It is our joy and honor to welcome His Beatitude, to Holy Trinity Cathedral, on July 26, 2009.
   
Metropolitan JONAH, was born James Paffhausen on October 20, 1959, in Chicago, IL, and was baptized in the Episcopal Church. While still a child, his family settled in La Jolla, CA, near San Diego. While a student at the University of California, San Diego, he was received into the Orthodox Church at Our Lady of Kazan Church (Moscow Patriarchate), San Diego, in 1978. Later, he transferred to UC Santa Cruz, where he was instrumental in establishing an Orthodox Christian Fellowship.
   
After completing studies at UCSC, James attended St. Vladimir’s Seminary, graduating with a Master of Divinity degree in 1985, and a Master of Theology in Dogmatics in 1988. He went on to pursue studies towards a Ph.D. at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, but interrupted those studies to spend a year in Russia.
   
In Moscow, while working for Russkiy Palomnik (“The Russian Pilgrim”) at the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, he was introduced to the spiritual life of the Russian church, especially the monastic life, and later joined the Valaam Monastery. He found a spiritual father in the monastery’s Abbot, Archimandrite Pankratiy. Archimandrite Pankratiy’s spiritual father, the Elder Kyrill at Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, blessed James to become a Priestmonk. He was ordained to the Diaconate and Priesthood in 1994, and in 1995 was tonsured to monastic rank at St. Tikhon's Monastery, South Canaan, PA, having received the name Jonah.
   
Returning to California, Fr. Jonah served a number of missions and was later given the obedience to establish a monastery under the patronage of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. The monastery, initially located in Point Reyes Station, CA, recently moved to Manton in Northern California, near Redding. While building the monastic community, Fr. Jonah also worked to establish missions in Merced, Sonora, Chico, Eureka, Redding, Susanville, and other communities in California, as well as in Kona, HI.
   
In the spring of 2008, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America elevated Fr. Jonah to the rank of Archimandrite, and was given the obedience of leaving the monastery in order to take on the responsibilities of auxiliary bishop and chancellor for the Diocese of the South.
   
In the summer of 2008, his candidacy was endorsed by the Diocese of the South’s Diocesan Council, shortly after he had participated in the diocese’s annual assembly. Metropolitan JONAH’s episcopal election took place on September 4, 2008, at an extraordinary meeting of the Holy Synod of Bishops.
   
Metropolitan JONAH was consecrated Bishop of Forth Worth, and Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of the South, at St. Seraphim Cathedral, Dallas, TX, on Saturday, November 1, 2008.
   
On November 10, 2008, the Orthodox Church in America convened the 15th All American Council in Pittsburgh, PA, during which a new Metropolitan would be elected. Anticipation, frustration, anxiety, but more importantly hope, were among the emotions felt by the clergy and lay delegates.
   
Difficult questions were being asked about recent developments in the OCA, which required honest answers. On Tuesday evening, November 11, on behalf of the Holy Synod, Bishop JONAH approached the podium to address the questions and concerns of the Church. In a plain, yet elegant, spiritual, and fatherly manner, Bishop JONAH laid the foundation for a new chapter in the life of the Orthodox Church in America
   
On Wednesday, November 12, 2008, he was elected Archbishop of Washington and New York, Metropolitan of All America and Canada, thus becoming the fourth Primate of the Orthodox Church in America.