The history of the Church has witnessed the emergence of remarkable personalities at regular intervals.
Patriarch TIKHON was one such individual. Earlier, the Church has celebrated such luminaries as Saint John Chrysostom, Saint
Gregory of Nyssa and even Origen and Clement of Alexandria. Some of these men are universally loved. Others are loved by some and hated by others. What
cannot be denied is that such men are often controversial. What is remarkable is that the end of the twentieth century our Lord gave the Church two such men:
Metropolitan DENIS and Metropolitan SYMEON.
Metropolitan SYMEON (Ioannovskij) was born Steven Mark Holdridge in Roswell ,
New Mexico , on 6 October 1953. He attended Phillips
University
. He undergraduate studies were in Religion, Religious Education and Church Music.
Starting his sophomore year, he was catechized in the Greek Orthodox faith
(taking the Christian name, Stephanos), by Archimandrite Paul, an hieromonk
from the island of Tinos, Greece, an exchange professor at Phillips.
He received orders, including the Sacred Presbytery, from Patriarch +MARKOS's Auxiliary Bishop +DAVID in 1975 on October 8th.
After Christmas of 1976, Stephanos returned to his home town of Roswell, New Mexico to assist with the care of his terminally ill father.
There, he established an English speaking mission dedicated to the Holy Apostles, he also established the Pan-American Institute of
Apostolic Christianity, to train men for the service of the Church. The course of study was designed so that this could be accomplished primarily with
distance learning, with quarterly and yearly seminars. This project proved to be fortuitous, for it established a clear communication channel with soon-to-be
Archbishop DENIS Garrison, primate of the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church. He attended the June Synod meeting of
that Church, as an observer and guest in 1987.
In 1983, having been recommended by Archimandrite Paul of Tinos, Greece, Priest Stephen Holdridge of
Roswell,
NM
was consecrated by Patriarch +MARKOS, Patriarch
+DIODOROS, and Archbishop +NATALINO. All of the negotiations and services were
carried out in Modern Greek, a language that Priest Stephanos+ only understood rudimentarily and were sometimes translated for him.
Priest Stephanos understood that he was to be the Exarch in the Western Hemisphere for the exiliar Patriarchate of Alexandria, and
eventually, become the exiliar Patriarch.
A few words would be appropriate at this point to describe the exiliar Patriarchate
of Alexandria. Priest Stephanos was told (and has found record of in books concerning both the Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria
and the Council of Chalcedon) that after the Council, the Church of Alexandria split into three factions, those loyal to Constantinople (without whose
blessing, today, a Patriarch of Alexandria, although supposed to be Auto-cepahic, cannot be enthroned), those rejecting the Council
of Chalcedon on theological terms (which became the Coptic Church) and the exiliar Patriarchate, under M
ARKOS II, which rejected the oversight of the Greek
Church, and so was called (non-Melchite, not following the king) and whose Sobor Church, Monastery
and Seminary were located in the populous Heptastadium neighborhood of Alexandria.
Again according to what Stephen had been told, after many persecutions by the Moslems, the
Church relocated to the island of Tinos, in Greece, in the twelfth century. Tinos from the twelfth century until the 1980’s was the
home to three Christian groups, the Greek Orthodox, the non-Melchite Alexandrians, and the Roman Catholics (who had settled there after the crusades).
This is the reason for the 400 Churches and monasteries one island.
The purpose for Stephen’s consecration was reportedly two-fold. First, MARKOS, the current Patriarch, was under increasing
pressure, because of the growth of the old calendrist movement, of which he was incorrectly seen as a part, to come under the Greek Orthodox
Church and to resign his episcopacy and retire to a monastery on the Mt. Athos . While he was ready to capitulate, he
wanted to choose a successor and have him reside safely in the ‘New
World’, where there was freedom of religion. Second,
there were many non-Melchite faithful among the Greek immigrants in the U.S.
and he deemed it appropriate to provide them with clergy and a bishop.
So it was, according to what priest Stephen was told by the people involved in his
ordination and consecration, that Archimandrite Paul had recommended Stephen to become exarch in America and eventual successor to
Patriarch MARKOS. (Because of this, priest and then Bishop
STEPHANOS used the Liturgy of Saint Mark until his
enthronement as Archbishop of Denver in the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church
in North America).
Participants in Bishop S
TEPHANOS' ordination and consecration became
increasingly inaccessible and what little documentation had once existed
[heretofore stored on Mount Athos,
at the
Skete of St. Andrew (a dependency of the monastery of
Vatopedi) where the hierarch that Bishop
S
TEPHANOS knew as Patriarch M
ARKOS was living as a
Monk] became inaccessible.
For
whatever reason, written documentation of this ordination to Bishop was
never forthcoming, therefore Metropolitan
SYMEON sought conditional
re-ordination by and membership in the Synod of the Holy Eastern Orthodox
Catholic and
Apostolic
Church
, under Metropolitan
DENIS.
At that juncture, Bishop S
TEPHANOS was offered Episcopal protection by Archbishop D
ENIS, so that written
documentation would be available to his clergy (so as to prove the
validity of their orders and sacraments).
(Metropolitan SYMEON did not seek this re-ordination because he
had any doubts about the legitimacy of his initial sacraments and the
charisms imparted thereby. Rather, Metropolitan
SYMEON was concerned about the peace of mind of
the clergy that he had ordained, or would ordain in the future, and the
Orthodox Christians that would receive sacraments from these priests, as
well as those who received sacraments from Metropolitan SYMEON).
This consecration has been denied by the
US
representative of
+NATALINO, although +NATALINO himself never directly denied being
involved. Priest Stephanos later accurately
identified +NATALINO and +DIODOROS from separate photo 'line-ups' administered
by impartial authorities (Metropolitan DENIS (Garrison) having administered a photo
'line-up' for Metropolitan STEPHANOS to identify +DIODOROS at the time that the
controversy began). In later
years, Metropolitan SYMEON has come to believe that the bishops
involved were who they claimed to be, however, their purpose was never given. It is surmised that they
were attempting to stabilize Old Calendarist,
conservative Orthodoxy in the U.S.A. +DIODOROS spent much time and effort trying to assist
Old Calendrists.
These events culminated at a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Bishops of the Church, the weekend of June 2, 3, 4 & 5th, 1988. Metropolitan S
TEPHANOS
(now re-named Metropolitan S
ERAPHIM) was conditionally consecrationed by Archbishop P
AUL
(Dolan) (with the other bishops of the synod assisting) and returned from that synod not only with documentation, but having been enthroned
as the first ever Orthodox Archbishop of
Denver, Colorado (and the only Russian
Archbishop to ever have an actual see in the city). The synod also made him
Exarch of the Alexandrian church (to assist the other
clergy who were out of contact with Patriarch M
ARKOS) and Eparch of Central America. At the same synod, Metropolitan S
TEPHANOS took the vows of the small schema, being given the name: Seraphim (to honor Seraphim of
Sarov)
by Archbishop D
ENIS, the primate of
the Church.
The following year: the bishops of the same synod elected Metropolitan
S
ERAPHIM Primate X of the HEOCACNA (which had originally been chartered in 1927 by the bishops of the Russian Orthodox
Church in
America at the prompting of Patriarch Saint
Tikhon of
Moscow). He was enthroned as Patriarch of North America and Primate X of the Holy Eastern Orthodox
Catholic and
Apostolic Church in North America at a special synod in 1989 at
Columbia, South Carolina, attended by all of the bishops and all of
the other clergy of the Church.
In 1988, Bishop S
ERAPHIM and Proto-Deacon James founded a small Russian
skete (monastery) in
Denver. Receiving considerable resistance among the ethnic Catholic population
they were endeavoring to serve, they moved to Carpenter
Wyoming to found the Monastery of St Joseph the
Betrothed. Not, however, before both were assaulted. Deacon
James (Metropolitan
SYMEON's monastic
kellinic) finally reposed on 14 December 1994, from the effects of these early attacks.
The monastery in Carpenter was moved in 1992 to Shoshoni Wyoming. Then, in 1993, they again moved to escape persecution, this time a return to central
Denver, Colorado. They felt directed to dedicate the
Denver skete to
Saint John (
Maximovich) of
Shanghai
and
San
Francisco, the Wonderworker, in whose glorification Metropolitan S
ERAPHIM had participated in June of 1994.
In 1994, Metropolitan S
ERAPHIM had resigned the primacy of the church, in favor of Metropolitan VLADIMIR (one of the
bishops that had participated in his consecration and enthronement) and dear and loyal friend), to live a life of reclusion at the Ukrainian monastery in
Houston, Texas. In 1995, following the repose of Deacon James, Metropolitan V
LADIMIR, the Primate of the HEOCACNA, relocated
to
Denver, Colorado to assist with the foundation of
the Monastery of Saint John the Wonderworker and assist in the care of his friend and mentor, Metropolitan S
ERAPHIM. It was
at this time that Metropolitan S
ERAPHIM met another life-long friend,
rasofor monk Nestor,
now of the
Skete of Saint Mary Magdalene in
Missouri.
Throughout the 1990's, as his health improved, Metropolitan S
YMEON became increasingly active in the care of persons affected by the HIV epidemic.
He served as chaplain of an AIDS hospice, as chaplain for HIV patients at
Denver
General Hospital and on the Mayor
Welington Webb’s committee on HIV/AIDS services (both as a
member and on the executive committee). He chaired the committee that wrote the three-year plan for HIV services for the City and
County of Denver.
In 1996, due to his poor health, caused by the earlier incidents, he was made a Great Schema (
megaloschemos)
monk by Metropolitan V
LADIMIR, being given, as is traditional, another name, this time honoring St.
Symeon, the God-receiver. Later in 1996, following the resignation of Metropolitan Vladimir from both the monastery and the Church,
Metropolitan Schema-Archbishop S
YMEON, as the last bishop of the Church, resumed
primatial
authority and dignity, upon the unanimous request of the clergy and parishes. In 1998, he was joined in his monastic labors and hierarchical duties by Bishop
M
ACARIUS (titular see of
Auraria). Together, they re-chartered the Church as the
Russian Orthodox Church in
America, to more correctly reflect her history and significance.
In the late 1990?s and early in this century, Metropolitan S
YMEON worked with Holy Trinity Orthodox Church
in western
Denver. Holy Trinity’s rector was Bishop I
OAN,
both one of the Metropolitan’s long-term friends and one of the three men that has had the Metropolitan assist in their consecration to the sacred episcopacy.
In 2002, Metropolitan S
YMEON founded the Cathedral parish of Mary Joy of the Sorrowing in
Aurora, Colorado.
In 2005, Abp. M
ACARIUS left the church, leaving Metropolitan S
YMEON once more
without synodal.
To correct this deficiency, Metr. S
YMEON
invited Bishop I
OAN, whom he had assisted in consecrating to join him in the
synodia. The
synodia has since sought and seated additional hierarchs.
In October 2006, Metropolitan S
YMEON moved his primary residence from
Denver,
Colorado to
Roswell, New Mexico, U.S.A.
where he has established the Monastic
Skete of Saint John the Wonderworker and the parish of the Holy New Martyrs of Russia. Summer
of 2008 will mark the commencement of classes at the
Roswell campus of the Saint Innocent of Alaska Orthodox Theological Seminary.
On June 14th, 2008, the Feast of the Holy Prophet Elisha, Metropolitan S
YMEON received the Church of the Holy Faith of the Christian East (the Orthodox Church of Columbia) into the Russian Orthodox Church in America.
The following day, its hierarch JAIRO Gonzales y Montoya was raised to the Archepiscopal Dignity as Archbishop for the Western Rite in Central and South America.
(note to reader: In the preceeding document, the convention of calling Orthodox hierarchs (bishops) by
their first names has been followed, except in the case of Archbishop Natalino (who asked me to call him
by his last name). It is also pious custom to Capitalize the names of Hierarchs. Finally, those bishops with a
cross before their names are known to have reposed in Christ at the time this was written.)
