(OSV News) — The Melkite Catholic Eparchy of Newton, Massachusetts, led by Bishop François E. Beyrouti, encompasses the entire U.S.
Working with Vianney Vocations, the eparchy plans to launch its “Called By Name” campaign, inviting parishioners to submit the names of potential candidates for vocational discernment.
During the Melkite Divine Liturgy, the priest, deacons, subdeacons and readers all have important roles — and each is an important vocation within the Melkite Catholic Church.
The eparchy’s vocations team is “working together to create a culture of vocations which is a culture of service,” Father Elias Dorham, vocations director for the Eparchy of Newton and pastor of St. John Chrysostom Melkite Catholic Parish in Atlanta, told OSV News. “Our philosophy is that vocations will arise organically out of a healthy parish community where there’s already an existing culture of service.”
“Bishop François likes to emphasize that priests and deacons are there to serve, that they should be men of communion who first and foremost serve others,” Sam Alzheimer told OSV News. As founder and president of Vianney Vocations, Alzheimer helps the eparchy’s vocations team with strategy and communications.
The Melkite Catholic Church has a tradition of minor orders: readers and subdeacons. In the Latin Catholic Church, the closest equivalent to these ministries would be the lay ministries of the instituted lector and instituted acolyte, which St. Paul VI suggested in 1973 also could be named “subdeacon” if episcopal conferences so chose.
Discerning different vocations
The Melkite Eparchy’s “Called By Name” program is tailored to include the discernment of these vocations, creating pools of candidates for each vocation leading into the others.
For example, readers are responsible for preparing the Divine Liturgy, consulting multiple sources regarding the saint of the day, tone of the week, fasts and feasts, Marian hymns and many other considerations. Preparing for one liturgy may take anywhere from a few minutes to almost an hour. During the liturgy, a reader leads the congregation in song and may read the Epistle.
“An appropriately trained layperson may be permitted to perform some of the same duties of a reader or subdeacon,” explained Father Elias in an email. “That said, readers and subdeacons are set aside to serve the church in a particular way. The orders of reader and subdeacon can only be conferred by the bishop, and are part of the minor orders. Those tonsured as readers or blessed as subdeacons are considered to be part of the clergy.”
Joseph Pharo has been serving St. George’s Melkite Catholic Parish in Birmingham, Alabama, as a tonsured reader since 1988.
“It has been a blessing to serve my parish in the capacity that I serve it in,” he told OSV News. Although some parishioners have encouraged him to pursue the diaconate or the priesthood, Pharo said that “being a reader is a ministry all its own.”
Pharo emphasized that he does not sing alone.
“Liturgy is the work of the people and it’s my job to see to it that the people do their work,” he said. According to Pharo, that work is to participate in the liturgy with all one’s senses — and especially to “sing praises to the Lord.”
The process of the diaconate
For Pharo, being a reader is his vocation. For others, like Subdeacon Riley Winstead, the minor orders are a natural progression of formation looking toward the diaconate and eventually the priesthood.
Subdeacon Winstead felt the call to discern the priesthood when he was in high school, but wasn’t sure if the Lord was calling him to celibacy. As a young adult, he began to attend Melkite Catholic liturgies. “I felt like I’d come home,” he told OSV News.
He attended the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Pittsburgh, and while studying in Pittsburgh, he sometimes visited Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Parish. There he met Emily Smith — now Emily Winstead, his wife.
While at the seminary, he was tonsured a reader in fall 2019, and was blessed as a subdeacon in August 2021. He graduated from the seminary in 2022, and was crowned in marriage — the Melkite marriage celebration is called the “mystery of crowning” — in August 2023 and works full time as a chaplain at a Catholic hospital in Birmingham.
For now, he is still serving as a subdeacon at St. George’s Melkite Catholic Parish. “We’re kind of in that holding pattern as we settle in, as we prepare and we grow,” he said. “When it’s time the diaconate will come and when it’s time, priesthood will come.”
A married priest
“Married deacons may be invited to discern the call to priestly ministry by the bishop,” explained Father Dorham via email.
Like a deacon’s wife, a priest’s wife has to “share” her husband with the church. “He had to get my permission,” laughed Khouriyeh Sylvia Dorham, wife of Father Dorham. The wife of a Melkite priest carries the title “khouriyeh.”
“God was preparing me because in the military, the needs of the military come before anything else,” she told OSV News. “I was already kind of used to sharing.”
Although the Dorhams weren’t originally considering the priesthood (they married in the Latin Catholic Church), “it was very clear that God wanted him in the church’s service,” said Khouriyeh Dorham. “We just didn’t know how that was going to play out.”
Two years into their marriage, they began attending a Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic church. The Byzantine priest suggested that now-Father Dorham consider the married priesthood, but the Dorhams didn’t take this comment very seriously, as the future priest was in the Navy.
But in 2008, he left the Navy and started working in information technology and counseling/coaching. They began attending a Melkite Catholic church in Northern Virginia.
Seeing married men on the altar, the vocational call that had been “simmering” in the background reignited. Father Dorham started chanting, then became tonsured as a reader, then blessed as a subdeacon. He attended deacon training “camp” for four years, was ordained a deacon in 2019 and ordained to the priesthood in August 2020.
Married priests typically work jobs to provide for their families. A married priest collaborates with the bishop to find a placement that works well with his family’s income and expenses so the family’s needs can be met.
The role of the wife
Being a khouriyeh isn’t an “official” role within the church, but there are many ways a priest’s family ministers with him. For example, Khouriyeh Dorham felt unprepared for when people came to the rectory asking for money.
“We later had a ‘khouriyeh call’ on this topic!” she wrote to OSV News via email. The “khouriyeh call” is a monthly video chat where priest’s (and deacon’s) wives across the eparchy get together and discuss important topics. “One of the ladies (on the call) was the wife of a priest in an inner-city parish, and she was able to give us some very practical information about how to help without creating dependence.”
Khouriyeh Dorham’s advice for women whose husbands are discerning the priesthood: “Work on yourself,” she said, “becoming established and rooted with a good set of friends, a good network, family support in whatever way you need it.” From there, she said, a priest’s wife should serve from her own strengths. For example, Khouriyeh Dorham doesn’t cook well but she cleans well — so she does a lot of cleaning at church.
Most importantly, she said, “You are sufficient. God has made you and created you in a way and prepared you in a way that you have what is needed. You’re not too little and you’re not too much. You are sufficient, and God will fill in everything else if you let him.”
In addition to being Father Dorham’s wife, Khouriyeh Dorham is co-president of the National Association of Melkite Women, who support vocation efforts through prayer and fundraising. For example, some of their recent fundraising went to Vianney Vocations to fund the vocations program.
Khouriyeh Jocelyn Abyad is the other co-president of the association. She is the wife of Father Zyad Abyad, assistant pastor of St. John of the Desert Melkite Catholic Parish in Phoenix. Khouriyeh Abyad grew up Roman Catholic and married into the Melkite Catholic Church. Her husband is Palestinian and Melkite by heritage; he is the first member of his family born in the U.S.
Khouriyeh Abyad shared with OSV News some wisdom passed on to her by the wives of two other priest’s wives — one Ukrainian, one Byzantine: “to not cling to the day and to really live our Catholic faith that holidays are seasons.” As a result of her husband’s priesthood, holidays are kind of like “work” days, with specific time commitments for Father Abyad. He also works a “day job” as an aerospace engineer.
Many blessings come from her husband’s priestly vocation too. “He was able to baptize our youngest daughter!” Khouriyeh Abyad wrote in an email.
Khouriyeh Abyad’s eldest daughter, Grace, had been serving as a cantor, whose responsibilities are similar to that of a reader. Before Father Abyad’s ordination, Bishop Nicholas Samra, then bishop of the Newton eparchy, contacted them saying he wanted to bless Grace as a cantor during her father’s ordination. Rather than thinking too much about the theology of this decision, Khouriyeh Abyad said their family is “just living it.” Grace will not be blessed as a subdeacon, a role reserved for men. Being a cantor “is a valid role within the church,” her mother said.
