c. 2007 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ Do you know this man?

He grew up on Cleveland’s East Side in the 1920s and had a mother named Essie, a succession of stepfathers and a little white dog called Skippy.

He went to Central High School, dropping out after 11th grade, loved strawberry ice cream, was a part-time dishwasher at a restaurant that catered to truckers and played the harmonica.

For a time, his home was a downtown parking lot.

Today, he’s an aging Orthodox monk, unable to get ongoing medical coverage because he can’t prove his identity.

He is a man seemingly without a past, but with a squad of amateur sleuths searching for clues on his behalf: Who is Father Ephraim George?

There didn’t seem to be much mystery when a slight, down-on-his-luck man who said his name was Earnest Thompson turned up at St. Herman of Alaska Monastery and House of Hospitality in 1980. Sometimes homeless himself, he wanted to serve the poor.

And for more than 25 years, that’s what he did, rising before dawn to do the wash for the more than two dozen men who find haven from the streets at St. Herman’s. He befriended many of the residents, especially those who seemed especially in need of kindness, sharing communal meals, sleeping among them in the dorms. He prayed with them, too, and in the process felt increasingly drawn to monastic life.

By the mid-1980s, the man known as Earnest Thompson had committed himself to becoming an Orthodox monk and in 1999 was tonsured as Father Ephraim George.

That’s where his story might have ended. Having taken a vow of poverty and with his simple needs for food and shelter met at St. Herman’s, he could have lived out his life in peaceful obscurity, with no need to prove who he is.

But last year, Father Ephraim got sick. Doctors found blood in his urine and ordered a blood transfusion. As other problems developed, he was hospitalized.

And St. Herman’s abbot, the Rev. John Henry, renewed an increasingly frustrating quest to establish Father Ephraim’s identity and his right to Medicare and Medicaid coverage, despite lacking a birth certificate or Social Security number.

“Father Ephraim exists. He’s here,” said Henry, gesturing to the monk sitting beside him. “If the government requires something of you, what purpose does it serve if you can’t get it? You need an identity to get an identity.”

It’s a problem that regularly confronts the homeless or the poor, who may not have basic documents that others take for granted. Still, Father Ephraim’s case was particularly perplexing.

Years earlier, it had seemed that old Cleveland schools attendance records unearthed from a warehouse had confirmed that Father Ephraim was indeed Earnest Thompson. The records were for a boy of that name, born Oct. 26, 1924, who had dropped out of school after the 11th grade. The boy had attended many of the same schools that Father Ephraim remembers attending.

But the school records also raised new questions. Father Ephraim said he had no brothers or sisters, yet the records showed Earnest Thompson with a sibling. That Earnest Thompson had taken French and typing; Father Ephraim insists he took neither.

Was his memory failing? Did he have a sibling he didn’t know about? Was this simply another Earnest Thompson? Or, was Father Ephraim’s given name something else entirely?

Still, when he saw the picture attached to the school file, the monk immediately declared, “That’s me.”

The school records, and the birth certificate linked to them, were enough to get Father Ephraim a state-issued ID card. He registered to vote. He was even called for jury duty.

Yet questions persisted. It would turn out that the Earnest Thompson born on Oct. 26, 1924, apparently was dead. (A clerical error? A transposed number?)

Census records made no mention of a boy named Earnest Thompson living with his mother, Essie, in the same household as her sister, Lydia, the sister’s husband, Elijah Nunery, and the couple’s daughters, Eva and Gladys. But at some point there was a boy, Edward S. Howard, living with Essie and her then-husband. (Could Father Ephraim actually be Eddie Howard?)

Finding answers took on new urgency last year as Father Ephraim’s health faltered.

Clarice Gardner is a soft-spoken woman from Parma, Ohio, who attends church near St. Herman’s. Kathy Wilmer is a retired librarian. And Kevin Giguere works for a Cleveland company that contracts with hospitals to link recent patients with needed benefits and services.

They are just three of about a dozen people Abbot John Henry has enlisted to help establish Father Ephraim’s identity, ranging from volunteers at St. Herman’s to public officeholders and local police departments.

They’ve combed census records, Cleveland school files, county archives, federal archives and genealogical resources; tried to find military records; sought birth certificates here and in Virginia; checked for baptismal or membership records at Gethsemane Baptist. On Tuesday (March 13), Father Ephraim was fingerprinted so county officials can search for a match in a national database.

Giguere vows that he will work on his own time, if necessary, to find out who Father Ephraim is.

“We’re going to figure this out,” Giguere said. “I’m consumed. This is a person who doesn’t know who he is.”

(Barb Galbincea writes for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.)

KRE/CM/LF END GALBINCEA

Editors: To obtain two photos of Ephraim George, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.