GIOACHINO, saint. — According to a tradition attested as early as the 11th century by the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James, he is the father of the Blessed Virgin. The name is unknown to the canonical New Testament sources, but the tradition probably reflects some reliable source.
According to the Protoevangelium, G. was a very rich man and belonged to the tribe of David; one day, having gone to the Temple to make his offerings, he was rejected by the high priest because he had no children. Afflicted, 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 gone unfulfilled. He therefore returned home and had a daughter, whom he named Maria.
In the East, the cult of G. developed very early. In the Constantinopolitan Synaxarion he is commemorated together with his wife Anna on 9 September, most probably in connection with the feast of the preceding day, which celebrates the Nativity of Maria. In the 5th century, the empress Eudoxia had a basilica built near the pool of Bethsaida in Jerusalem, at the place where tradition pointed out G.’s house and where the Blessed Virgin 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; the first liturgical institution of the feast, however, dates back to Pope Julius II (1503–13), who fixed it on 20 March. After various vicissitudes, it was definitively fixed by Pius X on 16 August.