Leadership

The Most Blessed Tikhon

Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada

His Beatitude was born in 1966. In 1989, he was received into the Orthodox Church from Episcopalianism and began studies at St Tikhon’s Seminary, South Canaan, PA. One year later, he entered the monastic community at St Tikhon’s Monastery as a novice. He was awarded the MDiv degree from St Tikhon’s Seminary in 1993. In 2002, he was named Deputy Abbot of St Tikhon’s Monastery. Two years after his election to the episcopacy by the Holy Synod of Bishops in 2003, he was installed as Bishop of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania. From 2005 to 2012, he also served as Rector of St Tikhon’s Seminary. In 2012, he was elevated to the dignity of Archbishop and elected Primate of the Orthodox Church in America at the 17th All-American Council. Full biography available here. 

The Most Reverend Benjamin

Archbishop of San Francisco and the West

His Eminence was born in Pasadena, California in 1954. In 1978 he was awarded a MDiv degree from St Vladimir's Seminary. He was ordained to the Holy Diaconate in 1987 at his home parish, where he served for 10 years as deacon and youth and education director. In 1991, he was elevated to the rank of archdeacon, and in 1997, he was ordained to the Holy Priesthood by Bishop Tikhon. In 1999, Igumen Benjamin was transferred to the Diocese of Alaska, where, in 2002, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite. In January 2004 he was reassigned to Holy Virgin Mary Cathedral, Los Angeles, and appointed Chancellor of the Diocese of the West. In 2007, the Holy Synod of Bishops elected His Grace Bishop Benjamin to be reigning hierarch of The Diocese of the West. And at the 2012 spring session, they elevated the Bishop to the dignity of Archbishop. Full biography available here. 

V. Reverend  Stephen (Scott)

Interim Rector

Our parish is temporarily being served by Father Stephen (Scott), who is the Abbot and a co-founder of Holy Cross Orthodox Monastery on Palomares Road in Castro Valley, California. His father was a career officer in the Air Force and was frequently transferred when Fr. Stephen was a child. So Fr. Stephen grew up living in a number of different states before his father eventually retired in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1963. Although raised as a Protestant, Father Stephen set out on a personal spiritual journey as a teenager that led him to Orthodox Christianity, which he embraced many years ago in 1970 at the age of 19. After obtaining his BA in European History at San Jose State University, Fr. Stephen went to Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary in Brookline, Massachusetts. In 1976, he was tonsured as a riassophore-monk and ordained as a hierodeacon (monastic deacon). In that same year, he entered the doctoral program in Byzantine history at the University of California at Berkeley. Receiving his MA in history at Berkeley in 1978, he continued his studies in pursuit of his doctorate. Simultaneously, Fr. Stephen and his spiritual father, Archimandrite Theodor (Micka) of blessed memory, received a blessing from their bishop to found a monastery, which they incorporated as Holy Cross Orthodox Monastery in 1978. After a year-long search for a suitable location to establish their monastery, they finally found property and purchased it with their own funds on Palomares Road in Castro Valley. Fr. Stephen passed his doctoral exams in 1981 and after obtaining his Ph.D. in Byzantine and Medieval Slavic History from UC Berkeley in 1989, he was elevated to the rank of archdeacon. He was ordained as a hieromonk (monastic priest) at Holy Cross Monastery on July 5, 2009, by His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America. The choir of Saint Christina’s parish sang the responses for that Hierarchical Divine Liturgy. Five years later in 2014, Archimandrite Theodor of blessed memory, the founding abbot of Holy Cross Monastery who had been Fr. Stephen’s spiritual father for 44 years, fell asleep in the Lord. In the following year (2015), Fr. Stephen—who had co-founded and developed the monastery with him—was elevated to the rank of Igumen (Abbot) and installed as his successor by Archbishop Alexander of the Bulgarian Diocese (Orthodox Church in America).

Very Reverend George Masters

Attached Clergy

Fr. George was born of Greek immigrant parents and  raised in Santa Monica, California. He was baptized at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles. His family moved to the San Francisco Bay area while still a teen. Upon completing high school and college, Fr. George entered the newly emerging computer industry as a software engineer. He met his wife Georgette at a Greek Orthodox Young Adult League conference in San Jose. Upon wedding, they moved to Boston where Fr. George was already enrolled at Holy Cross Seminary where he brought the first computers to the school and served as its first information technology specialist. Fr. George received his Masters of Divinity in 1986 from Holy Cross. During his time at Holy Cross he attended Holy Trinity Cathedral in Boston, where he was ordained to the Holy Diaconate on Pentecost of 1987. Fr. George moved to Santa Maria, California. While in Santa Maria, he was ordained to the Holy Priesthood in August of 1987. Fr George is also a mathematics educator in the State of California.

Parish Council