As the Orthodoxia news agency first reported a day earlier, members of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on Monday afternoon officially announced the canonization of three Athonite Fathers, namely, the Elder Joseph the Hesychast, the Hieromonk Ephraim Katounakiotis and the Elder Daniel Katounakiotis — something that His All Holiness, the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, had previously announced as forthcoming, last October, during his visit to the semi-autonomous monastic community of Mount Athos, in northern Greece.
It was on Mount Athos that monasteries’ church bells rang out joyously immediately after the announcement of the official canonization.
On the occasion, features have been posted today by the Orthodoxia news agency and the online magazine Pemptousia on the spiritual heritage left by St. Joseph the Hesychast for future generations of faithful, a heritage revolving around the message of the intimate prayer and cultivation of the supplication entailed in “…Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…have mercy on us “.
With the announcement by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, fathers of the Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi chanted psalms in the Monastery’s Catholicos, the main cathedral.
The life and works left as a spiritual legacy by the venerable Mount Athos saint are the object of a documentary, entitled “Elder Joseph, the Hesychast”, which was shot on the monastic community, the saint’s native island of Paros and the lands where he lived and ministered.
The life of Joseph the Hesychast is recounted in detail and with accuracy, with Emmy-award-winning actor Jonathan Jackson in the title role.
The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi oversaw the documentary, in fact, on the life of the Athonite saint.