CHRISTIAN HOSPITALITY: LIVING IMAGES OF CHRIST
Presented by Paul Finley
Director, St. Herman House of Hospitality
FOCUS Center, Cleveland, OH
H. Paul Finley was raised in Oklahoma and is the son of a Southern Baptist Preacher. He has been a Chrismated member of the Holy Orthodox Church for 26 years. Paul converted to Orthodoxy in 1987 with the more than 2,000 members of the Evangelical Orthodox Church which was received by His Eminence, Metropolitan PHILIP, and the Antiochian Archdiocese.
Paul has served the Church in a variety of capacities. As a priest, he served in Franklin, Tennessee; as Camp Director for the Antiochian Village Camp; and as the founding priest of St. Andrew Church in Riverside, CA.
In 1998 Paul returned to Tennessee and secular vocation, continuing to serve the Church in teaching the high school age church school class, directing Teen SOYO in the parish, and becoming the founding Camp Director of Camp St. Thekla, the Antiochian Youth Camp which serves the Diocese of Miami and the Southeast.
In 2006 Paul was appointed Executive Director of the Antiochian Village Heritage and Learning Center at Antiochian Village. After six years of faithful service, Paul has returned to a more pastoral position as the Local Director of FOCUS Cleveland’s St. Herman Orthodox House of Hospitality. St. Herman House is a ministry which provides food, clothing, and shelter to urban Cleveland’s homeless and needy poor.
Paul holds a Bachelor’s degree from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Sacred Theology from St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology in Santa Barbara, California, the former seminary of the Evangelical Orthodox Church.
Paul and his wife, Deborah, together have five children, three of whom are married, and four grandchildren.