St Joseph the Betrothed

Righteous Joseph, a descendant of King David, was a widower and carpenter with children from his first marriage when he was chosen to be the guardian and betrothed of the Virgin Mary, who had vowed herself to God. When he learned she was with child he was troubled, until an angel told him the Child was conceived of the Holy Spirit. He brought her to Bethlehem, watched as shepherds and Magi worshiped the newborn Christ, and at the angel's word fled by night into Egypt to save the Child from Herod. In Egypt and later at Nazareth he supported the Holy Family by the work of his hands. Tradition says he reposed at about a hundred years of age. Orthodox Christians honor him as the quiet, obedient protector of the Holy Family and pray to him for fathers, husbands and the safety of the home.

Orthodox commemorate him only on the Sunday after the Nativity (and the Sunday of the Forefathers); Catholics keep 19 March and 1 May (St Joseph the Worker) and have a far larger devotion to him, including 'patron of a happy death' and of the universal Church. Burying a St Joseph statue to sell a house is a Catholic folk custom (often traced to St Teresa of Avila, not officially recognized even by the Catholic Church) with no Orthodox basis — do not present it as Orthodox. Orthodox tradition also holds that Joseph was an elderly widower with children from his first marriage (the 'brothers of the Lord'), which differs from common Western belief.