Muse Steven

Father Stephen Muse studied Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and earned a PhD in Psychology at Loyola University of Maryland in Pastoral Counseling, with post-doctoral studies in marriage and family at the University of Georgia. He is a member of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and the International Academy of Behavioral Medicine, Counseling, and Psychotherapy, as well as an approved supervisor of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

He works as a counselor, pastoral psychotherapist, family therapist and supervisor of Clinical Pastoral Training in the Clergy-in-Kairos program of the Pastoral Institute in Columbus, Georgia. He also directs the Educational Program for Pastoral Counselors of the Institute. Also, he was the practicum supervisor of Counseling Psychology doctoral candidates at Auburn University.

Having dealt particularly with the pastoral ministry of clergy and their overwork, he provides psychotherapy and counseling to clergy of various confessions, while he also collaborated with the Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Illinois and the Union Graduate Institute in Ohio. He has also taught in the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Bioethics at Mercer University School of Medicine, as well as in the Psychiatry Residency Training Program at St. Francis.
He has trained and supervised military chaplains for 21 years, and has extensive experience with post-traumatic stress disorder in the lives of military veterans. At the same time, he teaches and provides supervision to military chaplains in the American military family pastoral support program.
He was the president of the Orthodox Christian Association of Medicine, Psychology and Religion, while he is now a member of its Advisory Committee. He served on the Commission on Pastoral Practice of the US Convention of Orthodox Bishops, as well as as an advisor to the Orthodox Church of America (OCA) on clergy candidates and spiritual abuse. He is invited to give speeches throughout the USA and abroad. His books and articles have been translated into Greek, Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Swedish.

Before entering the Orthodox Church in 1993, he had served as a Presbyterian clergyman for 11 years, having also organized psychiatric outpatient clinics in Delta, Pennsylvania. In 2014 he was ordained a deacon and in 2021 an elder, now serving in the Parish of the Transfiguration of Christ in Columbus. With his wife Claudia-Ioanna they have four children and five grandchildren.