Diocesan Seminarians

Luke Anderson

Home Parish: Holy Trinity Church, St. Paul, MN

Seminary: St. Vladirmir’s Seminary

Year & Program: 1st year M.Div.

Luke Joseph Anderson was raised as an Evangelical in rural Minnesota and has a Bachelor of Science in America history from the University of Wisconsin – River Falls. He intended to become a US history and civics high school teacher, but felt a calling to pursue seminary instead due to the greater depth of formation that the liturgy and the life of the Church can provide a child. He was received into the Church on Great and Holy Saturday at Holy Trinity in St Paul Minnesota in 2019. 
 
To prepare for seminary, he spent a 3.5 years doing live in care provider work with two different men as two consecutive terminal cases. Luke was also blessed by his priest to spend 4 years in Holy Trinity’s sanctuary as an altar server, primarily focused on helping their children acolytes. Luke always wanted to bring back the boys who struggled the most to stand still and feels a great amount of respect and fraternity for all of the children he served with. Luke also spent the past 5 years participating in the physical labor of the Church in her charitable work and the busy work needed to run a parish. 
 
From the formation of these three things, Luke hopes to be blessed to serve in the ministries of the Church and to have a work orientated vocation focused on helping people prepare themselves to offer themselves to Christ and to help participate in the process of forming males and females into Orthodox men and women.

Joseph Goshorn-Maroney

Home Parish: St Stephen the First Martyr Church, Crawfordsville, IN

Seminary: St. Tikhon’s Seminary

Year & Program: 1st year M.Div.

Joseph was raised on a family farm in west central Indiana near Crawfordsville. He and his home parish of St. Stephen the First Martyr were received into the OCA from the Evangelical Orthodox Church in 2001 by Archbishop Job of blessed memory.

After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology at Hanover College, Joseph pursued a Master of Science in the same subject at Western Washington University in Washington. After this, Joseph began attending St. Innocent Antiochian Orthodox Church in Everson, WA. There he met his wife Margaret, a teacher, and moved back to Indiana and his home parish of St. Stephen’s to run the family farm. He and Margaret married within the year and now have five children: Eleni, Macrina, Seraphima, Maria, and John.

They have been active members at St. Stephen the First Martyr, Crawfordsville, where Margaret has been involved in reading and singing, while Joseph has served on the parish council in various capacities, and in the Altar. Joseph was ordained to the subdiaconate in 2019 by Archbishop Paul of blessed memory. Joseph, Margaret and their children begin the next chapter of their lives in the Fall of 2024 at St. Tikhon’s Seminary.

Deacon Jarrod Huffman

Home Parish:

Seminary: St. Vladimir’s Seminary

Year & Program: 2nd year M.Div.

Deacon Jarrod and Matushka Emily Huffman were brought into the Church in 2014 at St Paul’s in Las Vegas, Nevada where they maintain a dear connection. A Midwesterner by birth, Deacon Jarrod attended college in Colorado. He was sent to Las Vegas as an Air Force Combat Rescue Helicopter Pilot after completing pilot training. Emily has an MFA in Writing, and has recently transitioned into software engineering.
 
Deacon Jarrod and Matushka Emily spent ten years of their marriage living in Nevada and Alabama, where they served actively in parish life, contributing their time and talents to the choir and church school. In June of 2023, Deacon Jarrod left the military to pursue studies at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary. He and Matushka Emily have three bookish children, Ambrose, Theodora, and Elisabeth, and all are excited about the prospect of returning to serve in the Midwest, which they continue to consider home.

Christopher Mescher

Home Parish: St. Gregory of Nyssa Church, Columbus, OH

Seminary: St. Tikhon’s Seminary

Year & Program: 2nd year M.Div.

Christopher was raised Roman Catholic around Columbus, Ohio. He undertook his undergraduate studies in mathematics and linguistics at Providence College in Rhode Island, where he attended a traditionalist Roman Catholic parish. After completing his undergraduate studies, he returned to Columbus to attend the Pontifical College Josephinum, a Roman Catholic seminary.

While at the Josephinum, Christopher became more aware of Orthodoxy, eventually beginning to attend St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in 2019. He ended his studies at the Josephinum after completing a B.Phil. degree, and began graduate study in computer science instead. He was received into the Orthodox Church on the Feast of the Transfiguration in 2020. He completed his M.S. in December of 2022, but never lost the desire to continue his seminary studies, which he began at St. Tikhon’s starting in the fall of 2023. He is now in his second year there.

Deacon Pedro Sarsama

Home Parish: St. Matthew Church, Green Bay, WI

Seminary: St. Tikhon’s Seminary

Year & Program: 2nd year M.Div.

Baptized in and raised attending the Cathedral of the Falling Asleep of the Ever-Virgin Mary (OCA-ROEA), Deacon Pedro began attending St Matthew Orthodox Church in 2018 after relocating to Green Bay, WI. There, he was involved in youth and young adult ministry and liturgical service. He worked in non-profit community services and the finance sector before answering the call to attend seminary. He began the MDiv program at St Tikhon’s in 2023. There, he and his wife, Matushka Keely (Raphaela), have benefitted greatly from the spiritual nourishment, liturgical life, and community encouragement of both the monastery and the seminary. 

Deacon Pedro was ordained to the diaconate on March 15, 2025 at St Innocent Church (Olmsted Falls). In addition to striving to balance seminary obligations, family life, and the sacramental-liturgical-personal life of prayer, Deacon Pedro finds incredible joy in his seminary service assisting the monastery sacristan in caring for the precious and holy things at St Tikhon’s monastery church and in serving as the sacristan for the All Saints of North America chapel. God has blessed Deacon Pedro and Matushka Keely with four delightful children: Milița, Julian, Anastasia, and Sylvia. God-willing, they will welcome their fifth child in May.

Paul Schlafer

Home Parish: St. Nicholas Church, Mentor, OH

Seminary: St. Tikhon’s Seminary

Year & Program: 2nd year M. Div.

Paul was raised in the Episcopal Church, first in Southeast Michigan and then outside Akron, OH. He met his now wife Sarah in High School and was introduced to the Orthodox Faith through her, at St. Nicholas in Mogadore, OH. Cole’s faith continued to grow through his college years at St. Gregory of Nyssa parish in Columbus, OH and he was Chrismated to the Orthodox Faith in December 2008.
 
Since their marriage, Paul and Sarah have been active members of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Mentor, OH. During their time there, Sarah served as Choir Director while Cole has served on parish council in various capacities. 
 
Paul worked for over decade in the software and insurance fields all the while feeling a call toward greater service to Christ’s Holy Church. Finally, that call pulled him to St. Tikhon’s Seminary in Fall of 2023. Paul and Sarah have 3 boys: Simon, Michael, and Nikolai.

Eugene Schreder

Home Parish: Holy Myrrhbearers Church, St. Cloud, MN

Seminary: St. Tikhon’s Seminary

Year & Program: 2nd year M. Div.

Eugene was raised in the small town of Paynesville, Minnesota, and grew up in the Restorationist denomination called the churches of Christ. He and Elizabeth were married after graduating high school in 2014. In 2020, Eugene received a Bachelor’s degree in History from St. Cloud State University. In his studies he encountered several Orthodox saints whose prayers brought him to the doors of Holy Myrrhbearers Orthodox Church, which was only a few blocks away from the SCSU campus. On the Sunday of All Saints in June of 2020, the Schreder family was baptized into Christ. Not long thereafter, with the help of Fr Andrew Jaye, Eugene began to discern a call to the Holy Priesthood, and Archbishop Paul of Blessed Memory ordained him a reader on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women in May of 2021. Having served Holy Myrrhbearers in this capacity, Eugene, Elizabeth, and their three children began the next chapter of their lives at St. Tikhon’s Seminary in the Fall of 2023. He is now completing his second year at seminary.

Priest Joseph Winsler

Home Parish: St. Paul the Apostle Church, Dayton, OH

Seminary: St. Vladimir’s Seminary

Year & Program: Th.M.

Father Joseph, originally a member of St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church in Dayton, OH, is currently attending St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. In the past, he has served in pastoral ministry in Protestant churches, as a Christian Studies educator at the high school level, and in diaconal ministry in an Anglican context. More recently, Father Joseph worked as a software engineer, but after a course of study with Father Silviu Bunta and with the counsel of his spiritual father, he and his wife agreed for him to pursue seminary studies. Father Joseph has been married to Matushka Sophia for 15 years; they have two daughters, Candice and Zenaida, and a newborn son, Oran. Upon completing the MA program at SVS, he enrolled in the advanced Master of  Theology program at the same institution, which he hopes to complete in 2025. He was ordained to the diaconate by Archbishop Daniel on January 18, 2025, and to the priesthood on April 27, 2025, both at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago.

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