Catherine Jane Boyd was born on September the 6th, 1939 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the only daughter and eldest child of Dr. Robert Wallace Boyd of Medicine Hat, Alberta, and Margaret Isabel Orr of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.
Catherine moved to Ottawa, Ontario with her family during the war years, as her father was a member of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. She moved with her family to Vancouver, British Columbia in February of 1946. Her brother Bill was born there in 1949, followed by Don in 1950. Like many Canadians, Catherine was an avid figure skater growing up, something she enjoyed well into her later years, played field hockey, and spent many summer vacations at the lake with friends and family.
Catherine attended and received a B.A. at the University of British Columbia, and in 1959, while in nursing school at Vancouver General hospital, where her mother had been a nurse and her father was Chief of Radiology, she met her husband-to-be, John Lingas, who was a Resident at the same hospital. They were married on May 27, 1961 at Shaughnessy Heights United Church, and after a reception, they had a second ceremony at St. George’s Greek Orthodox church in Vancouver.
They moved to Sedro-Woolley, Washington in July of 1962, then to Topeka, Kansas in June of 1963, where the first two children, Alexander and Christina, were born. They lived for a brief time in Toledo, Ohio before the family moved to Portland in 1970 where she had her two youngest children, Elena and Paul.
Once in Portland, Catherine and John began attending Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (now Cathedral), and it was in the embrace of this community that she felt the call of Orthodoxy. Not very long after being chrismated into the Orthodox faith in 1972, Catherine began volunteering in the church library, a library that, with her help, soon became Ethos bookstore. As she tells it, “Less than half of the customers were our parishioners, some were people from other Orthodox backgrounds, and the rest were seekers drawn by the icons displayed in the window. Ethos provided a place to ask questions and to get information. During the 18 years that Ethos was open the number of Orthodox churches in Portland went from three to thirteen.” Catherine was the primary catalyst behind the expansion of the bookstore, setting up shop in a storefront across the street from the church. Catherine did the ordering, kept the books, made sure to promote the store, and generally was very often the one staffing what became a long-lasting unique outlet of Orthodoxy for those parishioners who needed to stock up on candles, icons, wicks, prayer books, or those interested in the Orthodox faith.
In 1980, Catherine became a member of the Diocese (now Metropolis) of San Francisco Philoptochos Board, where she served for twelve years before Bishop (later Metropolitan) Anthony appointed her as President of the newly established diocesan Commission for Orthodox Mission and Evangelism (C.O.M.E.). Its mission was to educate and engage the faithful, to foster parish growth and to further the work of the Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC). During her over twenty years of mission work, Catherine helped to start, monitor, and encourage over fourteen Greek Orthodox missions and small parishes in the seven Western States. Catherine also served on the board of the OCMC from 1985 to 2004, where she fostered the growth of the Church overseas. She went on to serve on the Archdiocesan Council of the Greek Archdiocese of America and its Committee for Outreach and Evangelism. While her exact duties varied by city, parish, and year, Catherine was most often the on-the-ground liaison to those who wanted to find out how to form a mission parish. She traveled up and down the Pacific coast, meeting with clergy and laity, helping them to understand just what being a mission parish, or a mission priest, entailed. Her faith and hard work, as well as her loving and positive attitude, was integral to helping many of these communities understand what was necessary, from both a practical point of view, as well as from a position of faith and love in Christ, to create a mission church and have it grow into a full-fledged Orthodox church. As Catherine herself said, “In 2010, with the shortage of priests we are unable to plant new parishes but are focusing on the growth of smaller parishes. We focus on helping the current parishioners to grow spiritually, become more committed, educated, and fully practicing Orthodox Christians. Ardent Orthodox Christians will attract others to the Orthodox faith.”
In 1981, Catherine came up with the idea of having coin collecting jars in each home, an idea that she called “Pennies and Prayers.” The program’s goal was to increase mission consciousness among the faithful and raise funds to aid overseas missions. While it came before her participation with, and indeed before the creation of, C.O.M.E., the Pennies and Prayers program eventually became a joint program with the Mission Commission.
Catherine represented the Greek Orthodox Church in a variety of ecumenical settings. She served as a member and President of the board of the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (E.M.O.) and was a member of Church Women United. aAs a member of EMO, she twice traveled with groups to the Holy Land, met with members of Congress, and helped to foster communication between parishes and organizations representing a variety of faiths.
Catherine was most recently involved in the Philoxenia (the love of strangers) ministry at Holy Trinity. Begun in 2007, it involved a more concerted effort to have designated greeters in church every week to welcome people into the church. As Catherine wrote, “We never know what person, on what day, whether a frequent attendee or a stranger, will come into our midst and experience the presence and the power of God. That is why the mission of the Philoxenia ministry is not only to be a welcoming presence in the Narthex, or a helpful facilitator who connects people to Holy Trinity’s ministries. It is to be an example to every parishioner and ministry in our Church. All of us must be open and accepting of every person who comes through our doors, recognizing that all are made in the image of God, and all are called to be disciples.” In truth, these words perfectly sum up Catherine’s love and contributions to the Greek Orthodox church, and to the world as a whole.
Catherine was a central figure in the foundation of St. John the Baptist in Beaverton, Oregon. During her tenure as the president of C.O.M.E., she helped the metropolis to determine that the west side of Portland was a fitting place for starting a new mission parish and worked with Metropolitan Anthony to found the Portland area’s second Greek Orthodox parish in 1997 with six families from Holy Trinity and its founding priest.
Beyond all of these incredible contributions to the church and her faith, Catherine was a high school Sunday school teacher for many years. She taught a generation of students, including many of her own children, about their faith and how they could learn to integrate and understand it during an incredibly informative and transitional part of their lives. Always interested in faith as a whole, and how her own related to others, she often took her Sunday school classes to other houses of worship to allow her students to see the similarities and differences in the practice of faith.
Among her many other activities, beyond the raising of four children, was her involvement with the Portland Women’s Union Foundation (now the Women’s Foundation of Oregon) which focuses on the needs of housing, health, education and respite care for women in the greater Portland area.
Catherine and John have a love for ice hockey that was borne of their time in Canada, and they were long time attendees and season ticket holders (John still is) of the Portland Winterhawks. Catherine loved tending her rose garden and trying to tame the large yard that surrounded the house, which she often referred to as “the jungle.” She drove her four children to soccer games, fencing lessons, ballet classes, music lessons, school functions and more, always taking joy in who they were and proud of the interesting people they have become. She traveled to Canada and Greece yearly, very often with kids in tow, and after John’s official retirement they enjoyed a great many European river cruises together, as well as trips to visit their children and grandchildren in England and California, and a trip to the Patriarchate in Istanbul.
Catherine suffered from Alzheimer’s for over a decade, most of it spent as a resident of assisted care facilities, lovingly looked after by family members. She was surrounded by family in her final week and fell asleep in the Lord on January 27th, 2025 with family present. She is survived by her husband John, her children Alexander (Ann), Christina, Elena (Zac) and Paul; her grandchildren Margaret, Ourania, Marina, Theo, Luke, and Kosta; by her brothers Donald (Sandi) and Bill (Brenda), and many nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews and God children.
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