The Arena

Fr. Josiah B. Trenham is an Orthodox Christian priest, pastor, author and lecturer. He is the pastor of St. Andrew Orthodox Christian Church in Riverside, California, and an adjunct member of the faculty of St. Katherine College in Encinitas, Ca. He received his B.A. in Social Science/History from WestmontCollege (Santa Barbara, CA) in 1989 and his M.Div. in 1992 from Westminster Theological Seminary (Escondido, CA.) In 2004, Fr. Josiah received his Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Durham in England under the tutelage of the internationally renowned Orthodox Christian theologian and Professor of Patristics, Fr. Andrew Louth. His doctoral dissertation was entitled Marriage and Virginity According to St. John Chrysostom.  

Fr. Josiah was raised in the Presbyterian church and was licensed as a minister by the Presbyterian Church in America while still in seminary, and later became an ordained clergyman of the Reformed Episcopal Church. He was received into Holy Orthodoxy in 1993 and ordained to the Holy Priesthood by His Grace Bishop BASIL (Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America). From 1994 to 1996, Fr. Josiah served as an assistant pastor at St. Athanasius Orthodox Christian Church in Santa Barbara, California, where he also taught religion at Bishop Diego Garcia Catholic High School. In 1997 Fr. Josiah served as the resident priest at Project Mexico’s St. Innocent Orthodox Orphanage in Rosarito, Baja California, living in Mexico with his growing family.

In 1998, he became the pastor of St. Andrew Orthodox Christian Church, under the omophorion of His Grace Archbishop JOSEPH (Diocese of Los Angeles and the West). Father Josiah lives with his wife, Presbytera Catherine, and their nine children at the rectory in Riverside, CA. Fr. Josiah was elevated to Archpriest by His Grace Bishop JOSEPH in 2003. St. Andrew Orthodox Christian Church is a parish of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North American and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East.