Archimandrite Pachomy trained in Slavic studies at Oakland University under Mrs. Helen Kovach-Tarakanova, who lived with and was a friend of Grand Duchess Olga, sister of Tsar Nicholas II. He became a novice at the oldest Orthodox monastery in America, St. Tikhon's Monastery in Pennsylvania. He graduated from the seminary and was ordained to the priesthood in 1988, after which he served as priest at the Macedonian-Bulgarian church in Lorain, Ohio and then at All Saints Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Detroit. Defending the patristic calendar of the church, he was received into ROCOR by Metropolitan VITALY, who would bless Fr. Pachomy to found a monastery in the Midwest.