the Texas Houston Mission, the Texas Houston East Mission, and the Texas Houston South Mission. In 2011 Kate Shellnut of the Houston Chronicle stated that the Church of Jesus Christ was increasing in size in the Houston area. On Saturday April 30, 2011 a new meeting house located on a site in Sienna Plantation, was scheduled to open. The facility was scheduled to serve a 200-member English-speaking ward and a 200-member Spanish-speaking ward. Prior to the church's opening, Sienna Plantation-area church members attended congregations in the Sharpstown area of Houston and in Sugar Land. , according to Church records, there were about 50,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Houston area. In 2018 church member Sam Young, from Sugar Land, advocated against bishops meeting one-on-one with children and asking them questions about sexual activity (the law of chastity). In response, an excommunication hearing for him was set up. Young stated that "Protecting children is more important than my membership in the church. I’m not going to shut up. That would be immoral on my part." He was excommunicated in September 2018. Orthodoxy As of 2011 Eastern Orthodox churches in Houston are having growing memberships. Immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and other countries have added to Houston's Orthodox population. As of 2011 in the entire State of Texas there were 32,000 people who actively attend Orthodox churches. In 2013 Father John Whiteford, the pastor of St. Jonah Orthodox Church near Spring, stated that there were about 6,000-9,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians in Houston. As of 2013, the largest Orthodox congregations are Annunciation Cathedral Greek and St. George Antiochian. Orthodox parishes hold festivals such as the Greek Festival. Former District Attorney of Harris County Pat Lykos and the members of the Pappas family, operating Pappas Restaurants, are Greek Orthodox. In 1861 the first Orthodox church in the Houston area, named after Saints Constantine and Helen, was in Galveston. The worshippers were in Galveston and, after 1911, in Houston, with the latter using the Galveston-Houston Inter-Urban Train. The priest, Father Theoclitos Triantafilides, was sent by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Nicholas II also sent funds to the church. Whiteford stated that those in Houston took the train to Galveston to attend services. Immigrants founded Orthodox congregations in Southeast Texas from 1908 to the turn of the 20th century. Immigrants came from the Arab world, Greece, Romania,