you - you’re doing the wrong thing" On the way back, one of the robbers knelt and asked the saint to take him to work. The Bishop assigned the repentant person to the bakery, saying: “ You provide me with bread, and I will care for your soul.».

But what is known about inner life Saint Joasaph, which he carefully hid? It is known that he had the gift of tears, and every time he performed the liturgy, he shed them. At each strike of the clock he read the following prayer: “ Blessed be the day and hour, on the same day my Lord Jesus Christ was born for my sake and suffered crucifixion and death. O Lord Jesus Christ, at the hour of my death, receive the spirit of Thy servant on my journey, through the prayers of Thy Most Pure Mother and all Thy saints, for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen!«

A legend has been preserved that before major holidays the saint sent a cell attendant to leave clothes and money in front of the houses of poor people without attracting attention; sometimes the saint himself, in disguise, went at night to help the poor.

One day before the feast of the Nativity of Christ, the saint’s cell attendant fell ill, and, moved by his compassionate heart, St. Joasaph, taking advantage of the darkness of the December night, dressed himself in common clothes and, stocking up on alms items, waited until the gatekeeper of the bishop's house left his post, passed unnoticed through the gate gate, and went to the dwellings of poverty and misery. Having completed his holy procession and lavished all his alms, at a late hour the saint returned to the gates of the bishop's house. At that time the gatekeeper was standing with them, and when he saw the saint entering the gate, he called out to him. Not wanting to be recognized by his voice, the bishop did not answer the watchman’s call, which aroused his suspicion. In the darkness, a guard captured him under the arches of the temple and, noticing his simple clothes, began to interrogate him who he was and where he was from. The saint was silent, trying to free himself from his hands, but the watchman, seeing his effort to leave without an answer, struck him several times. strong blows on the back. At that moment the gatekeeper saw the face of the saint, and recognizing him, he was greatly frightened. The next day, early in the morning, St. Joasaph called the gatekeeper to his chambers. Arriving at the saint, the frightened gatekeeper fearfully awaited punishment. Imagine his surprise when suddenly Saint Joasaph began to generously treat him, rewarding him with money and clothing for his vigilance and sending him home in peace.

He often chopped wood for the poor and delivered it at night, dressed in poor monastic clothes. His letters to his mother testify to the tenderness of his heart, and the whole diocese trembled before his severity. He helped the prisoners and sent lunches from his table to the former Belgorod governor Passek, who was imprisoned. And when the governor began to object to this, the saint listed his sins to him and said that when he himself finds himself in the same position, he can count on his mercy.

By the grace of the Most Holy Theotokos, St. Joasaph was chosen to glorify Her image. One day, in a dream vision, the Mother of God appeared to the saint and said: “ Look what the servants of this temple have done to My face! My image was appointed for this country as a source of grace, but they cast it into rubbish" Soon, in the vestibule of one of the rural churches on the outskirts of Zamosc in the city of Izyum, he discovered the image that had been revealed to him. It was used as a partition behind which coal was poured for the censer. By order of the saint, the image was placed in the icon case behind the left choir.

During his 3 days in Izyum, the bishop came daily to pray in front of the newly found shrine. From that time on, the glorification of the icon began, called throughout the south of Russia “ Peschanskaya«.

Peschanskaya Icon of the Mother of God

She is revered as a protector from attacks of other faiths. The construction of a temple for her on Peski and her transfer to a new temple, foreseen by the saint, took place only in 1826. According to legend, it was the Peschansky Icon that was supposed to protect our country at the very height of the 1st World War. On October 15, 1915, the Peschansky Icon of the Mother of God was transported to headquarters. During Civil War he was taken away by retreating white troops, then his traces were lost, but searches are still underway.

Death of the saint

In 1754, foreseeing the approach of his death, Saint Joasaph ordered the construction of a crypt for his burial near the wall of the Holy Trinity Cathedral, and from the Holy Synod he asked permission to go to the Mgar monastery on a pilgrimage to his parents. He was given leave and given the right to serve within the Kyiv diocese, to which Priluki then belonged, as well as in Belgorod.

On May 29, 1754, he served the liturgy at the Belgorod Trinity Cathedral for the last time. Saying goodbye to his Belgorod flock, he said that they would no longer see him alive, asked everyone for forgiveness and, in turn, forgave and blessed everyone.

So he went home for the last meeting with his family. The whole family was waiting for him on the porch.

His father was apparently embarrassed at the thought that he would have to bow before his son, and when the bishop got out of the carriage, the father deliberately dropped his cane and rushed to pick it up - and thus bowed at his son’s feet. But the saint understood what was happening, and at the same moment was at his father’s feet.

Having visited his native nest, St. Joasaph went back to Belgorod in mid-September 1754. But according to his prediction, he was never destined to see Belgorod alive again. On the way back, the saint fell mortally ill. After spending more than 2 months on the sickbed, December 10, 1754 St. Joasaph died in the village of Grayvoron. He was 49 years old. Before his death, he told his sister: “ Sister, harsh deeds at the beginning do not allow me to live out my life!«

Despite all the grief of his relatives, they had no doubts about the holiness of the saint. With fear they went to their father to tell him the sad news. But he told them that he knew it before they did. On the day of his son’s death a voice came to him: “ Your son the saint has died". The father burst into tears and added: “ Joasaph died, and so did prayer!»

At the hour of his death, the abbot of the Khotmyzh monastery, Isaiah, saw in a dream that Saint Joasaph, pointing out the window to the bright, shining rising sun, said: “ As the sun is clear, so brightly did I appear at this hour to the Throne of God«.

When the body of the deceased Saint was brought to Belgorod, the people's crying and sobbing drowned out the church singing. He was buried at the expense of the bishop's house, because the saint himself only had 70 kopecks. Appointed by the Holy Synod to perform the burial of the venerable body of St. Joasapha of Pereyaslavl and Borisopol, His Eminence John Kozlovich was delayed by river floods. 2.5 months St. Joasaph lay in an open tomb, and corruption did not touch his body.

Reverence

Two years after the burial of the Saint, some of the clergy of the cathedral, knowing the holy life of the archpastor, secretly went to his tomb and opened the coffin. At the same time, not only was the saint’s body incorrupt in all its components, but even his very clothes, the cover and the coffin itself were not touched by even the slightest decay, although sufficient dampness was felt in the air when the crypt was opened. From that time on, reverent veneration of the bishop began. Joasapha. All those who flocked to his tomb received healing according to their faith.

By the end of the 18th century, pilgrimages to the tomb of St. Joasaph of Belgorod had reached such proportions that next chapter of the diocese, Bishop Theoktist of Mochulsky considered it expedient to limit the access of believers to the incorruptible relics. For this purpose, he ordered the entrance to the tomb of St. Joasaph to be locked. However, according to legend, Saint Joasaph appeared at night in a dream to the ruler of the diocese and sternly asked: “ Why are you chasing me?» Lock and seal with front door the tombs were immediately removed.

Canonization

But only in 1911, 156 years after his death, the saint was canonized. The initiator of the canonization of Saint Joasaph was Emperor Nicholas II. After the solemn canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov in 1903, in which the entire royal family took part, the emperor instructed the Synod to study matters related to the canonization of St. Joasaph. However, all this dragged on until 1910, until a special commission was created.

First discovery of relics

In September 1911, in Belgorod there were great celebrations on the occasion of the canonization and discovery of the relics of the saint, which lasted a whole week - from September 2 to September 9, old style. On the afternoon of September 3, Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna, who had come specially for this occasion, venerated the saint’s relics. Up to 200 thousand pilgrims arrived in Belgorod, which was then a quiet district town in the Kursk province with a population of 40 thousand people. Starting from August 28, 1911 and on the days of celebrations, 16–20 thousand pilgrims venerated the relics of the saint every day. The cave where the relics of Saint Joasaph were kept could accommodate no more than 40–50 people. To fall before the relics of the holy saint of God, you had to stand in line for a day without food or rest! Yes, and first pilgrims from near and far were allowed into the queue religious processions, and then private individuals. But there was no murmur. This was a real feat of faith and piety in the name of the ascetic saint Joasaph.

In 1920 there was a desecration of the shrine: the relics of St. Joasaph were removed from the tomb and sent to Moscow, where they were exhibited in museums.

Anastasia Tsvetaeva (sister of Marina Tsvetaeva) recalls how in 1924 she saw them in the Museum of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture in Moscow. " He lay with his hair cut to the first number of his barely silver head. I saw his image, and immediately recognized his hooked nose and stern, noble features. Tall, the bishop lay naked, with a piece of cardboard on his loins, closed eyes- we didn’t see it, thank God!»

In order to prove that it is a mummy ( During mummification, all internal organs are removed, first of all the liver), and not relics, the corpse of a former counterfeiter, killed during the division of money, was placed nearby in a glass coffin. He was found in a dry basement. And next to it lay a dried up dead rat. But soon the shelf with the glass coffin disappeared, as if it had never been there - the counterfeiter “smelled bad.” But that was not all.

Ten years later, Anastasia accidentally got into a conversation with a woman about this museum. And she, as it turned out, worked in a laboratory related to the Sklifosovsky hospital. A mummified counterfeiter was brought to them. " It began to emit a bad smell, and it had to be returned back to the hall of the Narkomzem Museum. They began to embalm the counterfeiter. How much they worked on him! All efforts, all knowledge were applied. But they must have overdone it - because under their hands it suddenly crumbled into stinking dust." And Anastasia told the woman the beginning of this story.

From Moscow the relics of St. Joasaph were transported to Leningrad. In the 1970s, they were exhibited in the Museum of Religion and Atheism, located in the building of the Kazan Cathedral. When the threat of their destruction arose due to the tyranny of the museum commandant, the relics of the saint were hidden in the slag filling of the attic of the cathedral.

Second discovery of relics

The second discovery of the relics took place on February 28, 1991. Former carpenter foreman, Arkady Sokolov, who participated in the preservation of the relics, spoke about the history of the burial and indicated the location. To do this, they had to sneak into the attic of the cathedral secretly. It is interesting that before this the attic was examined several times, but no one found the relics.

The commission established that these were the relics of Bishop Joasaph of Belgorod. One of the convincing arguments for identification with his body was the cut found in the liver area. The relics were opened in December 1920 in order to prove that it was an artificial mummy. The famous pathologist, a professor invited from Kharkov, who embalmed Lenin, made an H-shaped incision in the liver area with a scalpel, because In mummification, the first organ that is removed is the liver. Documents have been preserved confirming that the liver and all internal organs were in place and that mummification was not carried out. The cut was not sewn up, but covered.

When the second discovery of the relics took place, the relics of the saint were transferred to the Transfiguration Cathedral, and then to Belgorod to the Transfiguration Cathedral, where they remained until 2011, when they were transferred to the “cave”.

Cave of St. Joasaph

It is known that the “cave of St. Joasaph,” in which his incorruptible relics were kept for 156 years (from 1754 until the moment of canonization - until 1911), was filled up and lost at the end of the 1920s, when the monastery was demolished and construction of this place began.

In 2010, through the efforts and labors of Belgorod local historians, it was found during archaeological excavations. In 2011, a chapel was built next to the cave, and a glass dome topped with a statue of an angel with a cross was installed above the cave. The chapel was built on the site where the destroyed Holy Trinity Cathedral once stood.

On the 100th anniversary of the glorification of the holy relics of St. Joasaph were again transferred to the place of the saint’s original burial - a crypt, popularly called the “cave”. Now every pilgrim can visit the cave and pray near its ancient walls.

Troparion, tone 3
Beloved Saint Christ God, / you were the rule of faith and the image of mercy for people, / through vigil, fasting and prayer, you shone like a bright lamp, / and you appeared glorified by God, resting in incorruption in body, but standing before the Throne of God in spirit, / you exude glorious miracles. / Pray to Christ God that He may establish our Fatherland in Orthodoxy and piety and save our souls.

Kontakion, tone 8
Who can confess the many different exploits of your life? / Who can count the manifold mercies of God shown by you? / But your boldness is with the Most Pure Mother of God and the All-Bountiful God, who knows good things, / in the tenderness of our hearts we call to you: / do not deprive us of your help and intercession, / to the saint of Christ and miracle worker Joasapha.

Life of St. Joasaph of Belgorod

TRC "WORLD OF BELOGORYA" is presented by order of the Belgorod and Stary Oskol diocese. Documentary O life path and canonization of Saint Joasaph, Bishop of Belgorod, wonderworker", 2011.

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