ST. HERMAN OF ALASKA

ST. HERMAN OF ALASKA

                                                      Life on Spruce Island

St. Herman moved to Spruce Island around 1811 to 1817. The island is separated from Kodiak by a mile-wide strait, making it ideal for eremetic life. St. Herman named his hermitage “New Valaam.” He wore simple clothes and slept on a bench covered with a deerskin. When asked how he could bear to be alone in the forest, he replied, “I am not alone. God is here, as God is everywhere.” Despite his solitary life, he soon gained a following. He received many visitors—especially native Aleuts—on Sundays and church feasts. Soon his hermitage had next to it a chapel and guesthouse, and then a school for orphans St. Herman had a few disciples, including the Creole orphan Gerasim Ivanovich Zyrianov, a young Aleut woman named Sofia Vlasova, and others. Entire families moved in order to be closer to the Elder, who helped to sort out their disputes. St.Herman had a deep love for the native Aleuts: he stood up for them against the excesses of the Russian-American Company, and once during an epidemic he was the only Russian to visit them, working tirelessly to care for the sick and console the dying. St. Herman spent the rest of his life on Spruce Island, where he died on November 15, 1836.

                                                  

Saints Sergius and Herman of Valaam Chapel, built in 1898 over the site where St. Herman was buried on Spruce Island in December 1836. Located near Monk's Lagoon, in the immediate vicinity of St. Herman's hermitage.

In 1963, with the blessing of St. John Maximovitch, Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco, a community of Orthodox booksellers and publishers called the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood was formed to publish Orthodox missionary information in English. One of the founders was Father Seraphim Rose. The Brotherhood did much to advance the cause of St. Herman's glorification as a saint. Saint Herman's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kodiak, Alaska is named in his honor, as are numerous parish churches throughout the world.

On Tuesday, August 4, 1970, the 91st Congress of the United States acknowledged the Glorification of St Herman of Alaska with a speech in the Senate, and his biography was formally entered into the Congressional Record.^[36]

In 1993, Patriarch Alexis II visited Kodiak to venerate the relics of Saint Herman. He left as a gift an ornate lampada (oil lamp) which burns constantly over the reliquary. Pilgrims from all over the world are anointed with holy oil from this lampada.

Herman is also honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on August 9.^[37]

                                   

 

The reliquary of St. Herman of Alaska, located in the Church of the Holy Resurrection in Kodiak, Alaska.