His Eminence Daniel, Archbishop of Chicago and the Diocese of the Midwest

Bishop Daniel [Brum] was born in 1954 the eldest of three children born to Orville Antonio and Marjory Brum. 

Raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, he enrolled at Saint Patrick’s College Seminary, Mountain View, CA, where, during his freshman year, he first encountered the history of the Orthodox Church and frequently attended services at Saint Nicholas Church,

His relationship with Orthodoxy continued as he continued research within the context of the Orthodox Church councils.  During this time, he seriously contemplated conversion to Orthodox Christianity—a difficult decision given his background and ties.  Ultimately, it was his study of canon law that impelled him to respond to the call to embrace Orthodox Christianity.

He petitioned to be received into the Orthodox Church in America in 1997 and was vested as an Orthodox priest by His Grace, Bishop Tikhon of San Francisco and the West at the Monastery of Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco.

On October 21, 2014, the Holy Synod elected him to serve as auxiliary to His Eminence, Archbishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West as Bishop of Santa Rosa, CA. On July 18, 2022, he was canonically elected by the Holy Synod of Bishops as Bishop of Chicago and the Diocese of the Midwest.

Father Aaron Rutz

Fr. Aaron was born in Cincinnati, OH and became an Orthodox Christian while living in Cleveland. Fr. Aaron studied at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, graduating in 2020.

Fr. Aaron’s college majors were Philosophy and Theatre Arts and he first encountered the Orthodox Faith while traveling in Eastern Europe for a year during a “Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.” In that year, Fr. Aaron was blessed to spend time in historically Orthodox countries such as Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Ukraine, seeing his first Pascha in Kyiv in 2013. 

Before serving as Priest at Holy Assumption, Fr. Aaron worked as a Chaplain both in the hospital setting and in hospice care. Before Seminary, he worked in local Theater groups in Northern Ohio and worked alongside Joan Brown Campbell for several years, she was a leader in the National Council of Churches. 

Matushka Tatiana is from Eastern Pennsylvania and her family has been very active in the OCA for several generations. She and Fr. Aaron were married in 2021. They have one child, Klio.