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.
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