Early Life and Monastic Formation
According to the accounts, he was born Ioan Naniescu on 15/27 July 1818 in the village of Răzălăi in Bessarabia, the son of the priest Anania Mihalache Naniescu and his wife Teodosia. His father died when Ioan was two years old.
In 1831, at the age of thirteen, he entered Saint Spiridon Monastery in Iași, where he received his secondary education and was tonsured a rasophore monk, taking the name Iosif. On 23 January 1835 he was tonsured a stavrophore monk in the Dormition Cathedral in Buzău, and the following day he was ordained to the diaconate. He was ordained to the priesthood at Bucharest on 20 August 1850.
Episcopate and Metropolitanate
He was raised to the episcopate on 23 April 1872, and in January 1873 was assigned to serve as Bishop of Argeș, an office he held for about two years.
On 10 June 1875 he was elected Metropolitan, and on 6 July 1875 he was enthroned as Metropolitan of Moldavia, with his see at Iași. He shepherded the Metropolitanate for twenty-seven years. He was a founder of the Metropolitan Cathedral in Iași, and from 1888 was an honorary member of the Romanian Academy, being noted for his philological culture and his work copying manuscripts.
Charity and Repose
His charitable work and care for the poor were so marked that, according to the sources, people came to call him Joseph the Merciful and the Kind. Later commemorations recall him as a pastor who knew his flock through humility, repentance and prayer.
He reposed on 26 January 1902 at Iași.
Glorification and Veneration
The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church glorified him as a saint on 5 October 2017, under the title "the Merciful," and established his feast on 26 January. The formal proclamation of his sainthood took place on 25 March 2018 at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Iași, marking the centenary of the union of Bessarabia with Romania, and a further proclamation was held on 22 May 2018 in his native village of Răzălăi.
Honored as a son of Bessarabia and a spiritual father of Moldavia, he is commemorated by the Autonomous Metropolis of Bessarabia. Particles of his relics are venerated at the Metropolitan Chapel of Saint John the Theologian in Chișinău and at a church in Răzălăi, in the Sîngerei district.
