The Society of Jesus was my spiritual home for 24 years. 13 of those years were as a Jesuit missionary in Japan. Only after returning to the US and leaving the Jesuits to marry Denise Mason did I finally come into contact with Orthodoxy. It all started in my prayer closet in 1983 where it seemed the Holy Spirit put the word "Orthodoxy" into my consciousness. So, I started looking around for Orthodoxy, knowing very little about it at the time. Very soon I discovered the Evangelical Orthodox Church in Ben Lomond, California--Saints Peter & Paul. I pulled up stakes in Berkeley and in 1984 became part of an extraordinary movement - the EOC, along with Fr. Peter Gilquist and many others. I was received into the Antiochian Archdiocese by Metropolitan PHILIP and ordained priest on the Feast of St. Leo the Great (February 18, 1987). I took Pope St. Leo's name at Ordination hoping to be some sort of bridge between East and West. On Father's Day (June 16th, 1996) I was appointed Acting Rector of the St. Innocent of Alaska Orthodox Church.

Archpriest Leo Arrowsmith, Rector