ST. HERMAN OF ALASKA (DEC. 13TH)

The Message of St. Herman of Alaska for 21st Century America by Father Thomas Hopko (1939-2015)

The elder Herman of Alaska (1751-1837), missionary monk of Spruce Island near Kodiak, died on the 13th of December in 1837. What is it that Almighty God wants us to see and hear in the life and work of Saint Herman of Alaska? Why has He chosen, of all people, exactly this person to be, as the hymn honoring his memory says, the "joyful North Star of the Church of Christ," called to guide us in America to God's heavenly kingdom?

The young monk Herman was a hermit in the monastery of Valaamo in 18th century Russian Finland. He was chosen to be a member of the first missionary team being sent to the Russian lands in Alaska. Of the members of that first missionary team, he alone survived, living for many years as a simple monk on Spruce Island. He taught the Gospel to the native peoples he encountered. The native Alaskans to whom he preached the Gospel and served were humble, simple, poor, exploited and even enslaved. He attended to their spiritual and physical needs. He defended them against the cruelty of Russian fur traders. He even pleaded their cause before the imperial throne of the Tsar in Russia. He was beaten and persecuted by his own people for his condemnation of their injustices and sins against the native population. A person of genuine faith and continuous prayer, he died in obscurity, foretelling his glorification in future years by the Church that would emerge from his own efforts and those of the waves of immigrants who would come to American shores in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

America desperately needs the witness of St. Herman of Alaska. Possessions, profit, pleasure and power: these are the things we Americans are known for around the world. These are the things in which we take particular pride. By American standards, St. Herman of Alaska, like the Lord Jesus Himself, was a miserable failure. He made no name for himself. He was not in the public eye. He wielded no power. He owned no property. He had few possessions, if any at all. He died in obscurity among an outcast people. He had no “PR” office. He had no programs for publicity, no press releases, no desire for worldly prestige. Yet today, almost two hundred years after his death, his icon is venerated in thousands of churches and his name is honored by millions of people whom he is still trying to teach to seek the kingdom of God and its righteousness - a kingdom that has been brought to the world by a King who was born in a cave and laid in a feeding trough for animals. God has honored St. Herman because he was willing to lose his life for the sake of the Gospel in order to find himself in Christ for everlasting life. The example of this man is crucial to how we as Orthodox Christians must celebrate Christmas – especially in America. St. Herman is God’s gift to us, a gift we dare not refuse.

St. Herman, pray for us!