Geronda Joseph’s Divine Repose

by +Chrissie Apollonia Nicolles

By now, most Greek Orthodox have heard of the sad passing of the beloved Abbott of St. Nektarios Monastery up in Rosco, New York —Geronda Joseph and his funeral on April 20th, attended by a massive crowd of his faithful spiritual children, the devoted monastics, and Orthodox clergy. Geronda Joseph is now reunited with his spiritual royal family in Heaven: with Elder Joseph the Hesychast, Fr. Joseph of Vatopedi, who famously died with a smile on his face, Geronda’s Elder, the well-known Elder Ephraim of Arizona, who lived with him on the Holy Mountain Athos, and who built 17 monasteries. Geronda Joseph is now busy, surrounded by countless illumined ones on the other side. He was part of the seven monk brothers from St. Anthony’s Monastery in Arizona who founded the St. Nektarios Monastery in 1999.

Many years back, I met the kindhearted Father Joseph and slept over a few times at his Rosco monastery guest house for women, always an experience in Philoxenia at its best, that’s how generous he was. I remember first time staying over how lucky I was to get my own room and certain monks went out of their hospitable way to fetch anything I wanted for guesthouse, even walking far back to monastery and returning with new soap or tea – which reminds me, how curious it was noticing the mirror in bathrooms were mostly whited out except for a tiny clear space, at very bottom so, I presume you could check your face was clean and neat. I think I was told Elder Ephraim wanted it that way to discourage people’s vanity?

I also liked hanging near the kitchen monastery, hearing the monks cooking, but was not allowed to help in the cooking, and appreciated talking to an elderly monk chanting the Jesus Prayer, who instructed me on how to use the prayer rope. Yes, surprisingly, the ascetic monks were willing to talk and answer my endless spiritual inquiry; this is unlike the experience at many women’s monasteries I’ve stayed at, which discouraged talking.

(However, I’m in awe and friends with Orthodox nuns I know to be out of my league).

Now let me share: after first dinner table sit-down at monastery (their hot bread was the best), Fr. Joseph sat nearby my table, across was his table with his clergy comrades; I could feel his laser like eyes studying me… it was a bit haunting as I am clairsentient sometimes, but later,  getting to know him, I understood …he had a way of looking right thru you!

I figured it out —he was divinely clairvoyant…

I remember asking him at the time if he’d be my spiritual father, but he said he couldn’t because he already had too many spiritual children and the endless pilgrims visiting St. Nektarios monastery, but —that “I should prepare because my new Elder would be arriving in my life soon” … and indeed he did come!  My new holy Elder was the Hierarch of the Russian church and gave me all the time/guidance I could want – in fact, it was beyond my wildest dreams what evolved from this association.  And this taught me “destiny” – that sometimes not getting what we wish will bring later something greater.

Fr. Joseph also somehow “knew” I loved Saint Paisios the Athonite and gifted me a large icon of him.

Unfortunately, I got a bad cold and couldn’t make the trip to the funeral, but my convert friend Mateus (studying to be a priest) attended the funeral and sent a video here, and my theologian old friend Constantine Zalalas, who used to visit the hermitage every year, sent photos. (His Orthodox superlative talks are available on YouTube.)

Monastics are people called out from the world to live what is termed ‘the Angelic Life’… they renounce the vacuousness of society, its amusements and utter lies to seek Theosis. They thirst for the “Experiential” of the Divine, to master themselves, body, mind, and soul in quest for a vision of God by nonstop prayer and ascesis. It is arduous, filled with ascetic struggles, and people of the world rarely understand it. I’ve often heard some laity actually think monkhood is living idly – being of no use to anyone. But they do not exercise critical thinking to study the lives of sages and saints. Without this path of renunciation, of nonstop prayer, no Saints would bloom… Saints gain ineffable supernatural gifts like healing the sick, counseling the truth seekers, levitating off the ground, changing time + space, being visited by martyrs from a thousand years ago, demonstrating a human being is far more than one-dimensional body and mind, that godliness is possible through self-sacrifice.  They excel like athletes but without ego; humility and obscurity is their style. They become an oasis for pilgrims seeking escape from the noisy, abrasive world. When visitors leave monasteries, they feel refreshed/empowered. Monkhood is the very heart of Eastern Orthodoxy…they remind us to think of death – remembrance of death is a constant thought in the life of a monk, without it we are no different than protestants. And I say, even married believers in Christ can practice the “monastic’ ethos and can attain to the mystical. It depends on what one prioritizes. The God experience should be first, as our Lord Jesus said:

‘But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all else will follow’.

Abbot Joseph has inherited his place in the Kingdom…

He is Axios! MEMORY ETERNAL!