Our People

My name is Simon Scionka and my wife Ira and I have been at Holy Theophany Orthodox Church since December of 2003…

My wife Ira is from Russia and due to her god-fearing babushka, she was baptized in secret as a baby during the communist regime. Ira grew up in the Orthodox faith. My coming to Orthodoxy came much later in my life after time spent in Russia but then really discovering Orthodoxy here in America at Holy Theophany Church.

I grew up in a non-denominational Christian home. My parents were introduced to Christ and were baptized in Costa Rica when I was three years old and so I was brought up in the Christian faith. My dad is a godly man who raised me up to have a Christ-centered, biblical worldview and he taught me how to pray. I’m very thankful for this upbringing and it definitely set me on a good course in life.

While I was a young teenager I was very involved in my youth group. I got connected with a group of friends with whom I would remain deeply connected with and serve the Lord together with them. We pursued God and a life of ministry together. We did youth ministry and traveled to Russia to do orphan care ministry with a grouped called Children’s HopeChest. It was on my first trip to Russia in 1997 where I was first introduced to the Orthodox Church. I didn’t know anything about Orthodoxy but Children’s HopeChest taught us that the Orthodox Church was the Christian church of Russia and it should be respected. I found these Russian churches I visited to be fascinating yet I didn’t really grasp what was there. I thought the sounds we beautiful, the iconography was beautiful, but I certainly didn’t get it. It was interesting and I liked it, but it just wasn’t for me.

Back home in Dallas, Texas my Christian community and I eventually started our own church. We started a “youth church” for high school and college students and we lived and breathed that ministry for about 3 years. We were honestly searching for something bigger to be a part of but we just couldn’t find it so we tried to make it up on our own. We were learning about early church traditions so did things like burn incense, light candles and serve communion. Little did we know how we were actually reaching out for the traditions of the Orthodox Church.

At 21 I moved to Colorado Springs and pursued working in the video production industry. It was my first job outside of church work. I was kind of tired of church work in fact. I just didn’t want to do it anymore. In fact, I didn’t even go to church at all for quite awhile even though I never gave up on my faith. It was just “me and Jesus” and I thought I’d be happy that way. Well, I wasn’t. I knew there had to be more to life, faith and the church than just me and Jesus.

During my many trips to Russia I met and fell in love with Ira who worked for Children’s HopeChest as a translator. We met in 1999 and she has now been my wife since 2003. She grew up Orthodox in Russia and it was dear to her, but she didn’t necessarily have a solid formation of her faith and the traditions of the Church. When she first came to the States, I was visiting a non-denominational protestant church in town and she’d go with me. I thought it might be cool for us to go visit the Orthodox Church sometimes as well. We started visiting here at Holy Theophany and after a few weeks of hearing the services in English (I had previously only seen Orthodox services in Russian), I started to hear some things that I really responded to. Initially I had the misconception that Orthodoxy was about tradition and not scripture. Well, I heard scripture being read. In fact, I heard a lot of scripture being read at every service. I heard more scripture in one Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning than I had heard in months of services combined at previous churches I had attended! I loved the liturgy, the teachings, the focus on living a life of humility and of love; love of God, love of neighbor and even love of my enemies. Christ’s Gospel was proclaimed and Christ was the center of the worship, culminating with communion to partake of His holy body and blood. I was blown away by the richness and depth of what I experienced and began to learn.

One thing that our priest Father Anthony said to me early on was “come and see.” Just come and see the church. Hear the music, listen to the words, and participate in the worship. And so I did just that. And the more I came, the more it made sense and the more I embraced it, the more it began to change me, to bring me closer into a right relationship with Christ. After a few months I became a catechumen in the church. During my 6-month time as a catechumen, I went through an intro to Orthodoxy class with Fr. Anthony and then received holy Baptism into the Orthodox Church in September 2004. My wife Ira was along side me in this journey. She was learning with me and lovingly encouraging me the entire time. It has been great for us and for our marriage to be joined together in the same Church. We have truly found our home here.

I’m very grateful for my early years of faith. It introduced me to Christ and gave me a good foundation for my life. In the Orthodox Church, I discovered this rich heritage that I never knew existed before. Initially I had met Christ, but now in Orthodoxy I met the rest of His family, including His Mother. As well as I was introduced to the great cloud of witnesses who came before me; the great martyrs, the holy saints, the keepers of the Holy Tradition. In Orthodoxy I’ve discovered that there is more to my faith than just me and Jesus. I do have a personal relationship with Christ, but it’s not individualistic. It must be experienced within the context of the Church, that greater body of Christ. I have a biblical worldview, but my biblical interpretation does not come from what makes me feel good, by modern trends, by currently political issues, or by how I choose to interpret scripture. My biblical understanding comes through the framework of the Holy Tradition of the Church, which has been preserved and passed down throughout the ages.

I began to think back throughout the years and see how God had been tracking me down. The first year I went to Russia, the teacher I worked with gave me a little icon book of Mary, Christ and St. Nicolas. He told me to keep it for protection. I gave him a What Would Jesus Do bracelet back. Oh well. I still have that little icon and I carry it with me in my computer bag wherever I go. I bought an icon of Christ on my second trip because I thought it was cool. That icon is now in my icon corner at home where I pray. The first gift my wife gave me when we first met in 1999 was an Orthodox cross. It eventually became my baptismal cross and I wear it to this day. Years ago I bought the book “The Way of the Pilgrim” because it was a Russian classic. I had no idea of the true treasure of Orthodox spirituality that was in that book. There are countless things throughout the years where I can look back and see the slow work of God in my life to bring me closer to Him and into the fullness of His Church.

Glory to God for all things!

Wayne and Grace were brought into the Orthodox Church on Holy Saturday of 2011 after attending Holy Theophany for the previous year.

They have lived in Colorado Springs for their whole married life, from 2000 to the present, and have two girls, Miranda and Kitty. Wayne is an aerospace engineer and Grace homeschools the girls. They took diverse paths to the Orthodox Church, but both view the Church as the fulfillment of their earlier faith.

Wayne grew up in eastern Washington state and attended Washington State University, where he became an Evangelical Christian. He then joined the Air Force and ended up here in Colorado Springs. Grace took a more circuitous route here. Her family is originally of Palestinian origin (her parents are from Jerusalem) and she grew up in Lebanon and England before moving to the United States in the late 1970s. She attended the College of Notre Dame in northern California, majoring in English, before working on Muslim outreach for a mission in Germany and then at a newspaper back in the U.S. Grace was raised an Evangelical, but, given her family’s Middle Eastern origins, she was exposed to Orthodoxy from her youth.

Given Grace’s background, the Yennes’ conversion to Orthodoxy begins, in a way, with her youth; however, their adult journey to the Church began shortly after they were married. Before coming to Holy Theophany, they attended a Presbyterian church whose pastor had an appreciation for Eastern theology and they would also read some books on their own. In addition, they would try to plan what they call a “Family Field Trip” every few years to examine churches. Their specific journey, here, though, began in earnest during Holy Week of 2010. Wayne and their daughters were involved in a buddy basketball team with the Morrisons and Battersbys, and once he discovered the connection to Orthodoxy, he tried to find a time for their family to visit. Wayne says he still has the emails he traded with Jeff Morrison in which he stated his family wanted to come visit but they were “not looking to switch” churches. Their first service was Matins with Lamentations at the Tomb on Holy Friday evening. Wayne describes the experience as being disorienting, but he liked it, while Grace says she felt comfortable and “at home.” While the Yennes were not looking to switch churches, after that first service, they couldn’t stay away. Within a month or two, Wayne and Grace had decided they wanted to stay at Holy Theophany, become Orthodox, and raise their children here. In addition to the explanations of beliefs and their experiences of the Church, they give the human connection they feel here as a main attraction. The fellowship lunches, the time the people here spend to talk and laugh with each other, and the general feeling of interconnectedness are all hugely important. Grace explains that she feels we lack a sense of true connection here in the West, and Holy Theophany supplies that. They feel it so much that, once they had their first taste of life here, they had to stay, and they’ve been here ever since.

Nolan
I grew up in a Protestant household, with occasional visits to Catholic churches. During my teen years, as my family went to church less and less, I drifted toward agnosticism and eventually Eastern religions and New Age beliefs. Despite my explorations, however, I continued to feel lost and asked God for guidance—that prayer ultimately led me back to Christ. For a while, I believed I didn’t need the Church, only Christ Himself. When I realized I needed a church community and because all I knew was “Bible-believing” Protestantism, that’s where I returned. Not long after moving from Illinois to Colorado, I met Hannah and we began dating. We attended a non-denominational church for about a year and a half before I learned about Eastern Orthodoxy.

While listening to a podcast, I heard Orthodoxy mentioned—especially the claim that the Orthodox Church is the one true Church. That sparked great curiosity in me, so I started investigating. Eventually, I discovered Holy Theophany.

Right after Hannah and I got engaged, I attended a Vespers service. When I shared this with Hannah, she was confused and resistant to this change in beliefs. As a compromise, I began attending evening services alone while continuing Sunday services with Hannah. Over time, I questioned my Protestant assumptions and found myself drawn to the tradition, the mysticism, the theology—and above all, to a deeper relationship with Christ in the fullness of the faith. Still, I held fast to making the decision to become Orthodox together. After our wedding, Hannah underwent her own journey into Orthodoxy and we decided to both become catechumens in March of 2025.

Hannah
I grew in a wonderful Protestant family, with examples of genuine faith throughout my entire childhood. During college, my faith flourished but it was also greatly challenged when I suffered a rock climbing accident that almost claimed my life in 2019. From this accident, my faith sobered as much as it deepened in the years that followed. I graduated college and eventually moved to Colorado, where I met Nolan. There I was drawn back towards a more “liturgical” service, missing a depth and reverence for God. I attended a Presbyterian church for a few months before joining Nolan’s non-denominational church.

The first time I heard about Orthodoxy, and Nolan’s interest, was after we got engaged. Not knowing what to expect, I joined Nolan for his second Vespers service and was taken aback by how foreign and even “ritualistic” it presented. I struggled for a long time to process Nolan’s desire to submerse himself in Orthodoxy while I had such a different response. The timing of this exploration was almost as challenging as the journey itself. I was confused on the trajectory of our relationship. Furthermore, I especially grieved what I thought becoming Orthodox implied for my previous faith if there was so much more to truly loving and following Christ. These thoughts were ever present despite the increasing theological arguments I could not deny.

After our wedding, I agreed to start coming to Vespers services along with our non-denominational Sunday church. Through repeated conversations, prayer, classes, and services, I began to not just know the theological grounds for Orthodoxy, but experience Christ himself within it. Against my assumptions, I was met with Christ-like kindness and empathy, and perhaps more importantly, validated that my previous experiences were part of the journey towards Christ and His true Church.

Nolan and I became catechumens after I realized no time would be “right” and I was not surrendering to a set of doctrines or my own beliefs, but to Christ Himself. We were finally received into the Orthodox Church in October, 2025.

I was raised in a loving, intact home where devotion to a higher power was a daily rhythm, and moral clarity was expected of us. My parents passed down the spiritual traditions they had inherited, namely Hindusim and the Vedic sciences, and while this grounded me in a sense of reverence, I always had the feeling that something deeper was missing. As I grew older, I began to see the world around me as a place of opportunity, but also as a hostile landscape. The culture, the media and the corruption of all things made me feel isolated and I slipped into a form of survival mode, trying to go through the motions of life while seeking happiness and stability. I practiced what my parents taught me, but I lacked the deeper understanding of God and the world that I so longed for.

In time, the strain of it all began to catch up. I tried fighting my way through with anger and force as a teenager, and then drifted into a hedonistic resignation, and fell into darker places internally. Yet, I always had a longing for the truth. I started studying philosophy, psychology, aesthetics, consuming a lot of content looking for answers in the intellectual and mystical realms. I consider myself an intuitive person, but in time, I also realized that intuition was in fact a path and doorway toward the truth. I called myself a seeker of the truth or an examiner of the truth at the time and explored various new age practices, spirituality, even the occult. I began experiencing very real forms of spiritual darkness. It forced me to reconsider the path I was on and everything else.

During this time, my sister, a non‑denominational Protestant Christian and a constant rock in my life, would share verses from the Scriptures with me. I wanted nothing to do with it at first. But when I reached a place of deep distress, wrestling with PTSD, health issues, and the temptation to give up entirely, I had what I can only describe as my “come to Jesus” moment. In the midst of that darkness, I was rescued from the forces that had been dragging me down. I decided to give Christianity an honest chance.

I began reading theology, Christian history, patristic writings of the early Church, and that path led me to discovering Orthodoxy. After consuming as much as I could intellectually, and engaging in a cerebral exploration of faith, I finally stepped into my very first divine service (it was Vespers I believe followed by Liturgy the next morning), and I loved everything. I knew I was home! The devotion, the reverence, the beauty, and the clear understanding that this was how Christians had always worshipped.

I made it a point to ingratiate myself with the older faithful, those who had been Orthodox Christian longer than I’d been alive. Through their quiet wisdom and just interacting with this gem of a community, I have been gifted with what has shaped me in ways I never expected.

The Orthodox Church has given me everything. She has brought me to Christ more deeply than anything else ever could. She is, in truth, the Bride of Christ. This is real theology, a living, mystical body that cleanses and heals the soul. The Orthodox Church has become a place of rest and renewal for me as I sojourn through this world.