Pastoral Care

Father Christopher V. Pyles

Deacon Alex Dyakiw

Father Pyles will begin his service to St. John’s in mid-November, and the parish is delighted to have him join us. We asked him to tell us a little bit about himself.

The Reverend Christopher V. Pyles is humbled and honored to have been called as rector of St. John’s Church in Bellefonte. He comes to St. John’s after serving for three and a half years as Associate Rector at St. Luke’s Church in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Prior to that, he served for two years as the Assistant to the Rector at the Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge.  Both parishes are in the Diocese of Pennsylvania.

At St. Luke’s and the Chapel, he had the opportunity to participate in all aspects of parish ministry, with particular emphasis on pastoral care and adult education.

Originally from suburban Washington, D.C., Father Chris was sponsored for ordination by the Church of St. Ignatius of Antioch on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and was ordained deacon and priest in 2005 by the Right Reverend Mark Sean Sisk, XV Bishop of New York, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  In May 2005, he graduated from the General Theological Seminary with an M.Div.  While a student there, he served for two years as seminarian assistant at the Church of St. Edward the Martyr – a bi-lingual, Anglo-Catholic parish in Manhattan’s Spanish Harlem section.  Until leaving the Diocese of New York, he was a representative of the Episcopal Church in the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogues, the appointment to which he received from the XIV Bishop of New York, the Right Reverend Richard Frank Grein, in 2000.

He is a priest associate of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and is a member of the Society of Mary.

Between college and seminary, he worked in the development office of his alma mater, Fordham University, from which he received a B.A. in Political Science in 1998.  Immediately prior to seminary, he worked as an editor at Matthew Bender, a legal publishing company owned by LexisNexis.

His parents are retired and live in a small town in southwestern Virginia.  His sister, her husband, and their one-year-old son live in Denver.  They are all excited to visit Bellefonte and to meet the people of St. John’s.

Father Chris is an armchair political prognosticator; a dog, train, and restaurant lover; a fan of the books of Alexander McCall Smith; and an ardent supporter of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Father Chris is eager to get to know everyone at St. John’s and to learn more about the parish.  He thanks everyone for their tireless work and true dedication during the interim period, including those who helped to prepare Canterbury House for his arrival.

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Secretary
Sara Witmer

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John Harwood