St. Joseph the Hycicast of Mount Athos icon

Orthodox icon of Saint Joseph the Hycicast, Αγ. Ιωσήφ ο Ησυχαστής.

Commemorated: August 16th.

Born into a poor family on the Greek island of Paros, Francis Kottis was forced to leave school early to work and support his family after his father's death.

While working as a vendor in Athens as a young man, he began reading about the lives of saints and ascetics, feeling a strong call to the monastic life. He prayed ascetically in caves on Mount Penteli before leaving for Mount Athos in 1921. 

Life on Mount Athos

Seeking a spiritual guide, Joseph met another ascetic, Father Arsenios, and the two became companions in their spiritual struggles. They lived in extreme austerity and isolation in the rugged, rocky caves of Little Saint Anne's Skete.

He devoted himself to unceasing prayer, vigils, and fasting, experiencing intense demonic temptations and visions. His relentless pursuit of hesychasm—a state of inner stillness and advanced interior prayer, particularly the Jesus Prayer—led him to profound spiritual heights

Spiritual father and revival of hesychasm

Despite his desire for solitude, Joseph's reputation for holiness and his gifts of prophecy and spiritual wisdom attracted other monks seeking his guidance. He became a spiritual father, or geronda, to a small brotherhood of disciples.

His teachings and ascetic example inspired many, including his most prominent disciple, Elder Ephraim. These spiritual children and grandchildren went on to repopulate and revitalize several Athonite monasteries and found new ones in Greece and North America, including St. Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery in Arizona.

Today, St. Joseph is credited with reviving the hesychastic tradition on Mount Athos and spreading its spiritual wisdom to a wider audience through his disciples.

St. Joseph the Hesychast died on August 15, 1959, the Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, a date he was told beforehand by the Virgin Mary herself.

His letters, which are filled with divine grace and spiritual counsel, have been published and translated into many languages, continuing to inspire monastics and laypeople alike.

His relics are venerated in several monasteries, including Vatopedi on Mount Athos and St. Anthony's in Arizona. His tomb at New Skete on Mount Athos is a site of pilgrimage.