By the grace of God, Dn. Gregory Hanson was ordained to the Holy Priesthood this winter at Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco—marking a first for St. Vladimir’s Seminary and the Orthodox Church in America’s Diocese of the West (DOW). Fr. Gregory is the first member to be ordained from the Priestly Formation Cohort, a pilot program developed by the Seminary and the DOW.
The Priestly Formation Cohort launched in January 2025 as a prototype program with the blessing of the Holy Synod of Bishops. It is a three-year course for carefully selected, theologically educated men from the Diocese. Candidates must be individually approved by the Holy Synod before being ordained to the Holy Priesthood. Fr. Gregory, a previous graduate of the OCA’s Diaconal Vocations Program, had been serving as a deacon when he entered the pilot program.
“His Grace Bishop Vasily and the Diocese of the West are firmly committed to residential formation at one of our Orthodox theological seminaries,” explained Archpriest Kirill Sokolov, Chancellor of the Diocese of the West and faculty member at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. “We currently have six seminarians each at St. Vladimir’s and St. Tikhon’s seminaries.
“This partnership in the Priestly Formation Cohort allows us to ‘tap’ potential priesthood candidates to fulfill pressing needs. The long-standing practice of the Orthodox Church in America invites those who have attended non-Orthodox seminaries to attend seminary for a special one-year program of study. In reality, this cohort model is intentionally not a short-cut but, truly, a longer experience of formation with the highest caliber of seminary instructors.”
Fr. Gregory Hanson is a California native. He was raised Evangelical Protestant, attended Fuller Seminary, and served in youth ministry with Youth For Christ. While at Fuller Seminary he was exposed to the writings of the Early Church Fathers and realized that what the Early Church taught and how it worshiped did not match the denomination he belonged to. So Fr. Gregory embarked on a journey to find the Church that Jesus Christ established, and was received into the Orthodox Church in 1998. He served as reader, then subdeacon, and was ordained to the Holy Diaconate in December 2024. He was ordained to the Holy Priesthood on Zacchaeus Sunday, January 25, 2026, by the hands of His Grace Bishop Vasily (Permiakov). He is assigned to Holy Trinity Cathedral as an associate priest and will benefit from direct mentoring from His Grace and Fr. Kirill.
Fr. Gregory and his wife, Matushka Hope, are parents of five adult children and five grandchildren.
May God grant the newly ordained Priest Gregory many years!
Photos: Holy Trinity Cathedral
