Rev. George Goodge, Pastor
Fr. George was born in Allentown, PA and was raised in the Orthodox Faith. Baptized as an infant at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Allentown, his family began attending St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church in Emmaus, PA in the year 2000. He graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA in 2014, with a B.A. in Philosophy and Ancient Mediterranean Studies. After college he studied at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, PA, where he earned his M.Div. with Honors in 2017, writing his thesis on the Eastern understanding of the sinlessness of the Most-Holy Theotokos, contrasting it with the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He married Khouriyeh Mara in August 2018, shortly after graduating. He was ordained to the Diaconate in May 2019 at St. Mary's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and the Priesthood in July 2019 at his home parish of St. Paul. On August 1, 2019, Fr. George was assigned pastor of St. George's.
Fr. George's Patron Saint is the Holy Glorious and Right-Victorious Great-Martyr George the Trophy Bearer (April 23) who is also the patron of our parish.
Fr. George was born in Allentown, PA and was raised in the Orthodox Faith. Baptized as an infant at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Allentown, his family began attending St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church in Emmaus, PA in the year 2000. He graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA in 2014, with a B.A. in Philosophy and Ancient Mediterranean Studies. After college he studied at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, PA, where he earned his M.Div. with Honors in 2017, writing his thesis on the Eastern understanding of the sinlessness of the Most-Holy Theotokos, contrasting it with the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He married Khouriyeh Mara in August 2018, shortly after graduating. He was ordained to the Diaconate in May 2019 at St. Mary's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and the Priesthood in July 2019 at his home parish of St. Paul. On August 1, 2019, Fr. George was assigned pastor of St. George's.
Fr. George's Patron Saint is the Holy Glorious and Right-Victorious Great-Martyr George the Trophy Bearer (April 23) who is also the patron of our parish.
Rev. Demetrios Harper, Ph.D.
With a bachelor's degree in literary theory, a master's in theology, an interdisciplinary doctorate in theology/philosophy/religious studies, Fr. Demetrios moved beyond his academic training to be ordained in Novo-Diveevo in 2008. He served in Greece from then until 2018, when he continued his academic work as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame. From 2019 to 2022 Fr. Demetrios held the position of Assistant Professor of Church History and Moral Theology at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, NY. In August 2020 he was officially received into the Antiochian Archdiocese from the Church of Greece. In July 2022, Fr. Demetrios took a position as Associate Professor of Dogmatic Theology at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, PA. He remains attached at St. George's, while also serving as a supply priest for the Diocese of Ottawa, Eastern Canada, and Upstate New York, and as a Chaplain for the US Navy Reserves. Fr. Demetrios is currently on deployment with the Navy.
Fr. Demetrios' Patron Saint is the Holy Glorious and Right-Victorious Great Martyr Demetrios the Myrrh-Streaming (October 26).
Rev. John Boddecker
Fr. John was raised in the Niagara region. He pursued his undergraduate in Biblical Studies at Cairn University, outside of Philadelphia, where he was member of the school’s Honors Program. It was there that he began to narrow his academic focus to the area of Old Testament Studies, studying the Biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek, as well as other Semitic languages, to assist in this task.
Having received his Bachelor’s degree, he continued his studies in the Old Testament at the Toronto School of Theology, a consortium of theological colleges federated with the University of Toronto. There he studied historical and philological approaches to the Old Testament, focusing on Biblical archaeology, Ancient Near Eastern studies, and early Hebrew and Northwest Semitic epigraphy, while also studying theological approaches to Biblical interpretation, philosophical hermeneutics, and Patristic Biblical interpretation. At the completion of his studies, he wrote a thesis on E. B. Pusey, a nineteenth-century English churchman, Patristics scholar and Professor of Hebrew at Oxford.
During the course of his graduate studies in Toronto, and partly as a result of his reading of the Church Fathers at that time, he decided to terminate his process towards ordination in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition and was received into the Holy Orthodox Church. Not long after, he was married to his wife, Katherine. He then began studies for a second graduate degree, this time specifically in Orthodox Theology, with a focus on Byzantine Musicology, through the St. John of Damascus Institute of Theology at the University of Balamand. In addition to work on Byzantine musical history, praxis and chant performance, he wrote a thesis on the theological function of liturgical hymnography in the Orthodox Church focusing on the hymnography of his heavenly patron.
While in the midst of completing that degree, Fr. John was ordained to the Holy Priesthood by Metropolitan HILARION of blessed memory, in the Fall of 2013, at the Church of the Protection of the Mother of God in Rochester, NY. Soon after this, he was appointed the Rector of Ss. Theodore Orthodox Church near Buffalo, NY, were he served until 2020. In 2025 he received blessings from our Father in Christ Metropolitan SABA and His Eminence Metropolitan NICHOLAS, First Hierarch of ROCOR, to serve at St. George's
Fr. John's Patron Saint is our Venerable Father John of Damascus (December 4).
