The Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology’s Presidential Search Committee continues making progress and has attracted a strong and diverse national pool of qualified applicants from across higher education, church leadership, and executive organizations.

Following a comprehensive review of applications, the Search Committee has identified a group of highly qualified candidates to advance to the first round of interviews. In keeping with the process established at the outset of the search, the Committee also consulted with His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, providing him with an opportunity to offer feedback and identify any additional candidates he believed should be considered before interviews began.

“The Committee will now begin confidential interviews as we continue this prayerful and thorough process to identify the individual best prepared to lead Hellenic College Holy Cross into its next chapter of growth and service to the Church,” said co-chair George C. Demos, Esq. “The search process will continue throughout the summer and early fall as candidates participate in additional phases of evaluation and interviews.”

The Committee anticipates presenting its recommendation to the Board of Trustees at its October meeting.

While the priority review period has concluded, the Committee remains committed to identifying the strongest possible leader for HCHC. Exceptional candidates who emerge during the course of the search may still be considered as the process progresses. Anyone with questions, input, or candidate recommendations is encouraged to contact Committee Co-Chairs George C. Demos and Dr. Christine Geranios Zeppos at [email protected].

Added Dr. Zeppos, “The Presidential Search Committee remains committed to conducting a fair, comprehensive, and confidential national search and appreciates the continued prayers and support of the HCHC community.

HCHC’s Board of Trustees, under the Chairmanship and spiritual guidance of His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros, has formed a seven-person search committee to lead a well-structured process to find the next President of the school as it approaches 90 years of educating and spiritually forming Church leaders in the United States.

In addition to Demos and Zeppos, members of the search committee include:

• Dr. Pano Kanelos, Trustee
• Mark Moraitakis, Trustee
• Fr. Peter Orfanakos, President, Associated Presbyters & Clergy
• Fr. Eugen Pentiuc, Holy Cross Representative
• Dr. Kathleen Ryan, Hellenic College Representative.

About Hellenic College Holy Cross

Hellenic College Holy Cross is the intellectual, educational, and spiritual center of the Greek Orthodox Church in America. As an institution of higher learning, it is dedicated to the formation of Orthodox Christian leaders—clergy and laity—equipped to serve the Church and society with faith, integrity, and excellence.

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The great and auspicious occasion of America’s 250th anniversary gives us plenty of reasons to celebrate our country’s many proud accomplishments and milestones. It also invites us to honor the many global traditions, peoples, and stories that have crossed oceans and continents to become part of our shared American experience. For us Greek Orthodox Christians living in America, this reflection must include an important question: How do we remain deeply rooted in our timeless faith and ancient heritage while raising future generations in this new land? For more than half a century, Ionian Village has served as an answer to this critical challenge.

When His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos established Ionian Village in 1970, he envisioned something far greater than a summer camp. He called it “the Golden Bridge” (Η Χρυσή Γέφυρα)—a bridge connecting the children of the Greek Diaspora in America with the spiritual and cultural inheritance of Greece. As Archbishop Iakovos described it, Ionian Village “is able to bridge both the physical distance between the old and the New World, as much as the spiritual and emotional distance experienced by the Greeks (and their children) living abroad.”

His Eminence’s vision was prophetic. In the 56 years since those remarks, more than twenty thousand young Orthodox Christians have made a spiritual pilgrimage across that bridge. Ionian Village has allowed our young people to experience their faith and culture in ways that classrooms, textbooks, sermons, and stories cannot. Simply put, Ionian Village makes faith and history tangible.

Rather than simply reading about the saints, our children are able to encounter and venerate their holy relics face-to-face. Instead of listening to lectures about Byzantine history, they can travel back in time as they visit ancient monasteries, castles, and ruins. And rather than being satisfied with bedtime stories about the distant homeland of their ancestors, our children can participate in this pilgrimage and how they are inheritors of the Hellenic identity preserved by our forebearers of old. Most importantly, the pilgrimage that is Ionian Village teaches our young people that Orthodoxy is not simply something ancient they have inherited, but a rich, living faith in which they are invited to embrace and live out in their daily lives.

This summer at Ionian Village, we witnessed a beautiful example of how our faith and heritage connect to the old and New World through the life of Saint Xenia of Kalamata. Saint Xenia was a third-century Christian martyr from the Peloponnesian region in which Ionian Village calls home. Unfortunately, since her repose, she had almost entirely faded from the consciousness of the Church until the twentieth century, when she began appearing miraculously to an American priest, Fr. George Nasis, during his ministry in New York City. The renewed veneration of St. Xenia is truly extraordinary because she, the golden-haired Great Martyr of Kalamata, bridges the very same distance that Ionian Village, “the Golden Bridge,” was created to span.

Saint Xenia belonged to the ancient Church of Greece, but it was the Church in America that rediscovered her memory. Prior to this year, only two churches in the entire world had a permanently installed icon of this Great Martyr: Fr. Nasis’s parish of the Annunciation in New York City and a small church in Kalamata that was rededicated in her honor in 1993.

Now, in 2026, we can add the Ionian Village Chapel to that list! This summer, our campers witnessed her icon find a permanent home in the chapel, thanks to the generosity of our resident iconographer, Mr. Dimitri Mourlas, and the unique witness of her life in our Archdiocese. Saint Xenia’s icon is more than a beautiful addition to our chapel; it is a reminder of our unique experience as Greek Orthodox Christians in America. It reminds us that the relationship between Greece and America is not one-directional. We do not come to Greece only to receive something from our “motherland.” We also bring something with us from our American homeland.

When hundreds of our campers and staff go to a restaurant and publicly chant our pre-meal blessing of the food, the other local patrons reverently take notice. Often while visiting monasteries across Greece as part of the program, monks and nuns have made a point of expressing how refreshing it is to see such a large group of people comport themselves with modesty and respect. On several occasions, while celebrating services in churches around the area, older local parishioners have approached us with tears in their eyes, saying, “We have never seen so many kids in church before” and that it is a blessing to see “children who care about their faith.”

The fact is that the Church in America has become a vital part of the living, global Orthodox body. Through God’s providence, the faithful here in the “New World” can help inspire, promote, and even awaken dormant traditions that might otherwise have been forgotten in the Old.

How fitting that we are discussing the shared values of Greece and America at a time when we are celebrating their intimately connected historical milestones as well. This 250-year-old American experiment in self-government drew significant inspiration from the political ideals and democratic heritage of ancient Greece. Thomas Jefferson reflected on this connection in his frequent correspondence with Greek author and leading intellectual Adamantios Korais in the years leading up to Greece’s own struggle for independence in 1821. It is no secret that the successful establishment of the American republic became an inspiration to many European nations seeking their own independence, especially Greece, which celebrated its bicentennial five years ago.

History has shown that we can share the great fruits of culture and social ideals across entire oceans. In like manner, Ionian Village shows us our faith only grows when we share and experience it in every journey of life.

That is why pilgrimage matters. It ensures that faith is built upon not only the abstract connections made through one’s knowledge or intellect, but is built upon the dynamic connections constructed from experience and lived memory. A teenager who has prayed in remote monasteries, kissed the relics of saints, walked among ancient ruins, or spent nights at camp with friends beneath the stars of another hemisphere carries those experiences home.

The Golden Bridge of Ionian Village works in both directions.

It connects our ancestral motherland with our present homeland. It reminds our children that they do not have to choose between being Greek Orthodox and being American. They can be both—Orthodox Christians in the U.S. whose faith is grounded in the ancient, living Tradition entrusted to them. As America celebrates 250 years, may we remember that preserving our heritage does not mean living in the past. It means carrying the treasures of the past across the bridge into the future.

This article is published as part of the America at 250: Orthodoxy in a New Homeland media initiative co-organized by the Orthodox Observer and the Department of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Relations of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America to honor the contributions and experience of Orthodox Christianity in America and celebrate 250th anniversary of America’s founding.

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For 14-year-old Stephen Mueller, the 2026 junior division champion of the St. John Chrysostom Oratorical Festival, taking gold means much.

A rising high school freshman from Greeley, Colorado, Stephen is this year’s junior winner of the national St. John Chrysostom Oratorical Festival, held in June at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Northridge, California. Prior to his victory, Stephen had participated in the Oratorical Festival only once before in 2025. He attends St. Spyridon Church in Loveland, Colorado with his parents and eight siblings.

The young orator’s speech centered on the Festival’s second topic for the junior division: “Choose a Saint who was a child or young person. How did their faith influence their life, and what can we learn from them?” Stephen opted to speak about St. Hope, a second-century child-martyr who was the daughter of St. Sophia and sister of Sts. Faith and Love. St. Hope is also the patron saint of Stephen’s older sister, Zhanna.

Because of the connection to his sister, Stephen said this topic “spoke to him.” His family adopted Zhanna from Ukraine when she was nine, with Stephen noting that “she’d been through a lot. She doesn’t talk. She needs help with pretty much everything she does.”

He noticed parallels between the story of St. Hope and the story of his sister. “It was something powerful that I could talk to, that really spoke to my heart, something that I could see through my own eyes.”

In his speech, Stephen discussed the hardships his sister had faced in her life and connected them to St. Hope’s martyrdom, encouraging his audience to emulate the forbearance, humility, and child-like faith of the two.

His speech was a long-running labor of love. Each year, the Oratorical Festival begins before Lent and continues as late as June—a marathon for the middle and high school students who reach nationals.

But Stephen did not run the marathon alone: in addition to Zhanna’s influence, he credits other members of his family as sources of inspiration.

“This was my second year doing [the Oratorical Festival], following in my older sister Evangeline’s footsteps. She’s been doing it for years; she reached the national level twice. She definitely does a lot of writing, and my mom writes, my grandma writes, so they loved helping me out with my speech. I give all the thanks to them.”

“My mom reminded me to practice, she would always listen and be there, she would time me, she would do everything. She definitely helped me.”

Stephen also hopes to become a priest one day— a dream ignited by his father’s path to the presbyterate. He said this dream is now possible because of the scholarship prize he received for his first-place win.

“Before we became Orthodox, my dad was a Lutheran pastor. Now he’s pursuing becoming an Orthodox priest,” Stephen said, noting that his father attended Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and now awaits a potential ordination to the diaconate. “I know [the Oratorical Festival] changed my life because I have a full scholarship to Hellenic College now, and my plan is to become a priest. I look up to my dad a lot, so I wanted to follow in his footsteps. The prize I won is going to be big for the future.”

The words of Archbishop Elpidophoros of America— who attended the Festival in June— particularly inspired the young orator. While in Northridge, His Eminence charged the young men of the competition to consider the priesthood. Stephen recalled the Archbishop saying, “If you’re a young man and you’ve made it this far [in the Oratorical Festival], you have the skill set to maybe be a priest,” words which Stephen said were encouraging.

When asked how the Festival has impacted him, Stephen remarked that it has “built his confidence.” He admitted that he felt nervous before delivering his speech, “but I got through it,” he said. “It showed me that there’s a lot of things that are in my power. If I put my mind to it, I can get it done.”

“So many kids my age think, ‘Oh, I have my whole life ahead of me, I can save worship for later,’ but that’s not the case. You never know which day is going to be your last. You have to devote your entire life to Christ, no matter what.”

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Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology is pleased to announce the launch of a dedicated webpage for The Catechist: The Art of Listening and Teaching, a new Certificate Program in Orthodox Catechism presented by Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology through The Scriptorium Initiative.

The vision for The Catechist program was conceived by His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, together with the Most Reverend Members of the Holy Eparchial Synod, in response to the growing pastoral need to prepare qualified lay catechists to assist the clergy in the Church’s apostolic ministry of teaching. That vision was subsequently developed and given academic form by the faculty of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology under the leadership of its Dean, the Rev. Dr. Eugen J. Pentiuc.

The program is co-directed by Fr. Eugen J. Pentiuc and Dr. James C. Skedros.

Designed for lay leaders, parish educators, ministry volunteers, clergy spouses, recent converts, and Orthodox Christians seeking deeper theological formation, the year-long online program combines recorded lectures and assigned readings with weekly live zoom seminars. Its five instructional modules address the foundations of the Orthodox faith, moral theology and eschatology, sacramental and liturgical life, Orthodox spirituality, and catechetical pedagogy.

Participants may enroll in the Certificate Track, designed for those preparing to serve as parish catechists, or the Enrichment Track, for those seeking theological and catechetical formation without certification requirements.

The inaugural program begins October 5, 2026, with Module I: Foundations of the Orthodox Faith:

• Oct. 5–9, Divine Revelation, Fr. Eugen J. Pentiuc
• Oct. 12–16, Holy Scripture, Fr. Eugen J. Pentiuc
• Oct. 19–23, Holy Tradition, Dr. James C. Skedros
• Oct. 26–30. “I believe in one God…,” Fr. Demetrios Bathrellos
• Nov. 2–6, “And in one Lord Jesus Christ…,” Fr. George Parsenios
• Nov. 9–13, “And in the Holy Spirit…,” Fr. Philip Zymaris

The newly launched webpage provides information about the curriculum, five modules, faculty, schedule, Certificate and Enrichment Tracks, and enrollment.

Those interested in taking courses, participating for enrichment, or enrolling in the Certificate Program are invited to visit www.thescriptoriuminitiative.org/the-catechist/.

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With the blessing of His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, the faithful of the Archdiocese and the people of New York City are kindly invited to join St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine on Friday, September 11, 2026 at 3:00pm for a solemn memorial service in commemoration of the 25^th anniversary of September 11, 2001. The memorial service will be presided over by Archbishop Elpidophoros, who will lead us in prayer as we reflect on the lives lost, the courage that emerged in the face of tragedy, and the enduring strength that unites our communities.

25 years later, the memories remain—carrying with them profound grief, extraordinary bravery, and a resilience that continues to shape us. Through this moment of silence, prayer, and reflection, we will honor all those whose lives were forever changed and those who answered the call to serve on that fateful day and every day since. In coming together, we hope to renew our commitment to peace, reconciliation, and a future guided by compassion and hope.

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