His Beatitude +SYMEON
His Beatitude +SYMEON (Ioannovskij) was born Steven Mark Holdridge in Roswell, New Mexico, on 6 October 1953. He attended Phillips University. His undergraduate studies were in Religion, Religious Education and Church Music.
Starting his sophomore year, he was catechized in the Greek Orthodox faith, Church of the Megolohari, Tinos, Greece (taking the Christian name, Stephanos), by Archimandrite Paul, an hieromonk from the island of Tinos, Greece, an exchange professor at Phillips. He received orders, including the Sacred Presbytery, from Patriarch +MARKOS's Auxiliary Bishop +DAVID in 1975 on October 8th.
In 1983, having been recommended by Archimandrite Paul of Tinos, Greece, Priest Stephen Holdridge of Roswell, NM was consecrated Bishop by +MARKOS, Patriarch +DIODOROS, and Archbishop +NATALINO. For whatever reason, written documentation of this ordination to Bishop was never forthcoming, therefore His Beatitude +SYMEON sought conditional re-ordination by membership in the Synod of The Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church of North America (THEOCACNA) by Metropolitan + DENIS Garrison, Metropolitan Vladymir Sehorn, and Archbishop +PAUL Dolan.
In 1989, His Beatitude +SYMEON was enthroned as the Patriarch of North America and Primate X (10th Patriarch) of THEOCACNA at a special synod in Columbia, South Carolina, attended by all of the bishops and clergy of the Church. (The Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church of North America (THEOCACNA) received its original charter as an autocephalous (self-governing) church in 1927 by the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in America at the prompting of Patriarch Saint Tikhon of Moscow.)
The year prior, in December 1988, to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus', His Holiness Pimen I, the 14th Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, reestablished the Order of Saint Andrew the First-Called as the Church's highest award. In observance of the filial relationship to the Russian Orthodox Church, as Patriarch, His Beatitude +SYMEON later followed suit establishing the Order of Saint Andrew the First-Called in the Americas, as well as the Order of the Green Cross and Knights of the True Cross.
His Beatitude +SYMEON became increasingly active in healthcare and was chaplain of an AIDS hospice and of HIV patients at Denver General Hospital and was on Mayor Welington Webb’s committee on HIV/AIDS services. He chaired the committee that wrote the three-year plan for HIV services for the City and County of Denver. His Beatitude +SYMEON also co-founded various counseling organizations in Denver.
In October 2006, His Beatitude +SYMEON moved his primary residence from Denver,
Colorado to Roswell where he stabled the Monastic Skete of Saint John the Wonderworker and the parish of Holy Protection Church.
In 2015, His Beatitude +SYMEON, having been a longtime spiritual advisor and close friend to Douglas Buchanan Bailey, Chief of the Clan Bailey, in a ceremony attended by members of the Clan, anointed Douglas Buchanan Bailey conferring the style and title of His Royal Highness, The Grand Duke of Saint Cyriacuz and Tetrarch of Tiggiano, and named him his successor as the grand master of the Orders.
On December 31, 2016, His Beatitude +SYMEON, by the Grace of God, Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church in America, fell asleep in the Lord. May his memory be eternal.
(Note to reader: It is customary to call Orthodox hierarchs (bishops) by their first names. It is also pious custom to Capitalize the names of Hierarchs. Also, bishops with a cross before their names are known to have reposed in Christ.)
