Joseph William Black

I grew up in Anderson, SC and was privileged to attend Duke University and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. I was ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and served as a pastor to churches in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

I was accepted into the University of Cambridge (UK) where I completed my PhD in 17th century British history (with a focus on Richard Baxter) in 2000. I served as a missionary in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, teaching at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, and serving as the senior pastor of the International Evangelical Church, a 1600-member multicultural congregation. In 2008 I moved to Nairobi, Kenya, teaching theology at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology.

In 2011, after a 14-year process, I made the decision to convert to the Orthodox Church. I became an Orthodox missionary to Kenya in 2014 and have been a layperson teaching at the Makarios III Patriarchal Orthodox Seminary in Nairobi under the blessing of Archbishop Makarios of Nairobi and at St. Paul’s University in Limuru, where I have been a senior lecturer since 2011.