Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America
Wichita Chancery, 1559 N. Woodlawn, Wichita, KS, 67208-2429
316-687-3169 (phone); 316-687-3327 (fax)
Welcome to the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America, part of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America. The Diocese of Wichita is led by His Grace Bishop BASIL and includes 51 churches and missions in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.
Click here for a directory of all the parishes in the Diocese of Wichita.
Click here to learn more about Bishop BASIL.
To contact Bishop BASIL electronically, email editor@antiochian.org with "Bishop BASIL" in the subject line.
Pan-Orthodox Town Hall Meeting at St. Elijah, Oklahoma City, OK
The evening of August 12th, 2010 will go down in history as another leap forward in the journey towards Orthodox unity in North America. Over a hundred clergy and lay people from seven Orthodox Churches in the greater Oklahoma City area came together to pray the Paraklesis service to the Mother of God, which was chanted by the teens of St. Elijah Church, followed by a Town Hall Meeting to discuss the future of Orthodoxy unity in America. This was the first such Town Hall Meeting to take place since the historic Episcopal Assembly.
The first part of the Town Hall Meeting was dedicated to watching the video of His Grace, Bishop BASIL’s address at the 2010 DOWAMA Parish Life Conference, hosted by St. Elijah, Oklahoma City. His Grace, who was elected at the Episcopal Assembly as Secretary, explained to all of the clergy and laity some of the progress that the fifty-five Hierarchs who met had accomplished, and the next steps in preparing North America to be united administratively.
Fr. Aidan Wilcoxson Interviewed by Austin Statesman
Fr. Aidan Wilcoxson of St. John the Forerunner Antiochian Orthodox Church of Cedar Park, TX, was interviewed recently by the Austin Statesman newspaper. The occasion was the publication of his reflection on Orthodox parish life, Aidan's Song: A Year in the Life of a Parish Priest, available from Conciliar Press.
What gave you the idea to write this book?
While there are a lot of spiritual memoirs being written these days, most of them are by people who are either dissatisfied with their particular spiritual tradition and on their way out the door, or they are sampling a number of different spiritual traditions to try and find out what’s right for them, or they are just maintaining an ironic distance from any and all spiritual traditions. I thought that a memoir written by someone who has fully embraced a particular tradition and is finding joy in it would be unique.
Upcoming Ordinations
Bishop Basil writes:
AXIOS! Subdeacon ames Kallail of St. Mary Church in Wichita, KS will be ordained to the holy diaconate at his home parish on Sunday, September 5th.
MOUSTAHIQ! Deacon Charles Baz of St. John the Baptist Church in Levittown, New York, former youth director at St. Elijah Church in Oklahoma City, OK and St. George Church in Houston, TX, will be ordained to the holy priesthood at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Brooklyn, NY on Sunday, September 26th.
MOUSTAHIQ! Deacon Michael Sakran, a DOWAMA vocation from St. George Church in Houston, TX who will graduate from St. Vladimir's Seminary next May, will be ordained to the holy priesthood at his home parish on Thursday, November 11th.
WORTHY! Subdeacon Michael Fulton, a DOWAMA vocation from St. Joseph Church in Houston, TX and a student at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA, will be ordained to the holy diaconate at St. George Church in Houston, TX on Friday, November 12th.
WORTHY! Fr. Antony Bahou of Ss. Constantine and Helen Church in Dallas, TX will be elevated to the dignity of Archpriest on Sunday, October 10th.
Memory Eternal! + Fr. Matthew MacKay
Your prayers are requested for the repose of the soul of Archpriest Matthew MacKay, 54, proistamenos of St. Joseph Church in Houston, TX, Dean of East Texas and member of the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America Council of Presbyters, who fell asleep in Christ yesterday morning, July 26th. Fr. Matthew is survived by his wife Khouriya Lynn and their sons Patrick and Sean.
His Grace Bishop Thomas writes:
It was with great shock and with sadness that I heard of the passing of Fr. Matthew. Fr. Matthew and I have been good friends since he was assigned to St. Joseph’s. For a good period of time, he heard my confession. He shared the altar with me at St. Joseph’s for many Fridays during Great Lent as we celebrated the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. We renewed this practice during this past Great Lenten period when I visited Houston and once again celebrated the Presanctified Liturgy with him on Friday morning.
Fr. Matthew was a priest who loved the holy Orthodox Church with his whole body and his whole soul. He celebrated the divine services diligently and with great joy. He loved God, and he loved the parishioners God gave him to minister to. I can remember many times when we visited together he talked about the concern that he had for the salvation of the parishioners of St. Joseph.
He was a man of great courage. He was not afraid to speak the truth, even if it meant that he would personally suffer because of it. The most important thing to him was that he did what God wanted him to do. In my humble opinion, he ministered faithfully and diligently, always seeking to do God’s will.
Antiochian and Greek Houston Parishes Co-Host Dynamic VBS
Susie Sobchak, St. George Orthodox Church Church School Director in Houston, Texas, reports on their successful VBS program:
Fr. Joseph Huneycutt as Joseph the Patriarch, with Alvaro Palencia & Bob Macey
St. George Orthodox Church in Houston, has been working with Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral to plan Vacation Bible School for the last ten years at least and possibly even longer than that. My first year helping out was when my daughters were four years old and they're fourteen now. Irene Cassis, their religious education director had worked with Gigi Baba, our then youth director (now Kh. Gigi Shadid) in the earlier years. I helped with the preschool grades early on.
About seven years ago, Irene and I started working together as co-directors. It has become a tradition between our two churches. This is a collaborative effort each summer. We take turns hosting between the churches. One year Annunciation picks up all the costs and hosts the program at their facility and the next year St. George hosts it at our church and pays for all the expenses. We pool our volunteers and invite all the Orthodox churches in our greater Houston area to assist and to participate. We even have our children invite their non-Orthodox friends to join us for the week and I'm happy to say we have some 'neighborhood' non-Orthodox that return each summer to attend and even move into leadership roles.
