The Monk Joseph Volotsky (in the world John Sanin) was born into the family of a patrimonial, the owner of the village of Yazvishche of the Volokolamsk Principality. The exact date of the monk's birth has not been established, but most sources indicate the years 1439-1440. Joseph's great–grandfather, Sanya (founder of the family name) He was originally from Lithuania. There is almost no news about the parents of St. Joseph, John and Mary, except for information that they died as monks. Besides St. Joseph, they had three other sons: Vassian, Akaki and Eleazar. Vassian and Akaky took monastic vows. Subsequently, Vassian became Archbishop of Rostov.
At the age of seven, the boy John was sent to study with the elder of the Volokolamsk Holy Cross Monastery, Arseny. In two years he studied the Holy Scriptures and became a reader in the monastery church. At the age of twenty, John visited the Tver Savin Monastery, where he met with the spiritual mentor Varsonofy, and "wisely following the advice and blessing of the visionary and holy elder Varsonofy, you came to the monastery of St. Paphnutius and begged him to bring you into obedience" (Kontakion 4).
In the Borovsky monastery, the Monk Paphnutius tonsured a young man into monasticism with the name Joseph. The Monk Joseph spent eighteen years under the guidance of the holy ascetic. After the death of his teacher, he was appointed abbot of the Borovsky monastery, which he managed for about two years. In this monastery, he introduced a cenobitic rule, which caused dissatisfaction among some monks. St. Joseph was forced to leave the monastery and went on a pilgrimage to Russian shrines. That's how he ended up at the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. Here he became even more determined to create a new monastic community. From the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, he retired to the Volokolamsk region, where in 1479, at the confluence of the Struga and Sister rivers in the forest, he founded the monastery of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In his monastery, St. Joseph introduced the strictest dormitory and drew up his own rules for it, a significant part of which is taken from the Rules of St. Joseph. By Neil Sorsky. St. Joseph educated a whole school of ascetic monks. Many of the tonsured monks of the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery were archpastors and occupied the most important chairs of the Russian Church: Metropolitans of Moscow and All Russia Daniel (+ 1539) and Saint Macarius (+ 1563), Archbishop Vassian of Rostov (+ 1515), Bishops Simeon of Suzdal (+ 1515), Dositheus of Krutitsy (+ 1544), Savva of Krutitsy, according to His nicknames were Black, Akaky Tverskoy, Vassian Kolomensky, Kazan Saints Guriy (+ 1563) and Herman (+ 1567), St. Varsonofy, Bishop of Tver (+ 1576).
At the church Councils of 1490 and 1504, the Monk Joseph spoke out against the heresy of the Judaizers that arose in Novgorod. He resolutely sought the condemnation of stubborn apostates. In addition to his main work "The Enlightener", directed against this heresy, the saint also wrote 24 epistles to various persons, a short and lengthy edition of the monastic Charter.
St. Joseph reposed on September 9, 1515, and was buried near the altar of the Dormition Church of his monastery. By the Council of 1578, St. Joseph was canonized by the Church as a locally venerated saint, and in 1591 as an all–Russian saint.