JOSEPH OF VOLOKOLAMSK (1439–1515), born Ivan Sanin, was a Russian Orthodox monastic saint. Joseph succeeded his spiritual father, Pafnutii, as abbot of the Borovsk monastery in 1477. But the reforms toward a stricter form of communal life that he sought there did not find favor with his community, and Joseph undertook an extensive tour of Russian monasteries in search of alternative models. Ultimately Joseph established an entirely new monastery at Volok or Volokolamsk (1479), where he remained for the rest of his life.

Since his early years at Volok, Joseph had been involved in politics, campaigning against the widespread reformationist heresy of the so-called Judaizers, the Novgorodian-Muscovite opponents of church order and Trinitarian teaching. Joseph was to urge consistently (and in 1504 finally attain) the physical elimination of the leading heretics at the hands of the state. In his view, even professions of repentance should not allow heretics...