Source: TW
Stone Age Herbalist
The story of Russian Orthodoxy among Native Americans is largely unknown, despite being a tale of shipwrecks, martyrs, determined scholars and Native warriors. So a thread.
In 1725 Tsar Peter the Great signed a decree for a Second Great Expedition to map the contours of his empire. In 1716 he had met Gottfried Leibniz and the two had discussed the possibility of a land bridge between Russia and the New World.
In 1741, two ships, carrying Alexei Chirikov and Vitus Bering, crossed the strait separating the two worlds and Chirikov made landfall. Bering sadly died during the crossing, his ship destroyed on Bering Island and his crew forced to overwinter and sail home on the wreckage. The successful crossing sparked a rush of interest in the profits from the fur trade. High quality sea otter pelts fetched a premium. Soon traders were landing, building outposts and began forcing the native Aleuts to hunt for the furs.
1763, the Aleutians united against the traders and trappers and the brutality unleashed on their people. They launched a series of attacks against outposts and vessels, killing hundreds. The Russian reprisals were severe. In 1783 the fur trader Grigory Shelikhov established a military and commercial venture to permanently settle on the Alaskan coastline. His invasion and slaughter of the natives on Kodiak Island pacified any resistance from the Alaskans.
To convince the court of his seriousness, Shelikhov travelled to the remote Valaam and Konevitsa monasteries on the Finnish border to recruit priests and monks for a mission in Alaska. 8 agreed and nearly 300 days later and over 7k miles travelled they arrived in 1794. The monks were outraged by conditions on Kodiak. The abuse heaped on the locals appalled them and in 1798 several returned to Russia to inform the court. They drowned on their return to Alaska and the governor of Kodiak imprisoned the remainder and forbid contact with the locals.
The Aleuts largely welcomed the Orthodox mission, despite occasions of violence. In particular St Herman, a monk who exemplified the life of the Christian ascetic and spent his life serving and helping the natives. Between 1802-4 the Russians became embroiled in a conflict with a warrior tribe, the Tlingit. In Sept 1804 the Navy, accompanied by Aleutians in kayaks, made to assault the Tlingit fort at Sitka, an imposing structure of palisade fencing, with ironwood armoured Tlingit inside. The Russian cannonballs bounced off the palisades and the Tlingit armour deflected the muskets. When the order came to assault the fort, the Tlingit opened fire with muskets and cannon of their own. Despite a 4-day bombardment, the Russians failed and didn’t return for 50 years
The Kodiak governor died in 1818, bringing some calm to the region. In 1824 Fr John Veniaminov and his family arrived in Alaska. He learnt the Aleutian language very quickly and helped translate St Mathew’s Gospel. A traveller, a scholar and a deeply religious man, he visited the Franciscan missions in California, remote Alaskan villages and returned to Russia in 1839. His wife died that year and in 1840 he became a monk, soon after to become Bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands. He then founded an All-Colonial School for the “training of native and Creole clergy, seamen, navigators… cartographers, and artisans” in Sitka, rapidly learning the Tlingit language and mastering the use of a kayak. He was to become St Innocent, Enlightener of the Aleuts.
In 1865 a letter arrived at Valaam monastery in Finland, written by Semyon Vanovsky, the former governor of Russian America, it contained the details of a strange and curious incident which took place 50 years earlier. In 1815 a group of Russian hunters with their Aleutian guides were captured off the coast of San Pedro in California (possibly LA). They were taken to a nearby Franciscan mission where the Aleutians were required to convert to Catholicism under threat of torture. Amongst their number was Peter the Aleut, a teenager, who refused to convert. The priests ordered some California Natives to cut off his fingers, then both hands and eventually disemboweled him. Thus was St Peter the Aleut martyred.(4)
With Saints, stories and languages embedded within the Orthodox mission to the New World, they could stand alone when, in 1867, Alaska was sold to the United States. In comparison to other forms of missionary work, the Orthodox approach had been sensitive and focused on training and teaching Natives. Testament to this is the fact that the mission only ever had 15 priests at its height, yet nonetheless expanded. Between 1886-95, the Tlingit were ravaged by smallpox. Unable to rely on their shamans for aid, many turned to Orthodoxy for assistance.
The relationship between the Tlingit and the church was deepened by the translation of their language using the Cyrillic script. One of the main proponents of this work was John Veniaminov - St Innocent.
Today the Orthodox church in America has retained this deep connection with the Native Americans. A current missionary, Michael Oleksa, typifies the tradition. An anthropologist, linguist and scholar, he is recognised as an Elder of Alaskan Natives. A recent interview with His Beatitude Jonah, Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada sums up the situation: “American Indians may become the largest ethnic group in the American Orthodox Church”