MEET OUR Pastor

V. Rev. Fr. Steven C. Salaris, M.Div., Ph.D.

I was born in Gary, Indiana. When I was four years old, my family moved to the small mountain town of Granby, Colorado where I lived until graduating from Middle Park Senior High School. I returned to Indiana to attend DePauw University and graduated with a B.A. in Biology. After that, I completed a Ph.D. in mammalian physiology from the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology at Purdue University. My doctoral research project involved studying the initiators of lipid peroxidation in liver tissue due to oxidative stress during reperfusion or following trauma.

After graduate school, I moved to St. Louis, Missouri to take a position as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Cardiology at Washington University School of Medicine.  For two years, I investigated ways to attenuate ischemia/reperfusion injury in the heart via the modulation of anaerobic glycolysis.  I also received an award for my work with minority students during my time there.  I also began teaching biology courses at various campuses in the St. Louis area.  That same year, I married Sheryl at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in St. Louis, MO. Later we moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where I taught biology at St. Joseph's University.

In 1997, as a result of a personal journey that began several years earlier, I began work on a Master of Divinity degree at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Christian Theological Seminary in Crestwood, NY. While in seminary, I continued teaching biology part-time at local colleges. My M.Div. thesis examined the eucharistic typology of Hannah's sacrifice in the Septuagint version of I Samuel 1:24. After graduating cum laude from seminary, I was ordained as a deacon and then, on July 9, 2000, I was ordained to the Holy Priesthood.

For the next five years, I served as the part-time pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Albany, NY while teaching at various colleges and universities such as the College of Mt. St. Vincent in Riverdale, NY and Concordia College in Bronxville, NY. I was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and I received an award for working with physically challenged students. In the summer of 2005, I “retired” from teaching in order to pursue full-time ministry and was assigned to be the first full-time priest of All Saints of North America Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church (a mission parish started in 2003) in St. Louis, Missouri. On June 6, 2010, I was elevated to the rank of Protopresbyter (Archpriest). 

I have one daughter, four cats, and a crested gecko.  I have numerous publications in both scientific and theological journals. My hobbies include studying theology (scriptural interpretation, liturgical theology, and the early Church Fathers are my favorite topics), science fiction (Doctor Who, the original Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Alien(s), etc.), music, reading, toy collecting, hiking, fossil hunting, painting, paleontology, and model railroading.