User:Geh8988

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My name is Edward Henderson. I was born February 11, 1978 and grew up in Fort Myers, Florida. I was raised in the Episcopal Church but while attending Bishop Verot Catholic High School, began to understand the nature of "the Church" in a different way. I was nearly about to join the Roman Catholic Church when an Episcopal Priest recommend I "check out" the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches. This led me to find Holy Theotokos Monastery in North Fort Myers, which was a small men's monastic community in the Greek Orthodox Old Calendar Church, under Metropolitan Paisios. Upon graduating from High School in 1996, I was baptized. That Fall, I began my studies at Florida State University, where I eventually decided to Major in Russian (finding Ancient Greek too difficult) and minor in French. In 1998, our Old Calendar sect reconciled with "Canonical" Orthodoxy and went under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. That year I also made my first trip to Russia. In 2000, I graduated from FSU with a Bachelors' Degree. I then began graduate school at the same university, but began my studies at Moscow State University in Russia. I ended up spending 2 years in Moscow and rather than return to FSU to complete my MA, I moved to London, England to study in a Russian Studies MA Program at University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies. There I wrote my MA thesis: "Disharmony and Reconciliation in the Films of Andrei Tarkovsky". After completing my MA Degree, I eventually ended up back in Moscow where I am currently living and have been so since August 2004. I now work for English First, where I teach Business English to various companies in Moscow. I attend Church services at the Valaam Monastery Representation Church (Podvorija), where I also sing in the choir. In November, I will probably return to America, but nothing is ever certain.