Hieromonk
Saint Ioasaph was born in 1870 in the village of Ilyinskoye, Yaroslavl Province. After finishing the church-parish school, he joined the Nikol-Peshnosh Monastery in 1896 and was admitted to the brotherhood. In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, he was blessed to go to the front, where he served for a year and a half. In 1906, he was tonsured into monasticism with the name Ioasaph, and in 1910, he was ordained as a hieromonk.
With the onset of World War I, Ioasaph was assigned to the German front, where he served as a priest of the 461st regiment, actively participating in combat actions and providing spiritual care to the soldiers. In 1917, after returning from the army, he continued his service in the monastery until its closure in 1928. Then Ioasaph served in the parish in the village of Popovka, where he actively engaged in missionary work.
On March 8, 1938, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Kolomna prison. During the interrogations, Ioasaph stated that he could not agree with the ideals of the Soviet power and continued to defend his faith. On March 13, he was sentenced to death by shooting, and on March 22, 1938, he was executed and buried in an unmarked grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow.
