On Friday, January 17, the Assistant Professor of Liturgical Theology at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS), The Rev. Hieromonk Vasily (Vitaly Permiakov), was tonsured to the small schema at St Tikhon of Zadonsk Monastery (South Canaan, PA), by the Abbot of St Tikhon’s monastery, Archimandrite Sergius. A number of Fr Vasily’s fellow faculty members and his students attended the service in prayerful support of the beloved seminary professor. Interim President and Academic Dean, Dr Ionuț-Alexandru Tudorie remarked, “Fr Vasily is not only a very high caliber academic and teacher, he is a deeply prayerful and faithful person. All of his faculty colleagues, myself included, and—I am sure—the whole St Vladimir’s community will continue to pray for him in this new rank and responsibility within the Church. May he be saved in the angelic schema!”
About the Rev. Hieromonk Vasily
Born to a Russian family in Riga, Latvia, the Rev. Hieromonk Vasily (Vitaly Permiakov), Ph.D. relocated to the United States in 1999 after completing his undergraduate studies. He entered St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) in Yonkers, NY with the blessing of late Archbishop Dmitri (Royster) of Dallas (OCA) (d. 2011). After finishing seminary, Fr Vasily enrolled in a doctoral program in Liturgical Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where in 2012 he defended his dissertation on the history and origins of the Byzantine rite for the consecration of churches. Fr Vasily taught at Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary (Jordanville, NY) from 2011 to 2020, and joined the full-time faculty at St Vladimir's Seminary in August 2020.
Fr Vasily was tonsured to the ecclesiastical rank of reader in the Orthodox Church in America at Three Hierarchs Chapel, St Vladimir’s Seminary, in 2002. In 2021, on the Feast of the Annunciation, he was ordained subdeacon, also at Three Hierarchs Chapel. On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, September 14, 2021, again at the Seminary chapel, he was ordained to the holy diaconate through the hand of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon. Three years later, His Beatitude ordained Fr Vasily to the priesthood on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, September 14, 2024, at Three Hierarchs Chapel. On January 17, 2025, he was tonsured to the small schema at St Tikhon of Zadonsk Monastery (South Canaan, PA) with the name Vasily.
