On October 10th, 2008, Joseph McLellan was tonsured by His Eminence, Metropolitan Hilarion, at Holy Trinity Monastery, to the small schema, receiving the name Ioasaf, in honor of Saint Ioasaf of Belgorod.   The following day, on which the Holy Church celebrates the memory of the Saints of the Kiev Caves, which was also the first time their feast was celebrated at the Monastery, Father Ioasaf was ordained to the diaconate by Metropolitan Hilarion.

Fr. Ioasaf is a graduate of Holy Trinity Seminary (class of 1985); he completed his M. A. and Ph. D. in Slavic Languages at Brown University. Subsequently he taught at Brown University, the University of Missouri-Columbia and, most recently, at Princeton University. He is a founding faculty member and assistant director of the Summer School of Liturgical Music, held annually at Holy Trinity Seminary. In the past, he served as choir director of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Epiphany in Boston, MA, and at Saint Basil the Great Orthodox Church in Saint Louis, MO.

Holy Trinity Seminary wishes Hierodeacon Ioasaf many years in the service of Christ's Holy Church.