V. Rev. Dr. David Alexander
Learn more about Fr. David's background, education, and academic focuses.
Lecturer
V. Rev. Dr. David Alexander
V. Rev. Dr. David Alexander
Lecturer
Clinical Pastoral Education
Ph.D., Centre for Trauma, Asylum, and Refugees, University of Essex | Th.M., Saint Vladimir's Seminary
Fr. David Alexander is an Archpriest of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. He is a longtime student and associate of Professor Renos Papadopoulos, founder of the Centre for Trauma, Asylum & Refugees (CTAR) at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. After graduating from Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, Fr. David completed his Ph.D. at Essex under the supervision of Professor Papadopoulos and Archimandrite Nikolai Sakharov. For the following nine years, he served as a fellow at CTAR, traveling with Professor Papadopoulos and collaborating in care, research, writing, teaching, consultation, and clinical and academic supervision. His 2025 book, Leaping Into the Hands of God: Lessons from My Teachers on Hypostatic Spiritual Care (SVS Press), presents the foundational principles he received during these years. In addition, he has authored more than 20 additional publications (book chapters and articles) in his fields of specialization: refugee care, pastoral counseling, and spirituality research. Fr. David is a Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Training Supervisor who has helped establish accredited, organic parish-based CPE program options at both Saint Tikhon’s Seminary and Saint Vladimir’s Seminary. To support this work at Saint Tikhon’s, he holds an adjunct appointment as Lecturer in Clinical Pastoral Education. He has held a number of faculty appointments in the past at a variety of graduate institutions.
Email
Connect with Fr. David.
fr.david.alexander@stots.edu
V. Rev. Dr. David Alexander
Lecturer
Clinical Pastoral Education
Academic Profile
Recent Courses Taught
- CPE 501 (St. Tikhon’s Seminary): an introductory, 400-hour CPE Unit designed to coincide with the second-year parish internship requirement.
- CPE 502 (St. Tikhon’s Seminary): an advanced, 400-hour CPE Unit designed to extend professional training in pastoral care and counseling to Orthodox clergy serving in full-time ministry in the United States.
- PA 931: Context of the Refugee Experience (University of Essex): a graduate module centering on involuntary dislocation and its complex systemic features, including the range of responses to acute forms of adversity.
- PSR 4400: Ethical Aspects of Medical Care (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences): a graduate medical elective surveying the ethics of global health operations.
Research Interests
Clinical Pastoral Education | Professional/Clinical Chaplaincy | Pastoral Counseling | Hypostatic Theology/Theology of Saint Sophrony
Selected Publications
Mamcarz, P., & Alexander, D. (2026). From military to civilian context: adaptation of the SOCOM Spiritual Fitness Scale and its associations with positive mental health and depression in Poland. Journal of Religion and Health., 65(1), 752-793.
Alexander, D. (2025). Leaping into the hands of God: lessons from my teachers on Hypostatic Spiritual Care. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Alexander, D., & Letovaltseva, T. (2023). Psychosocial workers and indigenous religious leaders: a vision for collaboration in humanitarian crisis response. Religions, 14(802), 1-12.
Alexander, D. (2020). From theory to impact: expanding the role of non-psychiatric moral injury theorists in direct veteran care.” Moral Injury and Beyond: Understanding Human Anguish and Healing Traumatic Wounds. R. K. Papadopoulos, Ed. New York: Routledge Press.
Alexander, D. (2020). Walking together in exile: medical moral injury and the clinical chaplain. Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, 74(2), 82-90.
Alexander, D. (2019). When seeing does harm: avoiding common epistemological dangers in contemporary refugee research. Journal of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, June 2019, 5-9.
Alexander, D. (2018). Shay’s thymos and Homer’s thymos: how a failure in cross-contextual vigilance has limited the contemporary moral injury discourse. Sophia Philosophical Review, XI(2), 41-56.
Alexander, D. (2016). Pastoral supervision and refugee care: maintaining complexity in a causal-reductive environment. Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision, 36(1), 126-133.