THE POWER OF ST. HERMAN WAS CHRIST HIMSELF

 

On August 21, 1987, His Beatitude Metropolitan Theodosius, then the primate of the Orthodox Church in America, presented a monk of the Athonite monastery of Simonos Petras with a great spiritual treasure—the right tibia of St. Herman of Alaska. The gift was given in response to the request of the Greek faithful.

 

The monk had been in America to represent his abbot, the great twentieth-century elder Archimandrite Aimilianos, at the annual pilgrimage to Kodiak, Alaska in honor of St. Herman. The elder recalled hearing tales of St. Herman even in his youth, at a time when, before his canonization in 1970, hardly anyone knew of him outside of Alaska.

 

Then, on September 4, 1987, the relic of St. Herman was reverently greeted at the Monastery of the Holy Annunciation in Ormylia, Greece, which had been founded by Elder Aimilianos. St. Herman had been regularly celebrated at Simonos Petras since 1981, and the fathers had even composed a full service to him in the Byzantine style, which was served in the presence of the gifted relic at the Ormylia Monastery on December 10, 1987.

 

From there, Elder Aimilianos joyously took the precious tibia of St. Herman to other churches and monasteries for the veneration of the faithful, offering inspired homilies in honor of the great missionary to America.