At St. Raphael School (SRS), students learn in a joyful Orthodox community from anywhere in the world. Because education is a friend to theosis, we support each student’s journey of transformation into the life of Christ. With small classes, faithful teachers, and a curriculum shaped by wisdom and wonder, your child can grow in both knowledge and virtue, firmly rooted in the Orthodox Christian tradition.
As a “school within a school” at Scholé Academy, SRS offers a rich array of integrated liberal arts classes for K–12 students. Our program also includes courses in the sacred liturgical arts and a variety of languages.
While our mission is distinctly Orthodox, we warmly welcome all families who desire to partake in our integrated, faith-centered liberal arts curriculum.
Our curriculum map shows how a St. Raphael School education unfolds from Kindergarten through 12th grade. It traces the integrated liberal arts and catechism levels, which run on a two-year rotation, alongside our rotating electives and the full tracks in Greek, Russian, liturgical chant, and iconography.
Print it and keep it close as you plan your family’s years of study.
St. Raphael School instructors are Orthodox Christians in good standing with their local parish. They bring deep credentials in theology, liturgy, the Church Fathers, classical languages, sacred arts, and the liberal arts. Many hold advanced degrees and bring years of teaching experience in both parish and academic settings.
Though during his lifetime he was neither a wonder-worker nor a clairvoyant elder, St. Raphael of Brooklyn embraced a life of total abandonment of self for the service of God and his fellow man: a life of true spiritual asceticism.
From his youth, Saint Raphael's greatest joy was to serve the Church. When he came to America, he found his people scattered abroad, and he called them to unity. He never neglected his flock, but traveled throughout America, Canada, and Mexico in search of them so that he might care for them.
He accomplished many good things during his earthly life, and now he joins the holy angels in offering ceaseless prayer and praise to God.
Information used with permission from the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.
St. Raphael School affirms the Nicene Creed as follows:
“I believe in one God, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not created, of one essence with the Father through Whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried; And He rose on the third day, according to the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father; And He will come again with glory to judge the living and dead. His kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Creator of life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke through the prophets.
In one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.
Amen.”
Fr. Noah Bushelli is the pastor of St. Philip parish in Souderton, PA, and chairman of the Antiochian Archdiocese Department of Homeschooling which operates St. Emmelia Ministries and Conferences. In keeping with Orthodox Christian theology and practice, he serves as the Spiritual Advisor for Saint Raphael School. Fr. Noah graduated from University of Alaska Anchorage with a BEd in 2000, and then he and his wife moved to St. Vladimir’s Seminary. He graduated with an MDiv in 2004. His thesis explored St. John Chrysostom’s notion of the Church as a spiritual hospital. After serving St. Nicholas in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for three years, they moved to St. Philip in Souderton, Pennsylvania, in 2006. Fr. Noah is grateful to raise his family in this warm, generous, faithful, and vibrant community and is working very hard to meet the demands of parish life as well as focusing on “the one thing needful.” He is grateful for the success of St. Raphael School and Scholé Academy, excited to share his love for God and the Church with students.
In Memoriam: Fr. Porphyrios passed away on April 16, 2020.
Fr. Porphyrios (Dr. James Stephen Taylor) was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised in Columbia, Missouri, where he attended the public schools and the University of Missouri. He received his bachelor’s degree in humanities and his master’s degree in English from Southern Illinois University. The University of Kansas, Lawrence, was the setting for his doctorate in philosophy of education, and was where he attended courses in the famous integrated humanities program with professors John Senior and Dennis Quinn. At KU he taught freshmen and sophomore English and literature as well as undergraduate and graduate courses in the philosophy of education. Upon graduation, Taylor taught in middle and high schools, parochial schools, and preparatory academies, including St. Mary’s Academy (Kansas), Wichita Collegiate School, and Topeka Collegiate School. For 5 years he was assistant, then associate, professor of the education department at Hillsdale College, Michigan. For 2 of those years he served as department chair. He held regular classes using the Good and Great Books as part of the teacher preparation program. His last collegiate position was at the University of Tulsa, also in the department of education, where his specialties were philosophy of education in the graduate school, and children’s literature classes for future elementary and middle school teachers. Dr. Taylor is also the author of Poetic Knowledge, a book often used and cited in the renewal of classical Christian education.
Dr. Taylor’s father, a newspaperman and writer for the Associated Press, became editor of the Missouri Alumnus magazine and a popular speaker. Taylor’s mother was a fourth-grade teacher and librarian for Columbia public schools. James Taylor was raised in the Methodist church. His journey to Orthodoxy may have well begun there while, during a lengthy sermon, he gazed at the engraving on the wooden pulpit: “The Truth Shall Make You Free.” He was pleasantly surprised years later to learn that John Wesley, founder of Methodism, was an Anglican minister deeply read in the fathers of the Church. Later, he began a tour through the various expressions of Roman Catholicism, particularly traditional Benedictine monasticism, then spent several years with a Byzantine Rite, and finally arriving, somewhat broken but not beyond repair, at peace in the Orthodox Church.
Click here to read the interview done by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America regarding the founding of St. Raphael School in 2013. Listen in as Bobby Maddex of Ancient Faith Ministries interviews Dr. James Taylor, the founding director of St. Raphael Orthodox Online Homeschool, in this archived recording.