Beacon From the Bay

The Collected Works of Saint Sebastian Dabovich of Jackson and San Francisco

Jul 03, 2026

This is a digital edition of Beacon from the Bay: The Collected Works of Saint Sebastian Dabovich of Jackson and San Francisco, a several-month-long project to catalogue the out-of-print works of Saint Sebastian Dabovich, the first American-born Orthodox priest.

If you would like to purchase print copies of Beacon from the Bay for a personal or church library or bookstore, you may do so from Amazon. All support is greatly appreciated for this labor of love.

Foreword

With the rise of interest in Orthodoxy in America, amidst discussions of American saints, it is unfortunately the case that Saint Sebastian is infrequently mentioned. A possible contributing factor is that, despite being a prolific writer, his works have long since been out of print, existing solely as difficult to find PDFs or, where they do exist in print, as quick cash grabs, with little care shown for the works themselves, being riddled with errors or hundreds of blank pages appended to the end, as is the case for one such edition. Our saints deserve better than this.

As a native of the California Bay Area myself and the first of my family to be baptized into the Orthodox Faith, I cannot help but feel a special kinship with Saint Sebastian, who himself was born in San Francisco, and was the first American-born man to be ordained an Orthodox priest. Beacon from the Bay is the gathered collection of Saint Sebastian’s works, not only his three books, The Holy Orthodox Church, The Lives of Saints, and Preaching in the Russian Church, but also the articles he wrote for various journals and publications, both religious and secular. As such, even those familiar with the saint’s writings will find something new to edify their spiritual life with from this collection.

While Beacon from the Bay is not a life of the saint, one cannot but feel his strong faith and love for all in his writings, remaining stalwart in faith but open to dialogue and eager for unity with all. As publisher, I have kept the saint’s words as is, including original footnotes, only correcting syntax errors from the original publishing and, for ease of the reader, modernized certain spellings (such as Contakion to Kontakion).

This collection will edify both inquirers curious about the Orthodox faith, even as a first introduction, or those Orthodox Christians seeking the spiritual illumination from this beacon of faith from the Bay. I am grateful to be able to once again present these great writings to the Church in America, for which Saint Sebastian labored for so much of his life.

It is my hope that this collection will be a God-pleasing work and for the glory and increased veneration of the Church’s first-born son of America.

Graciously, say a small prayer for me,

Joshua

This work is dedicated to everyone who has supported and continues to support me in my endeavors with The Tabellion, especially Daniel, Jovan, and Marko. I also give a special thanks to my brother-in-Christ Tim Derryberry who assisted in locating several of the harder to find works, which otherwise would have not been included.

Holy Saint Sebastian pray for us!

Saint Sebastian