The Rev. Charles Pollak
Parish Church of St. Helena, Beaufort
507 Newcastle St. PO Box 1043 Beaufort, SC, 29901-1043
(843) 538-6497 Home
At age 95 (in October 2025), the Rev. Chuck Pollak continues in active ministry. He leads a weekly 1928 Prayer Book Service at St. Helena's Church every Wednesday afternoon; does a weekly nursing home visit; and is still very active in Kairos Prison Ministry as a volunteer at the local level. The group just completed a 4-day weekend in September at the Ridgeland Correctional Institution in which Chuck participated. Chuck Pollak received his call to be an ordained minister much later than most people and was 79 years old when ordained as a (transitional) deacon on October 31, 2009. He spent most of his working years as a Naval Officer and business executive. He graduated from Annapolis in 1952 and retired as a Navy Captain in 1979 after serving four years as the captain of the nuclear missile submarine USS Lafayette and three years as chief of the office of nuclear arms negotiations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the latter capacity, Chuck served with the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) Delegation which met with their counterpart Soviet Union delegation in Geneva, Switzerland. After the Navy, he worked for three public corporations in Research, Engineering, and Strategic Planning. He then retired in 1978 and he and his wife Annie spent 14 years living aboard their 51' ocean sailing vessel, the "Reverie", sailing over 36, 000 miles and visiting dozens of foreign countries. Chuck and Annie attended Cursillo #121 in South Carolina, a life-changing experience for both of them. Shortly thereafter, he became involved with the Kairos Prison Ministry. He is a former Vice Chairman of the Kairos International Board of Directors, an organization of more than 30, 000 volunteers in the U.S. and eight foreign countries. He has served on teams on Death Row in South Carolina and Nicaragua as well as in "regular" prisons. He served as the assistant chaplain at the Ridgeland Correctional Institution beginning in December 2007 and retired from this position just before the COVID shutdown. Chuck first felt called to be a Vocational Deacon in 2005. He was approved to begin training for the deaconate by Bishop Salmon the next year, but there were not enough people at that time to begin classes. In 2007, Bishop Salmon commissioned Chuck as a Diocesan Evangelist in a special ceremony. Then in early 2008, Bishop Lawrence and the Commission on Ministry determined Chuck was actually being called to be a priest, rather than as a permanent deacon. He immediately embarked on a rigorous training program under the tutelage of the priests of St. Helena’s, Frs. Jeff Miller, Mark Avera, and Andrew Pearson; their Bishop-in-Residence, Alden Hathaway; and a lay parishioner, Dr. Al Truesdale, who holds a PhD in theology and was the dean of a seminary in the Church of the Nazarene. In 2009, Chuck took the canonically required three-day written examinations and the oral exams by the Examining Chaplains for the priesthood and subsequently was approved by the Standing Committee and Bishop Lawrence for eventual ordination as a priest. Chuck and Annie have been married 53 years and have five children, three daughters and two sons. Annie is in the advanced stage of Alzheimer's Disease but Chuck has been able to keep her at home with the help of one full-time and one part-time caregiver.