CHURCH LEADERSHIP
His Beatitude, the Most Blessed Tikhon, Metropolitan of All-America and Canada
His Beatitude was born in 1966, the eldest of three children born to Francois and Elizabeth Mollard. After brief periods living in Connecticut, France, and Missouri, he and his family settled in Reading, PA, where he graduated from Wyomissing High School in 1984. In 1988 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and Sociology from Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, after which he moved to Chicago. In 1989 he was received into the Orthodox Church from Episcopalianism and, in the fall of the same year, he began studies at Saint Tikhon’s Seminary, South Canaan, PA. One year later he entered the monastic community at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery as a novice. He was awarded the Master of Divinity degree from Saint Tikhon’s Seminary in 1993, after which he was appointed Instructor in Old Testament and subsequently Senior Lecturer in Old Testament, teaching Master level courses in the Prophets and the Psalms and Wisdom Literature. He also served as an Instructor in the seminary’s Extension Studies program, offering courses in the lives of the Old Testament saints, the liturgical use of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament in patristic literature. He collaborated with Igumen Alexander `Golitzin`— now Bishop of Toledo and the Bulgarian Diocese of the Orthodox Church in America—in the publication of “The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain” by Saint Tikhon’s Seminary Press. In 1995, he was tonsured to the Lesser Schema with the name Tikhon, in honor of Saint Patriarch Tikhon, Enlightener of North America. Later that year, he was ordained to the Holy Diaconate and Holy Priesthood at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery. In 1998 he was elevated to the rank of Igumen, and in 2000, to the rank of Archimandrite. In December 2002, he was named Deputy Abbot of Saint Tikhon’s Monastery. Two years later—on February 14, 2004—he was consecrated to the episcopacy at Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk Monastery Church. On May 9, 2012, he was elevated to the dignity of Archbishop. On November 13, 2012, Archbishop Tikhon was elected Primate of the Orthodox Church in America at the 17th All-American Council in Parma, OH.
His Grace, Bishop Vasily, of San Francisco and the Diocese of the West
Bishop Vasily was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1977 in a family of a Russian and Ukrainian origin. His family was initially non-religious, but the influence of his parents and grandparents helped to cultivate respect for historical and religious traditions. At the age of 14, Vitaly was baptized into the Orthodox Christian Church in the Dormition basement chapel of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Riga, together with his father and his sister. By 1995-96 he was a regular churchgoer in Riga, attending Holy Ascension Latvian Orthodox parish.
Vitaly graduated from the Pushkin Lyceum in Riga in 1995, and studied at the Latvian Academy of Culture, majoring in Russian Culture, graduating in 1999. In late 1999 he entered the USA to be reunited with his family in Dallas, TX, and to study theology at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. He began his studies at St. Vladimir’s in 2001, graduating with an M.Div. in 2004, after which he was accepted into the Ph.D. program in theology (specializing in liturgical studies) at the University of Notre Dame.
From 2011 to 2020, Vitaly Permiakov served on the faculty of Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville, NY. In 2020, Dr. Permiakov accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Liturgical Theology at St. Vladimir’s, where he taught courses in liturgics, liturgy of initiation, and advanced seminars.
In 2021, with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, Dr. Permiakov petitioned to be ordained to the holy diaconate. He was ordained subdeacon on March 25, 2021, by Bishop Andrei of Cleveland, and to the holy diaconate on September 14, 2021, by Metropolitan Tikhon. Dn. Vitaly continued to serve as chapel ecclesiarch and seminary deacon, and was awarded the right to wear double orarion in May 2023.
Dn. Vitaly was ordained to the holy priesthood on September 14, 2024, by Metropolitan Tikhon, and was assigned to Three Hierarchs Chapel. On January 17, 2025, he was tonsured in monasticism at St Tikhon of Zadonsk Monastery and given the name Vasily. On Lazarus Saturday 2025, following the decision of the Holy Synod, Bp. Vasily was elevated to the dignity of archimandrite.
Over the last couple of years, in a discernment process led by His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, and His Eminence, Archbishop Benjamin, Bp. Vasily was introduced to the Diocese of the West by giving retreats, serving in parishes, and visiting clergy and faithful. In April 2025, the Diocesan Council unanimously voted to encourage that Bp. Vasily be nominated for this high office. On July 16, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona, a nominating assembly chose then Fr. Archimandrite Vasily for the See of San Francisco and the Diocese of the West. That same evening, the Holy Synod of Bishops elected Bishop Vasily, and his episcopal ordination was on August 16, 2025 at the diocesan cathedral of the Holy Trinity in San Francisco.
Rev. Fr. Nicholas Johnson
Acting Rector of St Herman Orthodox Church
Priest Nicholas Johnson was born and raised in Southeastern Colorado and moved to Michigan with his family as a teenager. It was there that he met his future wife, Mat. Rachel, and they were married in 2006.
He was raised in a pious Protestant family, and as a youth had dedicated himself to a life of service to Jesus Christ. Two years after they were married, they moved to Colorado Springs in 2011 to work as missionaries with an international Evangelical Organization headquartered there where Priest Nicholas served in their IT Department.
After their move, they had children, and began earnestly seeking for the true, historical Church that Christ had established, and in that search, they found the Orthodox Church. They were received into the Church in 2019, and in 2022, Fr. Nicholas was soon sent to seminary at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, PA.
Upon completion of his studies in the Spring of 2025, His Beatitude, the Most blessed Tikhon, and His Eminence, Archbishop Benjamin, saw it fit to return Fr. Nicholas to Colorado and serve the parish of St. Herman Orthodox Christian Church.
LAY LEADERSHIP
PARISH COUNCIL
The Rev. Fr. Nicholas Johnson, President and Rector
Matthew Leising, VP and Lay Leader
Grant Mather, Secretary
Rdr Gregory Marshall, Controller