Congratulations to Bishop-Elect, Fr. Archimandrite Melchisedek (Pleska).
According to various sources:
http://www.svots.edu/Alumni/Alumni_Web_News/2007-11-alumniwebnews/Thomas Pleska ('86) - From 1998 until 2003, Fr Melchisedek (Thomas Pleska) served as the Chaplain of Holy Cross Monastery in Thebes, Boeotia, Greece, and from 2003 until 2005 at the Monastery of St George the Great Martyr in Mavrommati/Mouzaki, Thessaly Greece. Since 2005, he has been in residence at Petras Monastery, Katafygion, Karditsa, where he serve as Chaplain. On September 8, 2004, he was tonsured to the Great Schema by Fr Dionysios, the Abbot and Elder of our Brotherhood at Petras Monastery, with the name of Melchisedek, and on December 18, 2004 was raised to the ranks of Archimandrite and Spiritual Father. In September of that year, he made his first visit to Constantinople to celebrate the induction with Patriarch Bartholomew, and later that month made the first of two visits to the Monastery of Bose, in Magnano, Italy where he participated in the annual Conference on Orthodox Spirituality, which is hosted there. Other travels have taken him to France and Slovenia. He has been able, in spite of open-heart surgery in January of 2005, to keep fairly active.
http://www.ocanews.org/news/Melchizedekelected11.16.08.htmlFr. Melchizedek, who is in his mid-sixties, has been a monk in a monastery in Greece for the past decade. A former parish priest in the OCA (known before his tonsure as Fr. Tom Pleska), Fr. Melchizedek is a graduate of St. Vladimir's Seminary and a former dogmatics instructor at St. Tikhon's Seminary who entered the priesthood following a career in business as an appraiser in his family's real estate firm in Beavercreek, Ohio. As there were no Orthodox parishes in southern Ohio during his youth, his family would often take the long train ride to Cleveland for Pascha - but their weekly spiritual home was in a local Lutheran congregation. Once an OCA mission opened in Cincinnati in the early 1970's Pleska was chrismated, and so began his journey to Crestwood, South Canaan, parishes throughout Eastern Pennsylvania and New England, Greece and now, it seems, back to the Midwest.
- Mark Stokoe
End of citation.
Best wishes to the Bishop-Elect in the leadership of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. May Holy Spirit help you, Fr. Melchisedek. Espolla Eti Despota!
More information about current OCA Hierarchs can be found here:
http://www.oca.org/HSindex.html?SID=7Now regarding Alaska. I have heard really good opinions about Fr. Hieromonk Yakov (Nicolai), who currently serves in Anchorage, AK. And those statements were coming from Alaska. But I never heard about him being approached or considered for this position.
