Fr. George brings a rich life of experience and gifts to the parish life of St. Elias. Born in the Sudan of an Egyptian father and an Italian mother, Fr. George is multi-lingual and multi-cultural. He grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, and continued as a Melkite Catholic under the Pope of Rome. Fr. George felt a very specific call from God to serve Him with his entire life as a priest. As such, he enrolled in a Roman Catholic seminary and finished his period in the novitiate (as an apprentice monk). In fact, he was only some weeks away from taking his final vows when he realized this was not the capacity within which he was being called to serve God. Fr. George then took some time away and spent a decade working as a high-profile consultant in the field of corporate banking and finance. In 1986 he married the love of his life, Kh. Manal (Mary). Fr. George and Kh. Manal now have two teenage children. Despite the great salary and position, Fr. George never forgot his calling to the priesthood. He decided finally that it was time now to be a "mover and a shaker" for Christ and His eternal Kingdom.

Fr. George went back to seminary, this time to St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary, where he earned his Master of Divinity degree. After being ordained to the holy priesthood, Fr. George has served in a few different parishes, willingly going where he was asked to go, serving where the need is greatest. In 2005, after serving for 8 years within the jurisdiction of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America, Fr. George transferred to the Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

Fr. George is certainly not the first Arab-speaking priest to serve under a Russian jurisdiction in America. St. Raphael (Hawaweeny) of Brooklyn (originally from Damascus, Syria) was the first-ever Orthodox bishop consecrated in America and served Arab-speaking (as well as many others) congregations throughout North America. He served under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. Fr. George would be the last to admit to any comparisons between himself and St. Raphael, but those who might think it strange for a Russian Orthodox Church to have a priest from a Middle-Eastern background serving liturgies in the Byzantine Tradition should know that there is great precedent for it!