On Sunday, August 1, 2004, Deacon Stephen, our assigned clergy presided over the readers service.

On Sunday, August 15, 2004, Deacon Stephen was ordained into the priesthood and became Fr. Stephen. Many of our members were present at the ordination presided over by ArchBishop JOB.

 

Father Stephen's Biography

 

Fr. Stephen was born in 1975 in Canton, Ohio. In 1997, he graduated with his BA from Malone College, a college of the Society of Friends church, in Canton. During his senior year of college, he became disillusioned with the various churches he had attended. He was baptized in the Presbyterian church as a toddler, catechized in the United Church of Christ, and "church-hopped" from Baptist, to Methodist, to various forms of Pentecostalism. He discovered Orthodox Christianity through a friend and fellow science major just before his senior year of college. Nine months after attending his first Orthodox service, he was baptized on Pascha (Easter) in 1997 at Holy Assumption Orthodox Church in Canton. Following his baptism, he continued to learn more about the Faith while teaching high school science in Canton and attending graduate school. In 1999, he received an M.Ed. from Ashland University and later was certified as a high school principal. After participating in the first Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC) short-term mission team to Alaska in the summer of 2000, Fr. Stephen decided to take a professional leave from teaching and attend seminary.

Fr. Stephen attended St. Vladimir's Orthodox seminary where he received an M.A. in Christian education and more importantly met his future wife, Elizabeth, who was a classmate studying theology and liturgical music. Elizabeth had graduated from Westminster Choir College near Princeton, NJ, in 1999 with a Bachelor of Music focusing upon sacred music and vocal performance and converted to Orthodox Christianity from the Lutheran church. She was chrismated in 1999 and directed the choir at Joy of All Who Sorrow Orthodox Mission in Rocky Hill, NJ, as part of her graduation requirements.  She continued on directing until she spent a Great Lent serving at the Orthodox orphanage in Guatemala.  After this experience, she decided to begin her seminary studies.

They were married after the conclusion of their year spent at St. Vladimir's seminary. The couple transferred to St. Tikhon's seminary for the remaining two years of seminary. Before completing seminary, Fr. Stephen and Matushka Elizabeth were blessed with their first child, Nina, who is now two years old. In May of 2004, Fr. Stephen completed his seminary studies by receiving his Master of Divinity degree. The following month Fr. Stephen was ordained to the diaconate and two months after that to the priesthood at his home parish in Canton. Following his ordination, Father was assigned priest-in charge of All Saints mission.