About Us

We are Matt and Hannah Ketcham, the founders of the St. Spyridon Center. We have three wild and beautiful boys and live in the woods of rural Pennsylvania.

Over the past decade we have served as missionaries with FOCUS and the Language and Catechetical Institute, and worked in parishes. Since 2019, Matt has helped oversee operations for Vagabond Missions, a Catholic inner-city ministry, while Hannah focused on learning many things about running the domestic homestead (the boys being our first animals to tame). In 2018 God blessed us with the opportunity to be on mission in Austria and to deepen our understanding and love for our Byzantine Catholic faith. While living in Austria – a place that was deeply Catholic for over a thousand years – and seeing the way the people there cared for their land and sustained their villages, the seed for this vision was planted. For many years we have felt God calling us to combine our love for evangelization with a newly discovered joy of traditional agriculture and now we are excited to bring this vision to life.

Since our time in Austria, we have learned much via books and online courses (organic gardening, permaculture design, etc.), as well as through first-hand experience raising animals (chickens, pigs, dairy goats, etc.), growing gardens and learning about alternative building structures, proper waste management, and water purification and storage. The St. Spyridon Center combines this knowledge and experience with our desire to share the Gospel and foster a renewal of Catholic formation in sustainable living and food production.

Currently the St. Spyridon Center exists in two ways:

• Online on this website, where we will be producing blog posts, videos and photos to bring authentically Christian spiritual, theological and agrarian formation to anyone with an internet connection.
• On our 2+ acre property where we will be researching and developing various food production and sustainable design systems based on permaculture principles. We will host retreats and workshops on our property in the warmer months to offer faith formation as well as instruction in the systems mentioned above.

We believe God has called us to begin this initiative in this way and we also look to the future where we hope to one day construct a brick-and-mortar Center on a larger property to be able to do even more.

Please consider supporting us to help further advance the mission of the restoration of our souls, bodies, culture and planet for Jesus Christ!

Feel free to send us a message!