Spiritual Formation
Joseph's monastic formation is traced to Saint Paisius Velichkovsky, under whose guidance he is said to have learned the disciplines of the Paisian revival — obedience, watchfulness, fasting, vigil, and the practice of the Jesus Prayer. He followed Paisius through the monasteries of Dragomirna, Secu, and Neamț.
Romanian sources record that around 1779 he served as a spiritual director at the Pocrov Skete near Neamț and guided nuns at the Gura Carpenului and Durău sketes, work that brought him into the circle of the women who would later form the Văratec community.
Founder and Confessor of Văratec
After 1785, with the blessing of Paisius, Joseph laid the foundations of Văratec Monastery together with Schema-nun Olimpiada — whose confessor and spiritual guide he was — and later with Nazaria, both numbered among his spiritual disciples from the Durău skete. He is remembered as the monastery's first spiritual father and one of its co-founders.
Accounts describe him as a hesychast and a teacher of the Jesus Prayer, a priest and renowned spiritual father to monastics and laypeople alike, and an able organizer of the new community. The monastery's wooden church was completed in 1785, and a stone church dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God followed in 1808–1812.
Repose and Glorification
Joseph reposed in 1828; the Romanian accounts give the date as December 28. He was buried in the narthex (pronaos) of the Dormition church at Văratec Monastery.
He was canonized by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in its session of March 5–7, 2008, among a group of saints connected with Neamț County. The formal proclamation took place on June 5, 2008, at Neamț Monastery with Patriarch Daniel presiding, and a local service of proclamation was held at Văratec Monastery on August 16, 2008, the feast of the Dormition to which its church is dedicated. His feast is kept on August 16.
