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The Very Rev Archimandrite Simeon Piers was the Second Warden of St Simeon's House in Oswaldkirk from 1973 to 1979. St Simeon's House had been founded in 1979 by a joint action of the Abbot of Ampleforth, Abbot Basil Hume, and of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh. The purpose of St Simeon's was to provide a House for Orthodox boys attending Ampleforth. The boys were a member of one of the normal school houses, but returned at night to the House in Oswaldkirk. The first Warden was Fr Basil Rodzianko - later to become Orthodox Bishop of San Francisco - who was Warden from 1969 to 1973.
Michael Pispiris was born on 23 June 1929 in Wimbledon of a Greek father and an Irish mother. He was baptised into the Greek Orthodox Church in 1929 in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Bayswater.
He was educated at St Joseph’s College Beulah Hill, London (De La Salle Brothers). After school, he did his National Service from 1947 to 1949, serving in Singapore and Hong Kong. He then attended Campion House, Osterley (a house for late vocations) to brush up his Latin. Still living in Wimbledon, he got to know the Jesuits and was able to study theology at their seminary in Chipping Norton from 1949 to 1953. In 1953 he joined the Metropolitan Police, driving a wireless car, and for six months he served as Coroner’s Officer. After nearly three years with the police, in 1956 he went to Strawberry Hill College, then part of the University of London [now part of the University of Surrey]. Gaining a teaching degree, he taught in a secondary modern school, moving to Saudi Arabia to continue teaching from 1962 to 1964. For seven years from 1964 to 1971 he taught in Jinja in Uganda, being head of religious studies in a school that included Anglicans, Catholics and Hindus. By this time he was working as a lay missionary of the Orthodox Church in Uganda, travelling by motor-bike. In this situation it was thought to be most appropriate if he was ordained, so in 1970 he was ordained as deacon in London by Archbishop Athenagoras. The regime of Idi Amin in Uganda was making it increasingly difficult for everyone in Uganda, and Asians were being expelled, but ultimately it was the British Foreign Office which no longer paid for the newly ordained to stay in his teaching post in Uganda. In 1971 he returned to England to teach at a Birmingham Comprehensive school, where he was Head of Religious Studies.
Between 1973 and 1979 he was at Ampleforth as Warden of the Orthodox House of St Symeon's in Oswaldkirk. By 1973, Fr Rodzianko, the first Warden from 1969 to 1973, was under pressure from the BBC to live in London - he and his wife Mary were working partly in Oswaldkirk and partly in London with the Russian Service of the BBC. So Simeon Piers [formerly Pispiris] came as the new Warden. In 1974 one Tuesday, he was rung and summoned to Paris to be ordained priest by Bishop Lawrence four days later.
By the late 1970s St Simeon's was no longer financially viable. The largeish subsidy from the school was not continued, and it was decided that only those already there would continue - there would be no new boys. In 1979 there were only four boys left, and the funding for these was not enough to sustain St Symeon's - the four boys transferred into the college Houses, and St Symeon's was closed.
From 1979 to 1999 Fr Simeon Piers ran a language school in Greece; because his father was a Greek, he is a Greek citizen. He continued to keep close contact with Ampleforth through Fr Vincent Wace (B33, died 2001) who on several occasions went with him on holiday, travelling around with him on his motor-bike. After a heart attack and serious illness, he returned to England in 1999, settling in Lichfield. He undertook a part-time ministry for the Orthodox Church, including chaplaincy work at Keele and Stafford Universities, as well as at a number of prisons in the area. By 2007, he was forced by the regulations on age to retire from these activities. He remained a regular visitor to Ampleforth and to some of the Ampleforth parishes.
In 2006, Fr Simeon was made an Archimandrite. This title, used primarily in the Orthodox Church, originally referred either to an arch-abbot whom a bishop appointed to supervise several "ordinary" abbots, or to the abbot of some especially great and important monastery. Today, the title is also used in a purely honorific way, with no connection to any actual monastery, bestowed on clergy as a mark of respect or gratitude for their services (this honour is only given to those priests who are monks — "monastics" — whereas married clergy may receive instead the title of "archpriest."). The term derives from Greek: the first element from αρχι archi- meaning "highest" or from archon "ruler"; and the second root from μανδρα mandra meaning "enclosure" or "pen" and denoting a "monastery" (compare the usage of "flock" for "congregation"). The title has been in common use since the fifth century.
In 2007, Fr Simeon arranged with Fr Prior [Fr Colin Battell] and Fr Alexander McCabe for two celebrations of the 1600th anniversary of the death of St John Chrysostom. In the Spring there was an Orthodox Liturgy in the monastic choir of Ampleforth Abbey to mark the end of week of prayer for Christian Unity and was celebrated by Archimandrite Simeon Piers. On 9 November 2007 there was a Conference at Ampleforth, which concluded with the celebration of a Pontifical Orthodox Liturgy in the Abbey Church by Bishop Basil of Amphipolis.
When he was in Uganda in the 1960s, Fr Simeon sponsored two boys, both of whom came to England.
celebration St John Chrysostom 10 Nov 2007
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