Ruling Hierarch

The Most Reverend Bishop Dr. Auxentios of Etna and Portland was born Matthew Gates Chapman in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 15, 1953 (Old Style). He graduated from University School, a private preparatory school in Hunting Valley, Ohio, and went on to complete his undergraduate education at Princeton University, where he studied mathematics and religion. At Princeton, where he also converted to the Orthodox Faith, he was a student of Protopresbyter Georges Va­si­lievich Florovsky (1893–1979), who served on his thesis committee in the Department of Religion, and of the ever-memorable Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Etna (1943–2019), then a layman, preceptor, and doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology. His Eminence holds a Licentiate of Theology from the Center for Tra­di­tion­a­list Orthodox Studies in Et­na, California, and he earned a Doctorate of Theology in Liturgical Theology at the Graduate Theological Un­ion, Ber­ke­ley.

His Eminence was ordained a Hierodeacon in 1976, a Hieromonk in 1977, and Titular Bishop and assistant and secretary to the then Archbishop (later Metropolitan) Chrysostomos of Etna in 1991. He is the author or co-author of a dozen books, including a volume on the Rite of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, taken from his doctoral dissertation, and a score of articles in academic journals. He serves as Director of the Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies and is editor of its quarterly journal, Orthodox Tradition.

Bishop Auxentios is one of five brothers. His father, George Byron Chapman, Jr., and his mother, Ann Whitman Chapman (daughter of the American artist Paul Whitman), are deceased.

Patron Saint and Name Day: Saint Auxentios of Sebaste († 296), De­cem­ber 13 (Old Style)

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