In May of 2025, the Rev. Matthew Wiley graduated as class valedictorian from St. Vladimir’s Seminary. In the weeks following, Fr. Matthew was ordained to the priesthood and began preparing to serve as pastor of St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Urbana, IL.
Father Matthew offered a short reflection for the Antiochian Archdiocese website, in which he describes his journey from not expecting ordination to being assigned to a parish much sooner than he and his wife Khouria Christina had anticipated.
I have learned much in seminary, but my greatest lesson is to expect the unexpected; God provides, and not in ways we could ever envision. Now in parish ministry, I pray that God keeps me always open to His grace-filled providence, never placing limits based on my expectations. The work is challenging, but Khouria and I have received immeasurable blessings in opening ourselves to God in this new and unexpected life serving His people.
As I said in my valedictory speech last May, "We kick, and we scream, and God provides. We say we will not, but we do… and God provides. 'For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.' … Brothers and sisters, you are Christ's, and you are His prophets. Go forth, then, to Nineveh, to a hostile land. And what you have vowed, perform. And God will provide.
Read Fr. Matthew’s Full Reflection at Antiochian.org
Read Fr. Matthew’s Valedictory Address
Priest Matthew Wiley hails from Santa Barbara, CA. He earned an undergraduate degree in film at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and later worked as a technical writer for a software company. Earlier in life, Fr. Matthew practiced Orthodox Judaism. He eventually found himself drawn to Orthodox Christianity, partly due to an encounter with an elderly Orthodox Christian man at an airport. Fr. Matthew eventually decided to attend services at a nearby Orthodox parish, St. Athanasius Antiochian Orthodox Church in Goleta, CA, and discovered the elderly man he had met at the airport was a priest there! Fr. Matthew was baptized and received into Holy Orthodoxy at St. Athanasius in 2013. He married his wife, Khouria Christina, in 2024.
Top photo courtesy of Antiochian.org.
