“I am a servant of Christ, my God, and trusting in Him, I have come among you voluntarily, to bear witness concerning the Truth.” - St. George the Great Martyr & Trophy-Bearer
Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
My name is Fr. Mykel (Michael) Giannakakos, and I am the Proistamenos (pastor) of St. George Orthodox Christian Mission in St. George, Utah.
Like my predecessor, Fr. Thomas Hernandez, I am a native Southern Californian and grew up attending St. Andrew Orthodox Christian Church in Riverside, California under the pastorage of Fr. Josiah Trenham. In 2018, after having been tonsured a Reader for over a year, I was blessed by the Metropolitan to attend St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York as an Archdiocesan seminarian.
Halfway through seminary I met my future wife, Presbytera Sarah, a native Coloradoan, while on vacation back in California for a friend’s wedding and we were engaged after seven months of dating. I graduated from St. Vladimir’s on May 15th, 2021, and my wife and I married two weeks later on May 30th. Over the next two years after my graduation, I worked for St. Nicholas Orthodox Christian Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan as their parish’s first full-time Youth Director.
On the final Wednesday night Presanctified Liturgy of Great Lent, April 5th, 2023, the Antiochian Archdiocese, under God’s providence, ordained me to the Diaconate and then just a week later to the Holy Priesthood at the Holy Thursday Intuition Divine Liturgy on April 13th. Metropolitan SABA Isper assigned me to St. George Mission only a few days afterwards and to begin pastoring the community at the beginning of July 2023.
Amid my ordinations taking place, just less than a week later after becoming a priest, my wife gave birth to our firstborn son, Ashton, who was baptized into the Orthodox Church in Michigan but has since been raised as a little Utahan boy.
My family is beyond blessed to be called as servants to the Orthodox Christian community in St. George and in the greater Southern Utah area. And we are equally blessed to be witnesses of the True God and His Apostolic Church to all those who have not yet encountered Holy Orthodoxy but are invited to “come and see” - Matthew 1:39
Through the prayers and inspiration of St. George, our patron and protector, I humbly and voluntarily have come forward, as a priest, to bear witness to the Truth who is Christ here in St. George, Utah.
May our Good God cause His face to shine on us and be merciful unto us.
- Fr. Mykel Giannakakos
Email: frmykel.stgeorge@gmail.com
Phone: (951) 345-3003