Mother Iliana is a nun of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, a Byzantine Catholic women's monastery in the Eparchy of Parma, Ohio. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from The Catholic University of America and her Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania. Ten years into her nursing career, as she was working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner, she responded to God’s call for her to enter the monastery to become a nurse for souls. She is an iconographer and spiritual mother, and often delights her sisters in the monastery with her sense of humor and storytelling abilities.