NEW EDITION: SAINT JOSEPH THE HESYCHASTIS. LIFE – TEACHINGS

SAINT JOSEPH THE HESYCHASTIS. LIFE – TEACHINGS

The present edition of the Life of Saint Joseph the Hesychast is the thirteenth in a row, and the first after his canonization. From this edition onwards, we have decided not to include the Decaphone Trumpet – a work of Saint Joseph that previous editions included – but to have only the Life and the Teaching, as written by his student and subordinate, our blessed Elder Joseph of Vatopedi. The only change we made to the text of our blessed Elder Joseph is the replacement of the prefix "Elder Joseph the Hesychast" with "Saint Joseph the Hesychast", since in the meantime his canonization took place on March 9, 2020. Because several people have asked us to translate the Decaphone Trumpet, due to the difficulty that this text of Saint Joseph presents to modern Modern Greek, we reserve the right to proceed with its independent publication in the future, along with the translation into the Greek vernacular and our own necessary commentary.

We humbly wish to the readers of this remarkable book – which transports us, as they themselves will realize, to the lives of the great ascetics of the desert of the early Christian years – that the entreaties of the ascetic Saint Joseph the Hesychast may help us in our small struggle, so that we too may taste something of the Grace that he experienced; that we may not be deprived of divine mercy and that we too may find ourselves with him at the right hand of Christ our true God, the “wonderful in his Saints.”

(Elder Ephraim of Vatopedi, from the preface to the new edition)