Opening Keynote Address

His Eminence Metropolitan JONAH

James Paffhausen was born in 1959 in Chicago, Illinois, and baptized into the Episcopal Church at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church. His family later moved to La Jolla, California, near San Diego. In 1978, he was received into the Orthodox Church at Our Lady of Kazan Church (Moscow Patriarchate) while studying at the University of California, San Diego. James later transferred to UC Santa Cruz and helped to establish an Orthodox Christian Fellowship chapter there.

After graduation from UCSC, James went on to study at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, graduating in 1985 with an M.Div. and again in 1988 with an M.Th. in Dogmatic Theology. In 1989, he began doctoral studies at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, but interrupted his studies to spend a year in Russia, working for Russkiy Palomnik in the publishing arm of the Moscow Patriarchate. During his time in Russia, he was introduced to Russian spirituality and its particular form of monastic life.

He subsequently joined Valaam Monastery as a novice, coming under the spiritual direction of Archimandrite Pankraty (Zherdev), the monastery's abbot (now a titular bishop of Troitsk, believed to have been close to Patriarch Alexius II of Moscow). Fr Pankratiy's spiritual father, Elder Kyrill of Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, later blessed James to become a hieromonk.

In 1994, James was ordained to the diaconate and priesthood, and then in the following year, he was tonsured a monastic at St Tikhon's Monastery, South Canaan, Pennsylvania, receiving the name Jonah.

Hmk. Jonah returned to his home state of California, serving a number of mission parishes there and later given the obedience to establish a monastery. In 1996, St. John of San Francisco Monastery was founded in Point Reyes, California (later moving to Manton). During his tenure as abbot, Fr. Jonah grew the monastic community to more than fifteen members. In this period, he also worked to establish Californian missions in Merced, Sonora, Chico, Eureka, Redding, and Susanville, and in Kona, Hawaii.

In 2008, Fr. Jonah was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and sent from the monastery to take on the duties of being an auxiliary bishop for the OCA's Diocese of the South. In September of that year, he was officially elected to that position, and then on November 1 consecrated in Dallas as Bishop of Fort Worth, led by Abp. Dmitri (Royster), then locum tenens of the OCA's Metropolitan See.

Eleven days later, on November 12, Bishop Jonah was elected as Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in America. He was formally installed to his see of Washington and New York at St. Nicholas Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on December 28, 2008.

source: Wikipedia

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