GIOACHINO, Saint. — According to a tradition attested as early as the 11th century in the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James, he is the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The name is unknown in the canonical New Testament sources, but the tradition probably reflects some reliable source.
According to the Protoevangelium, G. was a very wealthy and pious man of the tribe of David; one day, when he went to the Temple to make his offerings, he was rejected by the high priest because he had no children. Distressed, he withdrew into the desert, until, through an angel who had also appeared to his wife Anna, he received the assurance that his desire for fatherhood had not been in vain. He returned home and had a daughter whom he named Mary.
In the East, the cult of G. developed very early. In the Constantinopolitan Synaxarion he is commemorated together with his wife Anna on September 9, most likely in connection with the feast of the previous day which celebrates the Nativity of Mary. In the 5th century, the Empress Eudoxia had a basilica built near the pool of Bethsaida in Jerusalem, on the site where tradition pointed to the house of G. and where the Blessed Virgin Mary was said to have been born. The church was completely rebuilt by the Crusaders in the 12th century and dedicated to St. Anna. In the West, the cult of G. was spread by the Franciscans; however, the first liturgical institution of the feast dates to Pope Julius II (1503–13), who fixed it on March 20. After various changes, it was definitively set by Pius X on August 16.