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Rev. Fr. Peter A. DeFonce
Reverend Father Peter A. DeFonce, born and raised as a Roman Catholic in Upstate New York, was received by the Sacrament of Holy Chrismation into the Orthodox Church of America by His Beatitude Metropolitan +THEODOSIUS (Lazor) on December 5th, 1993, at the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Washington, DC. He graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, with a Bachelor of Science in the Arabic Language and Literature in May of 1994, and completed the Master of Divinity degree at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, NY, in May of 1997. He married Nadezhda Alexandrovna Smirnova, an elementary school teacher from Dzherzhinsky, Russia (a suburb of Moscow), on February 16th, 2003, and was subsequently ordained to both the Holy Diaconate (9/21/03) and the Holy Priesthood (12/5/04) by His Eminence Metropolitan +PHILIP (Saliba) of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Having served briefly as an Associate Pastor at St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA, Fr. Peter's first full-time assignment was as Pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church of El Paso, TX, under His Grace Bishop +BASIL (Essey), from September of 2005 until July of 2006. Now, although he remains canonically under the omophorion of Metropolitan +PHILIP, as a Priest of the Antiochian Archdiocese, he is on loan for one year to His Eminence Metropolitan +ISAIAH, effective from March of 2007.
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