Fr. Stephen Howell
(916) 207-1069
frshowell@gmail.com

Father Stephen Howell is a retired emergency room nurse, flight nurse, and surgical nurse at the University of California, Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. He also served in the Naval Reserve and California National Guard in the 1970’s. He was ordained a deacon in 1987 by Metropolitan Philip and later to the Holy Priesthood in 2007. As a deacon and since his ordination to the priesthood, Fr. Stephen has served at St. Athanasius, first under Fr. Richard Ballew and then alongside Fr. Polycarp Whitcomb. He also served as a travelling and temporary priest at the bishop’s discretion in Northern California and Alaska.  When Fr. Polycarp departed this life in 2013, our current Metropolitan Joseph appointed Fr. Stephen as our full time pastor. He and Khouria Sally have been married for 40 years and have three children and nine grandchildren. Their son Matthew serves as a priest at St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church in Wasilla, Alaska.

Met. Joseph

Metroplitan Joseph was born in Damascus, Syria in 1950 and graduated from Lebanese University in Beirut and Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece and served the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in Syria and Lebanon for many years.  In 2004, Bishop Joseph was enthroned at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Los Angeles, California by Metropolitan Philip as the first Bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles and the West and was given the title of Archbishop in 2011.  On July 3, 2014, Archbishop Joseph was elected to become the Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of all North America by the Holy Synod of Antioch.

He continues to serve as the beloved chief shepard of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America.  Read his entire biography HERE.