Herman of Alaska

The other monks died or left. He stayed for forty-three years, defended the Aleut natives against the Russian fur traders, and lived as a hermit on Spruce Island. Herman was born around 1756 in Russia. The biographical sources disagree on exactly where: some say Serpukhov in Moscow Governorate, some say Voronezh. His secular name was probably Egor Ivanovich Popov. He entered the monastic life at sixteen, probably at Sarov monastery as a novice, and was tonsured a monk at Valaam monastery in 1782 with the new name Herman. At Valaam he came under the spiritual direction of Abbot Nazarius, who had been formed in the hesychast tradition transmitted to Russia through Saint Paisius Velichkovsky. Herman remained at Valaam for over a decade, refusing all offers of ordination to the priesthood or appointment to higher positions, preferring the simple monastic life of a brother. He spent extensive time in the dense Valaam forest as a hermit, returning to the cenobitic community only on Sundays and major feast days. In 1793 the Russian Synod, responding to a request from the Russian-American Company for missionaries to Alaska, asked Valaam to select capable monks for the mission. Ten were chosen, of whom Herman was one. The mission party traveled across all of Siberia and arrived at Kodiak Island on September 24, 1794. The first years went well. The Aleut natives received the Gospel gladly. Within the first year approximately seven thousand were baptized and fifteen hundred marriages were performed. The mission, however, soon ran into substantial difficulties. The Russian-American Company, which controlled the colony, was led by Alexander Baranov, a brutal administrator who treated the Aleuts as slave laborers and was hostile to the missionaries who criticized this exploitation. The mission leader, Archimandrite Joseph (subsequently consecrated as the first bishop for America), drowned in 1799 when his ship sank on the return voyage from his episcopal consecration in Russia. The hieromonk Juvenaly was martyred by hostile natives in 1796, becoming the first Orthodox martyr in North America. Other members of the mission died of illness or returned to Russia in discouragement. By approximately 1808 only Herman remained from the original ten. He was now the entire Orthodox mission to Alaska. He moved to Spruce Island, a small forested island a mile across a strait from Kodiak, which he named New Valaam after his beloved Russian monastery. He built a small cell, planted a garden of turnips, potatoes, cabbage, garlic, and horseradish, and lived for the remaining twenty-nine years of his life as a hermit. The hermitage was not strictly solitary. He continued his pastoral work among the Aleuts. He defended them against the Russian-American Company, repeatedly traveling to the company headquarters at Kodiak to file complaints against abusive administrators. He nursed the Aleuts during epidemics, on at least one occasion (probably the smallpox epidemic of the 1830s) being the only Russian who would visit the sick natives, working without rest to care for the dying. He brought orphans of dead natives to New Valaam and cared for them himself, eventually building a small school and orphanage. He gave spiritual counsel to all who came: Aleuts, Russians, Creoles (the children of Russian fathers and Aleut mothers), traders, sailors. The hagiographical tradition records substantial miracles: healings, prophecies, weather phenomena, the multiplication of food. He died on Spruce Island on November 15, 1837, at approximately eighty-one years of age. The hagiographical tradition records that at the moment of his death his cell was filled with fragrance and a pillar of light was seen rising above Spruce Island. His final wish was to be buried on Spruce Island. When his disciples attempted to bring his body to Kodiak for burial, a violent storm rose up and continued until they returned the body to Spruce Island and buried it there. He was formally canonized by the Orthodox Church in America on August 9, 1970, as Saint Herman of Alaska, Wonderworker of America, the first canonized Orthodox saint of North America. His relics rest at Holy Resurrection Cathedral on Kodiak Island. The Spruce Island hermitage continues to function as an Orthodox monastery; pilgrims visit annually to venerate him.

He stayed in the deep forest as a hermit. He refused ordination to the priesthood. He was preparing for something he could not yet see. Herman came to Valaam monastery in 1782, at about twenty-six years of age. Valaam was located on a series of islands in Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia near the Finnish border. The monastery had been founded in the medieval period (probably the twelfth century) but had fallen into substantial decline by the eighteenth century. Abbot Nazarius, who had been transferred from Sarov monastery to revive Valaam, had brought with him the hesychast spiritual tradition that had been transmitted to Russia through Saint Paisius Velichkovsky. Under Nazarius, Valaam was being restored as a contemplative monastic center on the integrated Russian-Athonite model: cenobitic community life combined with the systematic practice of the Jesus Prayer, eldership-direction, the reading of the Fathers, and substantial provision for the eremitical vocation in the deep forests of the Valaam islands. Herman thrived in this environment. He was tonsured a monk under Nazarius and given the name Herman. He spent the next decade at Valaam, formed in the integrated Russian-Athonite contemplative tradition. He spent extensive time as a hermit in the Valaam forest, returning to the cenobitic community only on Sundays and major feast days. He developed a personal devotion to Abbot Nazarius, whom he would address in his subsequent letters from Alaska as "my beloved father" and to whom he would write throughout his Alaskan years. He refused all offers of ordination to the priesthood. He refused all offers of higher monastic position. Metropolitan Gabriel of Saint Petersburg twice offered to send him to lead the Russian Orthodox Mission in China; he refused. He preferred to remain a simple monk. He was, structurally, being prepared for something he could not yet see: the missionary vocation that would take him to Alaska, where his Valaam formation would be the template for the indigenous American Orthodox tradition that would emerge over the following two centuries.

They crossed Siberia, sailed across the North Pacific, and arrived at Kodiak in 1794. The Aleuts received the Gospel gladly. The Russian fur traders did not. In 1793 the Russian-American Company petitioned the Holy Synod for missionaries to be sent to the new Russian colony in Alaska. The Synod approved the request. Metropolitan Gabriel of Saint Petersburg gave Abbot Nazarius the task of selecting ten monks from the Valaam brotherhood for the mission. Nazarius selected: Archimandrite Joseph as the leader, the hieromonks Juvenaly, Macarius, Athanasius, Stephan, and Nectarius, the hierodeacons Nectarius and Stephen, and the monks Joasaph and Herman. The mission left Valaam in late 1793. They traveled the entire length of Siberia overland, a journey of nearly a year. They reached the Pacific coast at Okhotsk, sailed across the North Pacific, and arrived at Kodiak Island on September 24, 1794. The work began immediately. The monks learned the Aleut language as quickly as they could. They preached, baptized, performed marriages, established schools, and trained the first generation of native Aleut catechists. The Aleut natives received the Gospel with extraordinary readiness. Within the first year approximately seven thousand had been baptized; fifteen hundred marriages had been performed; the foundations of an indigenous Aleut Christian community were being laid. The Russian fur traders, however, were hostile. The Russian-American Company, led by Alexander Baranov, treated the Aleuts as slave laborers, forcing them to hunt sea otters under brutal conditions and exploiting their labor without proper compensation. Baranov resented the missionaries, who criticized this exploitation. The promised material support for the mission (the church, school, and supplies the company had agreed to provide) was largely not delivered. The missionaries had to build their own infrastructure with minimal support. The conflict escalated. When the missionaries, including Herman, began publicly defending the Aleuts against the Russian-American Company, Baranov placed them under restrictions. He attempted to limit their contact with the natives. He filed complaints to Saint Petersburg accusing the missionaries of inciting the natives against the Russians. The political pressure was substantial. The mission also suffered losses. The hieromonk Juvenaly was killed by hostile natives in 1796, becoming the first Orthodox martyr in North America. Archimandrite Joseph was consecrated as the first bishop for Russian America in 1799 but drowned with two others when his ship sank on the return voyage from Russia. Other members of the mission died of illness or returned to Russia in discouragement. By approximately 1808 only Herman remained from the original ten.

He built a cell, planted a garden, and lived there as a hermit for the rest of his life. He defended the natives, nursed the sick, raised orphans, and prayed. Around 1808 Herman moved from the missionary headquarters on Kodiak Island to Spruce Island, a small forested island a mile across a narrow strait. He named the island New Valaam after his beloved Russian monastery. He built a small log cell at a place subsequently called Monk\'s Lagoon. He planted a garden of turnips, potatoes, cabbage, garlic, and horseradish, the basic Russian peasant vegetables. He gathered berries and mushrooms from the surrounding forest. He fasted constantly, ate very little, slept on a wooden bench covered with a deerskin. He wore the same simple monastic clothing for years until it was nearly falling apart. He continued the systematic practice of the Jesus Prayer he had learned at Valaam. He spent hours each day in prayer. The hermitage was not strictly solitary. He continued his pastoral work among the Aleuts. They came to him constantly: for confession, for spiritual counsel, for healing, for help with practical problems. He defended them against the Russian-American Company. He repeatedly traveled to the company headquarters at Kodiak (a difficult crossing requiring small boats and good weather) to file complaints about administrators who were abusing the Aleuts. He confronted Russian traders and sailors directly when he saw them mistreating natives. The company administrators often responded with hostility; he was repeatedly denounced to higher authorities, accused of inciting the Aleuts against the Russians, threatened with arrest. None of it deterred him. He nursed the Aleuts during epidemics. When a ship from the United States brought a fatal disease (probably smallpox) to Alaska, hundreds of Aleuts died; Herman was the only Russian who would visit the sick natives, working without rest to comfort the dying and provide whatever care he could. He brought orphans of dead natives to New Valaam and cared for them himself. He built a small school where he taught native children. He built a small chapel. He gathered all who would come on Sundays and feast days for prayer and singing. He gave pastoral counsel to all who sought him: Aleuts, Russians, Creoles, traders, sailors. The hagiographical tradition records substantial miracles. He healed the sick through prayer. He stopped a tidal wave by placing an icon at the high water mark and praying. He stopped a forest fire by drawing a line in the moss with his prayer rope. He multiplied food when his orphans had nothing to eat. He prophesied: he predicted the smallpox epidemic that would come after his death; he predicted that another monk like himself would eventually return to Spruce Island (fulfilled in the twentieth century by Father Gerasim, who lived as a hermit on Spruce Island for thirty years); he predicted that there would eventually be a monastery on Spruce Island (now fulfilled in the Saint Michael Skete). He kept up his correspondence with Valaam throughout his Alaskan years; the surviving letters are full of his love for his Russian spiritual home. He wrote in one letter: in my mind I imagine my beloved Valaam, and constantly behold it across the great ocean. He died on Spruce Island on November 15, 1837, at approximately eighty-one years of age.

He taught the Russians the same thing. He insisted that the natives be treated as fully human, as children of God deserving the same dignity as any Russian. Herman\'s teaching, as preserved in his letters and in the testimony of those who knew him, was essentially simple. He taught the Aleuts that the highest thing in life is to love God above all and to love one\'s neighbor as oneself. He taught the Russians exactly the same thing. He insisted, against the prevailing Russian colonial attitude, that the Aleuts were not racially inferior, were not slaves to be exploited for fur pelts, were not pagans whose suffering did not matter. They were fully human, made in the image of God, capable of Christian formation, deserving the same dignity that any Russian deserved. He demonstrated this conviction in his pastoral practice. He learned the Aleut language. He spoke with the Aleuts as equals. He defended them against Russian abuse. He nursed them during epidemics when no other Russian would. He raised the orphans of dead natives as his own children. He confronted Russian traders and administrators who mistreated natives, repeatedly facing political consequences for doing so. The teaching was counter-cultural in the Russian colonial context. The prevailing colonial attitude, both Russian and broader European in the period, held that indigenous populations were inferior, that their suffering was a regrettable but acceptable cost of colonial development, that Christian missionary work was largely a matter of imposing European cultural norms on the natives. Herman rejected this entire framework. He held that authentic Christian missionary work required the defense of indigenous human dignity, the respect for indigenous cultural integrity (he never tried to make the Aleuts into Russians), the commitment to indigenous welfare even at the cost of conflict with Russian colonial interests. The teaching had a personal cost. Herman spent decades under political pressure from the Russian-American Company. He was repeatedly denounced, threatened, and restricted. None of it changed his practice. The Aleuts loved him with extraordinary intensity. They knew that a Russian monk who would suffer for their dignity, who would visit them in epidemics when no other Russian would, who would teach their children and raise their orphans, who would spend his last decades in poverty on a small forested island for their sake, was demonstrating something about authentic Christianity that no theological treatise could communicate as effectively. The pattern Herman established, of authentic missionary work as the integration of contemplative spiritual life with active defense of indigenous human dignity, became the template for subsequent American Orthodox missionary work and for the broader Eastern Orthodox missionary tradition.

The canonization established the pattern of American Orthodox sanctity. American Orthodoxy traces its spiritual lineage to him. Herman\'s canonization in 1970 was a milestone in American Orthodox history. He had been venerated locally in Alaska since immediately after his death; pilgrims had been visiting his grave on Spruce Island for over a century; miracles had been reported continuously; the Spruce Island chapel built over his grave in 1890 had become a major Orthodox pilgrimage site. But formal canonization had not occurred. The political conditions of nineteenth and early twentieth century American Orthodoxy (the small size of the American Orthodox community, the dependence on Russian ecclesiastical authority, the disruptions caused by the Russian Revolution and the subsequent jurisdictional fragmentations) had delayed the formal canonization process. The Orthodox Church in America (OCA), which had received autocephaly from the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970, formally canonized Herman as Saint Herman of Alaska, Wonderworker of America, on August 9, 1970. The canonization service was held at Holy Resurrection Cathedral on Kodiak Island. Metropolitan Ireney (Bekish) of the OCA presided, joined by Archbishop Paul (Olmari) of Finland (himself a former monk of Valaam, significant given Herman\'s Valaam origins) and other hierarchs. The significance was substantial. Herman became the first canonized Orthodox saint of North America. The canonization established the pattern of American Orthodox sanctity: the Russian Athonite-influenced monastic formation, the missionary work among indigenous populations, the defense of marginalized populations, the integration of contemplative-eremitical life with active pastoral work. American Orthodoxy traces its spiritual lineage to him. The other American Orthodox saints subsequently canonized (Saint Innocent of Alaska, Saint Tikhon of Moscow during his American period, Saint John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco, Saint Sebastian of Jackson and San Francisco, Saint Raphael of Brooklyn, Saint Alexis Toth, and others) all draw on the pattern Herman established. The annual pilgrimage to Spruce Island in August draws Orthodox Christians from across North America and beyond. The Saint Michael Skete continues to function on Spruce Island, fulfilling Herman\'s prophecy that there would eventually be a monastery on the island. American Orthodoxy in the twenty-first century, across its various jurisdictions (the OCA, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the Antiochian Archdiocese, ROCOR, the Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, and other ethnic jurisdictions), venerates Herman as the foundational American Orthodox saint and the spiritual patron of the entire American Orthodox tradition.

A pillar of light was seen rising above the island. He was canonized in 1970. His relics rest at Holy Resurrection Cathedral on Kodiak. Pilgrims visit Spruce Island every August. Herman had prepared for his death for some years. He had asked the candles in his cell to be lit and the Acts of the Apostles to be read. As his disciple read aloud, Herman gently bowed his head and reposed. The cell was filled with a fragrant scent. Inhabitants of villages on the surrounding islands later reported that they had seen a pillar of light rising above Spruce Island at the moment of his death. He was approximately eighty-one years old. He had asked to be buried on Spruce Island, where he had lived for nearly thirty years. His disciples attempted to take his body to Kodiak for burial at the church there; a violent storm rose in the strait and continued unabated until they returned the body to Spruce Island and buried it there as he had requested. The veneration began immediately. Aleuts and Russians who had known him recognized his sanctity. Pilgrims came to his grave to seek his intercession. Miracles were reported continuously. In 1890 a chapel was built over his grave; pilgrims took dirt from beneath the chapel as relics, with healings reported through it. In 1969 the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America formally announced the intention to canonize him; on August 9, 1970, the canonization service was held at Holy Resurrection Cathedral on Kodiak Island, with Metropolitan Ireney presiding. His relics were transferred from Spruce Island to Holy Resurrection Cathedral on Kodiak, where they continue to be venerated. The Spruce Island grave site continues to be a major Orthodox pilgrimage site. The Saint Michael Skete continues to function on Spruce Island, fulfilling Herman\'s prophecy that there would eventually be a monastery on the island. The annual pilgrimage to Spruce Island in August draws Orthodox Christians from across North America and beyond. He is commemorated by the Eastern Orthodox Church on August 9 (the date of his glorification) and December 13 (the date traditionally received as his repose, though the actual date may have been November 15). He is universally venerated throughout the broader Eastern Orthodox tradition as the foundational American Orthodox saint, the spiritual patron of the American Orthodox tradition, and the missionary to the indigenous Alaskan populations. His writings (the surviving letters to Valaam) have been translated into English and remain in print. His pattern of authentic missionary work as the integration of contemplative spiritual life with active defense of indigenous human dignity continues to shape American Orthodox missionary engagement and to provide the template for the broader Eastern Orthodox missionary tradition\'s engagement with indigenous populations.