Elder Joseph's smile from heaven (before and after)

I mentioned in the other thread about Elder Joseph's falling asleep that he wasn't smiling at the time but his mouth was open. 45 minutes later, he was found smiling. Here are photos sent to me in an e-mail.

JustinHesychast said:

But with corpses, they glue their eyelids down and glue their mouth to where it seems smiling and such, and all that.

Click to expand...

That may be the practice at American funeral parlours, but not at Orthodox monasteries.

The smile appeared on the Elders face MIRACULOUSLY. Orthodox monastics use neither embalming nor manipulation. Death is not something that needs to altered or glamorized to make it more palatable.


I have translated a description of what happened from the Greek:
The two monks that were attending the Elder at the time that he died rushed to tell the other fathers that he had fallen asleep in the Lord and hadn't noticed that his mouth was open.
When they came to prapare his body according to the monastic typikon (rites), Elder Ephraim ordered that they leave is face uncovered. The fathers tried to shut is mouth but they couldn't because it was too late and it stayed open. They tied a piece of gauze around it to keep it shut, but when they removed it it opened again. It was about 45 minutes since his falling asleep.
- Elder, it will look bad if his mouth is open, what shall we do?
-Leave it as it is. Don't cover his face!
They sewed him into his monastic mandya (cape) as is the practice. The whole process of placing him in the mandya and sewing him up lasted about 45 minutes. They then cut the cloth away from his face, as they were commanded and found the Elder, as everyone now sees him, smiling!

As someone else mentioned in the other thread. Orthodox Missionary Lynette Hoppe also started smiling 30 minutes after her death.

It's nothing unusual for Orthodox saints to smile after death. After all, they're not dead!