OrthodoxUSA

Meet Bishop David

Bishop David

David Jones was born in Lansing, Michigan. “I grew up in a neighborhood where having an ‘ethnic background’ was limited to whether your family came from Kentucky or Tennessee. Mine came from Kentucky.” Needless to say, David was not exposed to Eastern Orthodox Christianity at an early age. He did, however, grow up in a Baptist family where prayer was an essential part of life. “I wasn’t unhappy with the spiritual climate in the Baptist church, but I knew that there was more. I felt the need to connect with the earliest Christian communities and to shed the baggage that has been added to Christianity over the years.” That quest did not manifest itself in any of the dramatic spiritual journeys, those “dark nights of the soul” that one may read about. It was simply a low key examination of many interpretations of Christ’s teachings.

Quite by accident, David was introduced to an Orthodox priest from Saginaw, Michigan. Father James Miller had been invited to give a Saturday morning concert on a theater pipe organ that David helped to maintain. Over lunch that day and during subsequent meetings, David decided that he liked the charisma exhibited by this man, certain that it must have something to do with the Orthodox Church. Fr. Jim never pressed David to convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity but answered each of David’s questions in turn, finally suggesting a visit to a nearby Orthodox Church, St. Andrew’s in East Lansing, in order to experience the Divine Liturgy. “When I first stepped inside St. Andrew’s, I was overcome with the feeling that I was home. This was where I had always been spiritually, even if I never knew of its existence. ‘The rest,’ as they say, ‘is history.’”

David was chrismated at St. Andrew Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in 1976 and very soon was admitted to St. Seraphim of Sarov Seminary, which for many years served to train clergy for the Russian Orthodox Church in the Unites States. Its graduates now serve parishes in every major jurisdiction. Operated by Michigan State University’s Department of Religion chairman, it was not a seminary in the conventional sense. Each candidate was assigned a priest/mentor at their home parish and gathered in East Lansing several times a year for seminars and work assignments. David was fortunate to be assigned at St. Andrew’s where the program was based.

David was tonsured and admitted to minor orders by Bishop Ireney of Serpuxov, Patriarchal Vicar, on 28 October 1978 at St. Elias Temple in Battle Creek, Michigan. He served at St. Andrew’s primarily, but he also assisted at several missions under the protection of the Moscow Patriarchate. Because the church could not provide employment, David, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Aviation Engineering Technology from Western Michigan University, maintained a concurrent secular career in aviation education. A job offer he couldn’t refuse took David out of Michigan and landed him in northcentral Wyoming. There he served under Greek Orthodox Bishop Kallistos of Denver, Colorado. This included helping at a small mission in Worland, Wyoming and an occasional visit to the Denver cathedral.

Secular work kept David on the move. At each location he was able to participate in the life of one or more local congregations. “I refer to that period as my ‘Pauline Journeys.’ Like St. Paul, I was able to visit many Orthodox Christian communities, listening to their troubles, experiencing life in their parish, and, most importantly, praying with them. It gave me an incredible opportunity to learn the condition of the Orthodox Church in the United States.”

Taking monastic vows and the name of his patron, St. David of Wales, David was ordained to the Holy Diaconate on 15 June 1986 by Bishop Richard of the Apostolic Catholic Church of Brazil at Valatie, New York. On 4 January 1987, Bp. Richard elevated Fr. Dcn. David to the Holy Priesthood at Hobart, Indiana. While serving with these Western Orthodox clergy, Fr. David bought several acres of property in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, and founded the Monastery of St. Anthony. He was joined almost immediately by several men desiring monastic life but who, with time, realized they were not up to the challenge.

In October 1988, Fr. David hosted a regional clergy meeting attended by representatives from several small Orthodox jurisdictions. The unexpected outcome of this meeting was the need to reestablish ties both apostolic and missiological with the first effort to create a truly American Orthodox Church. (See “A New Branch on an Old Vine: The History of the UAO.”) Fr. David was elected to the episcopate shortly after the organization of the United American Orthodox Catholic Church. Four bishops consecrated David into Russian Orthodox, Albanian Orthodox, Old Catholic, and Roman Catholic lines of apostolic succession at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Cleveland, Ohio, on 26 February 1989. Bp. David now serves as the pastor of St. Innocent Orthodox Church and as the presiding bishop of the United American Orthodox Catholic Church.

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