Meet Our Instructors
Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
Metropolitan Kallistos (born Timothy Richard Ware, 11 September 1934 – 24 August 2022) was an English bishop and theologian of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Since 1982, he held the titular bishopric of Diokleia in Phrygia, later made a titular metropolitan bishopric in 2007, under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. He was one of the best-known modern Eastern Orthodox hierarchs and theologians. From 1966 to 2001, he was Spalding Lecturer of Eastern Orthodox Studies at the University of Oxford. For many years, his grace led pilgrimages with and spoke at the events of the Orientale Lumen Foundation.
Archimandrite Robert Taft
Robert Francis Taft SJ (January 9, 1932 – November 2, 2018) was an American Jesuit priest, first in the Russian Greek Catholic Church[1] and later an archimandrite of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. An expert in Oriental liturgy, he was a professor at the Pontifical Oriental Institute from 1975 to 2011 and its Vice-rector from 1995 to 2001. Fr. Taft was a great support and a great friend of the Orientale Lumen Foundation.
Fr. Lawrence Cross
Archpriest Lawrence Cross ministers to the Russian Catholic community at the Church of the Most Holy Trinity and St Nicholas in St Kilda, Victoria.
Fr. David Anderson
Fr. David Anderson was born in Jamestown, New York, and graduated from Wadhams Hall College with a B.A. in Philosophy. In 1983, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Orthodox Church and served for four years as the pastor of St. Michael Church in Portage, PA, before helping develop the newly-created Antiochian Evangelical Orthodox Mission in 1987. For the next eleven years, he served at parishes in Washington and California before being received into the Ukrainian Catholic Church in January, 1999. Fr. Anderson has taught many classes on the early Church Fathers and the liturgy for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the Magdala Apostolate, and the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, and has extensive experience translating for St. Vladimir Seminary Press (including their editions of St. Basil’s On the Holy Spirit and St. John Damascene’s On the Divine Images). He has also translated liturgical texts for the Orthodox Church in America, and filmed several catechetical series for the Christian Activist.
Hieromonk Maximos Davies
Hieromonk Maximos was born Michael Gareth Davies in the small town of Nowra on the New South Wales South Coast, Australia, in 1966. He is the eldest of four children. His parents, Ivor and Carole, raised him to be a good Catholic Christian, setting him the wonderful example of their own lives. He attended the local Catholic primary school and then the nearest state high school, finally ending up at the University of Sydney where he graduated with degrees in Arts and Law. Over the past decade Fr. Maximos has written many short articles for church publications, including First Things and America, as well as our eparchial newsletter Unirea Canton and the Valyermo Chronicle. He has also been asked by a number of parishes and other church and academic organizations to preach retreats and other talks. He has been blessed to be the confessor and spiritual father of a number of people.
Michael Haldas
Michael Haldas is an author, a religious educator, and a speaker. He wrote the book Sacramental Living: Understanding Christianity as a Way of Life, which he presented special leather-bound editions of as gifts to both Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in private audiences at the Vatican and the Patriarchate. Michael also has a long running podcast series with Ancient Faith Radio, a division of Ancient Faith Publishing. Through the Orthodox Christian Network, Michael also does weekly LIVE Adult Education classes and reflections. He was published monthly in Theosis Magazine and his work has been featured in The National Herald, Pravmir, and other publications. He is also a member of the Orientale Lumen Foundation and the Orthodox Speakers Bureau. He teaches adult religious education at the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George in Bethesda, Maryland, and Zoom classes for the St. Nicholas OCA Cathedral in Washington DC. He has also worked with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Religious Education Department to create educational lessons and materials.