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This afternoon, Friday, January 10, 2020, Archpriest Alexander Rentel, Chancellor of the Orthodox Church in America, announced the schedule of services for the Episcopal Ordination of the Right Reverend Archimandrite Alexis, Bishop-elect of Bethesda, Friday, January 24 – Saturday, January 25, 2020, which will take place at Saint Nicholas Cathedral:
Friday, January 24 – 6:00 pm: Nomination and Proclamation of a Bishop, followed immediately by Vespers
Saturday, January 25 – 9:00 am: Divine Liturgy and Ordination
His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon will preside at the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and the ordination. Concelebrating with His Beatitude will be His Eminence, Archbishop Melchisedek of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania; His Eminence Archbishop Michael of New York and New Jersey; His Grace Bishop Paul of Chicago; and His Grace Bishop Daniel of Santa Rosa; together with clergy from the Stavropegial Institutions of the Orthodox Church in America, and local and invited clergy. Concelebrating clergy are to bring gold vestments.
Following the Divine Liturgy at 1:00 pm a banquet will be held at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Church, 2815 36th Street NW, Washington D.C.
On Sunday, January 26, at 9:30 am: Bishop-elect Alexis will preside at the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and be installed as bishop at Saint Mark Orthodox Church, Bethesda, MD.
The Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America elected Archimandrite Alexis (Trader) as Bishop-elect of Bethesda, Auxiliary to the Metropolitan for Stavropegial Institutions during is Regular Fall Session on Tuesday, November 12, 2019.
Archimandrite Alexis [Trader] is a Great-schema hieromonk who has returned from Greece to the United States on His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon’s invitation and with the blessing of his abbot, Archimandrite Philotheos, in order to serve the Orthodox Church in America. He was received into the Orthodox faith at the Monastery of Saint Tikhon where he became a monk and lecturer in patristics.
After ten years at the monastery, he went to the Monastery of Karakallou on the Holy Mountain in order to deepen his experience of the monastic life. There, he immersed himself in the life of community and was ordained to the holy priesthood. He also wrote “In Peace Let us Pray to the Lord”, translated several Greek books into English, and edited other books in both Greek and English for publication. For health reasons, he was transferred to a women’s monastery that was also a dependency of Karakallou. There, the local bishop blessed him to be a spiritual father for the community that also served as a parish for many Greeks in the area. At this time, he completed his doctoral dissertation in Greek at the University of Thessaloniki which was later published in Greek and English as “Ancient Christian Wisdom and Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy”. He has also engaged in further studies in clinical psychology, but his chief work has been pastoral, building up the parish growing around the monastery and offering one-on-one assistance to those in need through the mystery of holy confession and counseling.
Since 2019, Archimandrite Alexis has been in residence at the Monastery of Saint Tikhon. During this past year, he has given a talk on the ascetic ethos of Orthodox liturgical art for a music conference at Jewel College, lectures on the Prophet Isaiah at Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary [STOTS], in Alaska for their continuing education programs, a lecture on beauty in Church architecture at the Orthodox Inter-Seminary Movement’s [OISM] latest gathering at STOTS, and sermons in parishes and at the monastery Church.
