I am a priest and monastic of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. I was born in Paramus New Jersey. I was tonsured a monastic in April 1990 and ordained to the Holy Priesthood on August 10, 1990.  I serve as the Chaplain to Saint Basil Academy and also as the Program Director for the Greek Archdiocese’s Department of Marriage and Family.

I was trained as a graphic artist, and have developed since my teens a love of photography. In late 2006 and the beginning of 2007, while I was laid up with a broken leg, a friend mentioned to me the need for the public to be educated about Orthodox monasticism in North America and its role and witness. Thus was the genesis for this project. I have since added to my photo equipment and have taken the time when it permits to start documenting Orthodox monasticism in film, digital, and video.

For those that may be interested, I am shooting with two 35mm film cameras, a Canon Canodate E Rangefinder (my very first camera) and a Canon Rebel 2000 SLR, mainly for black and white photos with the negatives also being digitized when they are processed. I am also shooting digital stills with two different digital cameras, an Olympus Evolt-500 (8MP DSLR) and Nikon D40x (10.2MP DSLR) with various lenses and filters. I am now using a SONY HandyCam HDR-HC9 (HD Mini-DV), and a SONY “Webbie” (compact HD video camcorder) to shoot my video work along with the SONY DCH-HC28 HandyCam (Mini-DV). I am using Capture One 5 Pro for photo editing on my iMac and MacBook along with Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for special effects. I am using iMovie ’09 and Final Cut Pro Studio for video editing. I am using an Acer AspireOne netbook with Capture One 4 Pro along with Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements 7 for processing and editing work in the field.

I would like to thank Reverend Father Alexis Vinogradov of Saint Gregory Orthodox Church (OCA) in Wappingers New York, for the above photograph shot at the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy on Thanksgiving Day (November 22) 2007.