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The young monk Joseph shouldered the heavy obediences placed on him with love and zeal, with the duties of ecclesiarch that St. Paphnutius had assigned. Before he died, St. Paphnutius [[ordination|ordained]] Joseph a [[hieromonk]]. After the death of St. Paphnutius in 1477, Joseph became igumen and began to transform monastic life at the monastery along strict [[cenobitic]] principles. A majority of the monks, however, strongly objected to Joseph's leadership. Visiting a number of Russian cenobitic monasteries, including the St. Cyril of White Lake Monastery with the Elder Gerasimus, only strengthened his views on monastic life.
Returning to Borov at the wish of the prince, St. Joseph continued to encounter the resistance from the brethren. He, thus, resolved to start a new monastery with a strict cenobitic rule. With seven like-minded monks he returned to Volokolamsk where, with the approval of Prince Boris Vasilievich the brother of Grand Prince Ivan III, St. Joseph founded within Prince Boris' principality the Monastery of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God at the confluence of the Rivers Struga and Sestra. The date [[August 15]], 1479, with the [[consecution consecration of a church|consecration]] of the wooden Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God, marked the founding of this monastery that later gained the name Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery, after its founder.
The monastery rose quickly, as St. Joseph, a skilled builder himself, joined with everyone in its construction. Reports of the quality of asceticism and his example of an ascetic life of temperance and spiritual sobriety brought new monks to the monastery. He led a strict cenobitic life in accord with the Rule he compiled, to which all the services and obediences of the monks were subordinated. It governed their whole life, "whether in their comings or goings, their words or their deeds." At the core of the rule was total non-covetousness, detachment from one's own will, and constant work. The brethren possessed everything in common: clothing, footwear, food and other things.
