Archimandrite Joasaph (secular name Francis Ronald McLellan Jr.;[1][2] January 24, 1962 – December 18, 2009) was an American scholar and priest of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in the last year of his life.
In 1985 he earned his Bachelor of Theology from Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, New York,[2] where he graduated at the top of his class and was given the honor of delivering in English the parting address to professors and seminarians.
[4] At the request of the Metropolitan Laurus (Škurla) he left his teaching position at Princeton and entered the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York in early September 2008.
At Archimandrite Joasaph tenure the ROCOR restored the fullness of ecclesial communion with the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem:[8] On May 5, 2009 a concelebration was held at the Life-bearing Tomb of the Lord by Metropolitan Aristarchos (Peristeris), Secretary of the Holy Synod of the Jerusalem Patriarchate and Bishop Agapit (Goratchek) of Stuttgart, Vicar of the German Diocese.
[9] On August 11, 2009, Archimandrite Joasaph, in the presence of the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God, performed a pannikhida at the grave of Serge Semenenko in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA who donated a building to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in Manhattan.
Joasaph underwent treatment by Dr. Jeffrey Clark at Massachusetts General Hospital from August 2009 until his death on December 18, 2009 from cholangiocarcinoma, aged 47.