Los Angeles, January 23, 2023
Photo: dowoca.org His Grace Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald), the former Bishop of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the West of the Orthodox Church in America, reposed in the Lord yesterday morning, January 22, reports the Diocese of the West.
Bp. Tikhon was the ruling hierarch of the OCA Diocese of the West from 1987 to 2007.
May his memory be eternal!
***
The OCA’s Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco provides a bio of Bp. Tikhon from 1987:
Stephen Fitzgerald was born on November 14, 1932 in Detroit, Michigan. On December 18 of the same year he was baptized in the Lutheran Church. He attended St. Olaf College from 1952 to 1954, and graduated from Wayne State University, Detroit, in 1958. He served in the U.S. Army from 1954 to 1957. He was received into the Orthodox Church through Chrismation in September 1960, at the Lackland Air Force Base Chapel by Fr. Peter Zolnerovich. He re-enlisted in the U.S. Air Force as a commissioned officer from 1960 to 1965, and again from 1966 to 1971. In the academic year 1965-1966 he studied at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary.
Bishop Dmitri ordained him to the Holy Diaconate in December 1971 at St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral, Washington, D.C., after which he was transferred to Los Angeles in 1972, where he served at the Holy Virgin Mary Cathedral as Deacon, and then Protodeacon, until 1978. Bishop Gregory of Alaska ordained him to the Holy Priesthood in 1978 to continue serving the Cathedral as second priest; and he became the Rector of the Cathedral in December of 1979, maintaining that responsibility until his election as Bishop of San Francisco. The Holy Synod elevated him to the rank of Archpriest in 1982.
On the diocesan level he was a long-time member of the Diocesan Council, an alternate Diocesan delegate to the Metropolitan Council, and a member of the Diocesan Court of the Diocese of the West. He served as Dean of the Pacific Southwest Deanery from 1981 to 1984, following which he became the Diocesan Chancellor for two years.
After nomination as Bishop of San Francisco at the Extraordinary Diocesan Assembly held in San Francisco’s Holy Trinity Cathedral on March 12, 1987, Fr. Stephen was elected Bishop of San Francisco by the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America on March 17, 1987. On the eve of the Feast of the Annunciation he was tonsured a monk with the name of Tikhon at St. Tikhon’s Monastery, South Canaan, Pennsylvania, and elevated to the rank of Archimandrite on Lazarus Saturday at Christ the Savior Church in San Francisco by Bishop Job, the Temporary Administrator of the Diocese of the West.
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