About himself

The Very Rev. Archpriest Michael Butler is a native Texan. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Master’s degree in theology from the University of Dallas, and a PhD in historical theology and Patristics from Fordham University in New York. He wrote his dissertation on the Christology of St Maximus the Confessor. He served for 6 years as a Deacon in Texas and in Michigan, and has been a Priest for over 17 years in Michigan and Ohio. He is currently pastor of St Innocent Orthodox Church (Orthodox Church in America) in Olmsted Falls, OH, a suburb of Cleveland.  He is an adjunct professor of theology at Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, OH. He served as the Diaconal Vocations Program Coordinator for his diocese and developed and taught a late vocations program that trains older men for ordained ministry. He is president of both the Greater Cleveland Council of Orthodox Clergy and the local ecumenical Ministerial Alliance. He is married to Annette, his wife of 27 years, and has two sons, Jeremy, a senior at the University of Toledo, and Christopher, who just graduated from Olmsted Falls High School.