Saint Hieromartyr Joseph
of Damascus.

Joseph was born in May 1793 to a poor but pious family and received only a little early schooling. Because his father could not pay for tuition, he was set to work in the silk trade. He pursued learning at night, and his older brother Moses, a writer, is thought to have encouraged his love of books.

He studied with a Damascene scholar and later devoted his evenings to the Torah, the Psalms and the New Testament, working toward fluency in Greek and mastery of translation.

Joseph was ordained a priest in 1817 at the request of the Damascus parish, and he later became Great Economos of the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition at al-Mariamiyeh. In 1852 he founded a department of theological studies that aimed to match seminaries elsewhere in the Orthodox world. Those he taught included students who later served as bishops.

He was also active in dialogue between the Antiochian Orthodox and the Melkite communities, and he resisted the use of force against fellow Christians, favoring persuasion instead.

When violence against Christians spread from Lebanon into Damascus in July 1860, Joseph stayed in the city. He moved through its streets to hear confessions and give communion to the sick and elderly who could not flee. Attackers who identified him as a leader of the Christians killed him, and his remains were not recovered in a manner that allowed a conventional relic tradition to form.

The Patriarchal Cathedral was burned during the same days, and many Orthodox Christians sheltering in the city's churches were slain.

Joseph's life is remembered in the Antiochian Orthodox Church as a model of pastoral sacrifice, and his students and later generations are credited with a renewal of Arab Orthodox church life in the nineteenth century. The Holy Synod of Antioch formally glorified him and his companions in 1993.

His memory is also kept by parishes and by Orthodox faithful who use the troparion in his honor on July 10. Wikipedia notes that the Melkite Greek Catholic Church also venerates him, though this page is written from the Eastern Orthodox perspective.