The Holy Hieromartyrs Joasaph of Snetnogorsk and Basil of
Mirozh suffered under the Germans at two of the most ancient of the
Pskov monasteries during the thirteenth century. St Basil directed the
Savior-Transfiguration Mirozh monastery, founded in the year 1156 by St
Niphon, Bishop of Novgorod (April 8), and by St Abraham of Mirozh
(September 24).
St Joasaph was igumen (and according also to some
Pskov Saints’ Lives, the founder) of the monastery of the Nativity of
the Most Holy Theotokos on Mount Snatna. The ascetics devoted much labor
and concern to both the outer and inner welfare of the monasteries. In
accord with the strict rule of cenobitic monastic life, introduced into
his monastery by St Joasaph, the life of the monks was filled with
prayer, abstinence and work. (Almost ninety years after the death of St
Joasaph, his monastic Rule was reintroduced in the new monastic Rule of
the Snetnogorsk monastery by Archbishop Dionysius of Suzdal). The
Snetnogorsk monastery traced its origins from the efforts of St
Euphrosynus of Pskov (May 15) and St Sava of Krypetsk (August 28).
Both
these monasteries were outside the city walls and did not have any
defenses. On March 4, 1299, the Germans fell upon Pskov and burned the
Mirozh and Snetnogorsk monasteries. During the burning of the churches,
Sts Basil and Joasaph and the other monks endured an agonizing death.
There was at that time much suffering in the city, and for the monks of
other monasteries, and also for the women and children, but “through the
prayers of the holy monk martyrs, the Lord preserved the fighting men.”
Under the lead of the Pskov prince, St Dovmont-Timothy (May 20), they
came out against the enemy and near the church of the holy Apostles
Peter and Paul, they defeated the invaders at the banks of the Pskova
River.
Sts Basil and Joasaph were buried with their fellow
ascetics beneath crypts at the churches of their monasteries. The
venerable head and part of the relics of St Joasaph were preserved in
the open in a special reliquary in the church of the Snetnogorsk
monastery. Holy Prince Dovmont “out of his rightful inheritance” built a
stone church at the Snetnogorsk monastery in place of the one that had
burned, and he facilitated the restoration of monastic life at the
ruined monasteries.
Soon after the martyric death of Sts Basil and
Joasaph their churchly glorification took place at Pskov. On the
manuscript Pskov Prologue of the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries, they
are listed on March 5. But in the Pskov Chronicle and old Pskov
Synodikons (Saint lists), the day of the blessed death of the holy monk
martyrs is given as March 4, and at present, this is the day of their
commemoration. The Chronicle mentions the presbyter Joseph, and the
Prologue mentions the presbyter Constantine as their fellow sufferers.
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