Clergy & Staff

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Our Priest

Father Symeon Williams was born W. Samuel Williams in Richmond, Virginia, to Walter Guy Williams and Patricia Anne Miller. When he was young, his family joined a Baptist church where he was baptized and raised in a Christian home. After his junior year of high school, Sam visited the Greek Festival in Richmond where he first encountered the Orthodox Church during a tour of the Cathedral. This visit in 2004 began a fervent investigation and search of the Truth. That summer, Sam began attending the Liturgy at Ss. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral where he found the fulfillment of his faith in Christ. He was chrismated as a Greek Orthodox Christian on Holy Saturday in 2005 during his senior year of high school.

Sam attended James Madison University where he was active in Orthodox Christian Fellowship and took several mission trips with the support of his Church family. These trips and his involvement in OCF during college - along with studying in Egypt and taking a pilgrimage to the Holy Land - gave him a desire to further give his life to Christ by serving His Church. After graduating from JMU in 2009 and serving a year of volunteer work in Philadelphia, Sam enrolled at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. He graduated with a Master of Divinity in 2013.

After seminary, Sam served as a Pastoral Assistant and Youth Director at several churches in the Metropolis of New Jersey. He spent three years at St. Nicholas in Wyckoff, New Jersey, followed by six and a half years at St. Nicholas in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In February 2023, Sam began his service at his current parish of St. George in Piscataway, New Jersey, where he was ordained on October 21, 2023, to the Holy Diaconate. With the blessing of His Eminence, Metropolitan Apostolos of New Jersey, the new deacon received the name Symeon in honor of St. Symeon the God-Receiver who received Christ at the Temple in Jerusalem (Luke 2:22-35). Father Symeon was ordained to the Holy Priesthood on February 3, 2024, on the feast of St. Symeon, at Ss. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Richmond, Virginia.

Father Symeon celebrated his first Liturgy at Saint Sophia on Sunday June 16, 2024.

Church Office Manager

Elaine Piligian has been our Church Office Manager since November of 2006 and she is responsible for handling all the administrative tasks that keep the church running smoothly. A native Long Island girl, Elaine grew up attending St. Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Church in Greenlawn, NY. She was a medical secretary, working in both private physician practices and at a Queens, NY medical center. She has been married to her husband Aram since 1985, and in 1989 they came to Pennsylvania and raised three children -- Aram Christopher, Georgeanne and Thomas. Since coming to St. Sophia in 2006, Elaine has embraced her role of assisting Fr. Peter with day-to-day duties and even occasionally chanting for a weekday liturgy. She runs the Parish office, maintains the operation of the church and Cultural Center, and coordinates and schedules church sacraments. “My duties vary greatly day by day, but it is very important to me to create a friendly, welcoming atmosphere in the office while also maintaining a high level of integrity, confidentiality, and commitment as I carry out my duties.”