The Rev. Martie Johnson Jr. has taken over as the pastor of St. Anthony Antiochian Orthodox Church, 400 S. Sixth Ave.

He replaces the Rev. Bogdan Bucur, who left to become a professor at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y.

“He'll be training the priests for the next 30 years,” said Johnson, who began his duties at St. Anthony Aug. 1.

Johnson is a retired Navy chaplain with 22 years of military service that included deployments to Afghanistan, Africa, twice to Iraq, and two deployments to sea.

“I converted to Orthodoxy on my way out of the Navy,” said Johnson, who previously belonged to the General Church of the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian), an international church based in Bryn Athyn and based on the Old Testament, the New Testament and the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg.

“The easiest way to say it,” said Johnson of his conversion. “I was having lunch in Iraq in 2006 with an Orthodox priest. We were talking about faith and doctrines as chaplains do.”

Johnson said he realized that 80 percent of what he believed in was represented by Orthodox doctrines.

“It sort of forced my hand,” he said. “I ran into the fact that what I believed in had enough in common with Orthodoxy.”

“The priest said, 'We've been around from the beginning and your church is from the 1700s,'” he said.

Johnson was ordained to the Holy Diaconate of the Holy Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of the United States in August 2018, having completed the St. Stephen's Program while on active duty in 2010.

Johnson said he is also a crisis counselor, suicide prevention and response instructor, and a facilitator for outpatient cognitive intervention. He also conducts premarital counseling.

He serves on the board of trustees of St. Tikhon Orthodox Theological Seminary. And he is the director of Student Life and Formation of the Antiochian House of Studies, an institution that teaches and trains students and those discerning ministry in the Orthodox Church.

Johnson said he and his wife, Melinda, an author who works for Ancient Faith Ministries in marketing and development, and their 14-year-old daughter, Majesta, moved to Gibsonia from Seattle, but are looking for a home in Butler.

“Orthodoxy is the residue of faith left by Jesus. It's still based on the Apostles and those (who) followed them,” Johnson said.

The Orthodox doctrines, he said, are those that originated in the first through third centuries when Christianity was a persecuted religion.

“The Twelve Apostles had 70 followers, and they had a multitude of followers,” he said. “This is what the church builds onto, the written and oral traditions from the 12 that walked with Jesus in the beginning.”

This was the Christian church until the Greek East and the Latin West split over doctrinal disputes.

Today, an Ecumenical Patriarch in Turkey is the spiritual head of the Orthodox Church, which numbers more than 250 million members, two thirds of them in Russia.

Closer to home, Johnson said he was assigned to St. Anthony by the Antiochian Bishop Thomas (Joseph), who is an auxiliary bishop of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, serving in the Diocese of Oakland, Charleston and the mid-Atlantic, based in Charleston, W.Va. It includes more than 30 churches and missions in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

St. Anthony was established in 1964 by a group of Syrians living in Butler.

All of the icons in the church were created by 92-year-old Dolores Sipos, who was a child when the church was established.

“I'm the only living member from the beginning,” said Sipos, who added she has completed 42 icons that adorn the church after attending painting seminars.

Today, the congregation numbers 45 members. The 10 a.m. Sunday service is limited to 25 people at a time because of social-distancing requirements, which include wearing masks and using hand sanitizer.

Georgia Thompson, a member of the church council and treasurer at St. Anthony, said most of the church members are converts to the faith “as opposed to cradle Orthodox, who are born into it. So many of our members have been getting younger; they're families with children.”

Johnson said pandemic restrictions have also forced the church to close off its ground floor and discontinue the potluck dinners, Saturday Bible studies and its outreach ministry.

“I hope we can return and gather fully on the bottom floor,” he said.

Johnson also travels to Knox in Clarion County to minister to a group of 50 Orthodox followers at least once a month as well as travels through Butler County to visit other Orthodox members.

Garrett Heath, one member of the Knox group, said Johnson comes to conduct Saturday vespers services and Bible study at a former Lutheran church.

“There are six families that are involved, roughly about 50 people,” Heath said.

Noting they came together out of necessity because the nearest Orthodox church is at least an hour away, Heath said they travel to St. Anthony on Sundays for church.

“They were welcoming and inviting,” he said.

Asked about his plans for St. Anthony, Johnson said, “I really want to enter into the church community of Butler, be part of how we are moving Butler forward. There is plenty of work to do and I want to plug in.”