Volume 2, Number 12, Authors and Contributors

His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, is the archbishop of Washington, D.C. and primate of the Orthodox Church in America. His official Biography is available here.

Rev. Joel Weir is the Rector at St. Stephen the First Martyr Orthodox Church in Crawfordsville, IN. He is married to his wife, Presvytera Maria and has two children. He is a recent alumnus of St. Tikhon’s Seminary. Fr. Joel is also an instructor at Hagia Sophia Classical Academy in Indianapolis. He sometimes writes things and plays music.

Deacon David Wooten is married with three children and hails from Fort Worth, Texas, where he taught high school Spanish for seven years. The Wooten family members””Dn. David, Mat. Audra, Hope Elizabeth, Katherine Ruth, and Laura Louise””are in the midst of their third and final year at St. Vlad’s. Upon graduation, the Wootens plan to return to the Diocese of the South (OCA) and are particularly interested in establishing Orthodox communities in Spanish-speaking areas. He occasionally blogs here.

Andreea Balan was born and raised in Romania, moving to the U.S. when she was 16 years old. After graduating from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM with a degree in liberal arts, she went to study theology at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. Upon completion of her degree in 2010, she relocated to Dallas, TX where she serves as the youth director for a local Orthodox church in the Antiochian archdiocese.