Father George Evans

My journey to Orthodoxy goes back a long way. When at college I wrote a thesis on St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, having always had an interest in the Eastern Church. Later, while attending High Mass at our local Church of England parish (of the traditional, ceremonial kind known as Anglo-Catholic), once a month I would get a lift, a bus or a train to attend the Divine Liturgy — the main Orthodox service of worship — served by Archimandrite Kyril Jenner, a senior monk-priest, in Sheffield. This went on for over twenty years — until one day Father Kyril asked why I didn't become Orthodox. Taken by surprise, I agreed, and was received into the Orthodox Church one cold Saturday morning in November.

Shortly after, I became involved with a group of Anglicans seeking to become Orthodox, led by Father David Sennitt, of eternal memory — as Orthodox Christians say of the departed. The Parish of St Columba and St Kentigern was eventually founded and I was ordained Deacon. When Father David retired I was privileged to be ordained priest in our church by Archbishop John — now our Patriarch — and appointed parish priest in January 2002, serving in that capacity ever since. In those days I painted icons for the church; now I don't have the time.