Nadine Blank was visiting her sister back East on their mother’s birthday in 1974 and spoke to one of the deans. She asked him to send an Orthodox priest from the then Metropolia out to Northern California to help in the SF East Bay Area. A few weeks later, In September of 1974, on the Feast of the Elevation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross, Father Michael Prokurat, a graduate of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and recently assigned to the Diocese of San Francisco, composed a letter to the Orthodox people in the area of Walnut Creek, CA. In it he stated that by order of His Eminence, Metropolitan Vladimir, Archbishop of Berkeley and acting primate of the Western Diocese, a survey was being taken of Orthodox folk in the area to determine whether there was any potential for the opening of an English speaking mission and starting a program of religious education.