Greetings! All glory to Jesus Christ, Savior and Victor. Christ knows and loves you. May we follow Him and love our neighbour as Christ loves us. I am Father Patrick McLean, priest of Saint Silouan Orthodox Mission and my wife is Matushka Donna. We have been married since 1976, have four grown children and fifteen grandchildren. We have recently been blessed by Archbishop Irenee of the Orthodox Church in America and the Archdiocese of Canada to begin a mission church for the Lethbridge area. All are welcome. Come and see. Your questions are welcome and all services are in English. 

      I have not always been an Orthodox Christian. Growing up in the States, I learned the basics of the faith from a nun in the basement of a Polish Catholic Church in Tacoma, Washington Sate. I remember in first and second grades walking alone to Pre-Vatican II Latin mass, a considerable distance, in often rainy, Pacific Northwest storms. Once I was bit by a dog, on another day beat up by a bully.   In spite of this I have fond recollections of serving pretend Catholic services for my siblings, talking to Jesus and sensing his presence in my heart. I learned the Nicene creed, the Lord’s prayer and many other good things. 

      As I grew older, I began to value scientific thinking. I lost the sense of Christ’s presence. I could only believe in what I could touch and see. Becoming proud of my reasoning ability, I began to describe myself as an atheist or agnostic and considered believers as rather foolish.  I wanted to be a scientist. However, I still wondered if there was a God, a creator. The search for truth and reality was still a part of who I was. Reason alone was too weak to answer questions concerning God and eternity. 

      In High school little had changed until I was invited by a friend to attend a Young Life meeting sponsored at school by Campus Crusade for Christ. I decided to go and see why these seemingly intelligent people believed in such foolish things such as a man walking on water or rising from the dead. They gave me a pamphlet called The Four Spiritual Laws. I was told to pray the prayer inside and I would be saved. I did this in front of a Catholic crucifix that had a concealed space for holy water. It was a relic of my “foolish” hearted days.  For some reason, even in my agnostic period, I kept it. Well, I did this and nothing happened. In frustration, I threw the pamphlet to the ground and said, “God, I did what they told me to do and I know no more than before. If you exist. you are going to have to take the next step.” 

     After three days of darkness, God took that step. I was invited to a birthday party by my Christian friends and we ended it with a prayer circle, holding hands and literally singing “Kim by ya”. At some point of that prayer meeting on Dec. 3Rd 1971,  God reached me and in seconds I went from being a nonbeliever to a believer. Inexplicably, somehow I knew that God was saying to me, “I am here, I know you and I love you, follow me”. Later, Orthodoxy gave me words to describe what I had experienced. First of all, God acts when he chooses to, not on my schedule or according to my dictates. But he desires all to be saved. If we are open, He will reveal Himself. Secondly,  He spoke to me not primarily through my reasoning but through my nous. In Orthodox anthropology, man has a soul and the soul of the soul is called the nous. It is a sixth sense. Sometimes it is referred to as the heart. God connects with us through the nous. When it is clouded by sin, God’s uncreated light struggles to shine through to enlighten us. Orthodoxy gives us a way of living that lets Christ light shine through the darkness that we place ourself in. To the amazement of those around me I just kept saying, “I don’t know how, but I know, that I know, that I know. 

     A search for the right church followed. I explored the Catholic Church of my childhood, a couple of baptists churches and even Mormonism and others. But I became most involved in the Evangelical, Charismatic movement because of the emphasis on the experience of the Holy Spirit. Orthodoxy also points us to the goal of acquiring the Holy Spirit. Read the Life and teachings of the much loved Russian Saint Seraphim. However, in my opinion, the rather historically recent Charismatic and Pentecostal movement, contained a good amount of zeal, which I shared, yet lacked in the wisdom of the previous many centuries of recorded activity and revelation in the Church since the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Many Christian assemblies may have some of this but Orthodoxy has preserved this revelation of the Holy Spirit as a deposit passed on from the Apostles to each subsequent generation. We call this the Tradition of the Holy Spirit. Living it acquires a life time but everything is there! 

     After a while, I sensed that God may be calling me to the ministry but I had no clarity as to which church I would serve. I had no concept of there being one true visible Church. However, a former Baptist youth minister of mine had gone to a Lutheran Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. I considered this direction, became a Lutheran, finished up my Bachelor degree and quit a job I had been in for fifteen years. My wife and I set off with our four kids on an adventure to seminary, in Iowa, on the banks of the Mississippi River. This was in 1988. After four years, one spent in South Dakota as an internship, I completed a Master of Divinity. It was announced that western Canada was in need of pastors so I made the decision to come to rural Saskatchewan, also serving in Alberta. It was a largely good experience,  accompanying congregation members in their combines and enjoying small town, salt of the earth people and agricultural life. 

     So, how did I end up in the Orthodox Church? Well, as a Lutheran pastor, I was interested in learning more about contemplative pray, or as Orthodox call it, the prayer of silence, or hesychasm. I wanted to spend time just being with God in prayer, enjoying communion with Him. I assessed that Anglicanism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy had a richer tradition of this experience than what I found in Lutheranism. I was familiar with Anglicanism, my Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada was in communion with them. And I grew up Catholic. But Orthodoxy was rather unknown to me. I saw a liturgy on TV once and I judged them as highly formal, going through the ritualistic motions but seemingly not very spiritual. When I began to read books on Orthodoxy and attend services, it became clear to me that I had largely judged wrongly, from ignorance. 

     By the time I finished Timothy Ware’s book, The Orthodox Way, I was sold. This was the church I had been looking for but did not know existed.  What I saw was a rich tradition of the work of the Holy Spirit that extended over almost 2000 years as expounded by the saints, church fathers and liturgical roots from apostolic times. Here I found spiritual guidance that was truly fruitful in the pursuit of Christ likeness. Yes, the church was effected by fallen men but some how the treasure of the kingdom was present like a pearl of great price, somewhat buried in a dirt lot, for which I was ready to sell all to gain. 

      If any church could claim to be the true Church, this was it. I appreciated its apostolic roots, it’s aim of discerning God’s will through consensus, it’s sound unchanging theology, the importance of good order in life and worship and the presence of the Holy Spirit that stirred a zeal with in me together with the wisdom of spiritual direction. This was a Church that did not change quickly with  every passing preacher, fad or book but had a foundation of scripture, enlightened by a history of truly holy and godly men and women. It’s most honoured person, outside of Christ, was a woman, His mother. And the icons drew me into fellowship with the ones depicted. I was only a beginner and the inexhaustible depths of Orthodox teaching and Spirit leaves me even today, after nineteen years, feeling still as a beginner. 

     So, after ten years of exploring Orthodoxy, I took the step that cost me my job, and after about a year of Catechism, I was received at St. Peter the Aleut in Calgary. I had expected that it would be a natural step to become a priest but I never made the move and instead was a truck driver for about fifteen years from which I retired in 2019.  Having been a member in several jurisdictions:  the Orthodox Church in America, the Antiochian Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Canada and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, a richness of experience has been acquired. I consider each of these as the one and same church in which I was made a member and I share with Christ the desire and prayer for its uncompromising unity.  I am thankful how God has used these various jurisdictions in the development of the mind (phronema) of the church, which is the mind of Christ, a goal I have yet to achieve.  (My contact info. Is 7809967343) 

     I have also continued my Orthodox formation by attending occasional classes in the past at the St. Vladimir Institute in Saskatoon with such excellent teachers as Father Hopko and Father John Behr. In the last three years I have been enrolled at the ROCOR’s Holy Trinity Seminary, working through its correspondence program. I continue learning and have been under excellent spiritual direction all my time in Orthodoxy. 

      More recently, I have returned to the Orthodox Church in America, which formed my Orthodox roots.  I became a member of St. Aidens in Cranbrook, BC, a church for which I have great respect. My Godfather, now priest, is its rector. 

      Most of my life I was active in outdoor sports like running, hiking and climbing, so I have been active at the University of Lethbridge gym, plus, being a senior, I have been auditing classes for free and enjoying conversations with the students. This evolved into a desire to be a chaplain at the University. I petitioned my Archbishop for a letter of recommendation for the position as a layman. He said, no, he would rather I be a chaplain as a priest and added to that the work of establishing a mission in the area. I accepted his call and was ordained as a priest in May of 2025.  That ended my much enjoyed retirement. Apparently, I will be busy now in ministry and the contemplation of Christ’s love, as a priest, until Christ comes for me. Through your prayers, may I be counted worthy, by His will and grace. 

     I will keep you updated on coming services and events of the newly established St. Silouan mission. I am very pleased with the saint name that his Eminence assigned the mission. For a number of years now it has been my saying that if I were to be imprisoned and could have only two books, it would be the Bible and the book by St. Sophrony entitled St. Silouan. May we show that we are indeed Christians by following Christ’s commandment to love our enemies. St. Silouan said that this is the defining nature of all who would claim the title, Christian. 

     This has been a long biography but I have been on a long journey at age seventy and apparently it’s not over. Thank you for your patience and forgiveness. Grace, peace, hope and joy be with you all. Father Patrick.