“You have a place in which God wanted you to be born, and that nation, that country in which you were born, has a history. You have to come into Orthodoxy with the whole destiny of the American people because they have to find Christ Jesus, to be saved .. you come with the destiny of your people in Orthodoxy.” Fr. Roman Braga (Exploring the Inner Universe).

Some topics are worth considerable rumination.

In a fairly recent article entitled Red, White, and Blue Orthodoxy, I reflected on Orthodoxy in America. It’s an important topic. Most of all since it’s growing. I based that article upon the words of Fr. Roman Braga and his thoughts on the subject. I followed that article up with a deeper examination of a topic he touched upon, Puritanical tendencies in American culture. That article is called The Collective of the Pure.

This article continues topics already laid out in the articles mentioned above. It can stand alone, but if the reader has yet to read those articles, I’d encourage it. I guess this is turning into a series of sorts!

I’ve been reading a wonderful book, Orthodox Alaska: A Theology of Missions, by Fr. Michael Oleksa. Regardless of Orthodox Jurisdictional affiliation, this book should be read by Orthodox people in America (but it is insightful to anyone, even if the reader is not Orthodox). At the same time, I’ll recommend a video documentary called Sacred Alaska.

The original Orthodox mission on the N. American continent started in Alaska. This mother mission has much to offer in the way of guidance for American Orthodoxy today. It is also very profitable for us to be aware of the struggles it has endured.

The original Orthodox missionaries cultivated a deep respect for the Native cultures that they encountered in Alaska. The Natives suffered brutal exploitation under the Russian American Trading Company, but they found great advocates in the Orthodox clergy and missionaries. To the extent that the Trading company began to resent them. St. Herman is a foremost example. He also embodies the necessary foundation of ascetic endeavor as a vital foundation for Christian missions.

The original missionaries willingly highlighted the many positive Native practices that they found existing in Alaska. In a 1794 report, the missionaries eagerly describe the similarities between the Native account of creation and the Christian account (see Orthodox Alaska, pg. 102). Many of the native ways flowed easily into the Orthodox Christian way. As one example, the Natives had a deep understanding of Yau or Inua. They comprehended this to be the life force that animates all living things. This already existing understanding flowed and harmonized with the Orthodox understanding of Logoi, the life-giving and God-oriented power that directs and moves everything toward the Divine Logos (see Orthodox Alaska, pg. 125-126). Fr. Michael notes that “The Christian is not commanded to suppress natural desires for the good, but to understand what the genuine good is and actively pursue it”(Ibid. Pg 56). This has been the underlying approach of authentic Christian missions from the earliest times. It is alluded to by St. Paul in the book of Romans and exemplified by his use of the shrine to the unknown god as a leading point for his talk at the Areopagus. The early Christian apologist, St. Justin, used the term logos spermatikos.

St. Innocent Veniaminov was instrumental in establishing written languages for Native tribes. The Orthodox Mission was dedicated to the spiritual reality that Orthodox worship and the Scriptures should be in the native tongues. His famous and profoundly beautiful work, Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven, was originally written in native Aleut. St. Innocent embodies the Orthodox understanding of respect and honor for the positive in local cultures. He diligently studied and strove to understand the Native ways, and most of all, to incorporate as much as possible. This required a profound Gospel spirit and a rooted and dedicated respect for the people encountered.

Through this authentically Orthodox approach, a uniquely indigenous expression of Orthodoxy clearly began to emerge. The steadfast confession of St. Peter the Aleut while imprisoned in California reflects this indigenous saturation.

St. Innocent eventually expanded this vision to the emerging nation of America, exemplified in his advice upon the Russian sale of Alaska to America. He advised that the native mission in Alaska be continued according to its existing principles. He recommended that the diocesan center of the Orthodox Mission be moved to San Francisco for greater ease of access. He further recommended that Bishops and clergy be appointed in the United States who speak English. “Allow the bishop to augment his staff, transfer its members and ordain to the priesthood for our churches converts to Orthodoxy from among American citizens who accept all its institutions and customs. Allow the vicar bishop and all the clergy of the Orthodox Church in America to celebrate the liturgy and other services in English. To use English rather than Russian in all instruction in schools to be established in San Francisco and elsewhere to prepare people for ordination and mission work” (Ibid., p. 166).

St. Innocent advocated that the Alaskan approach to missions, the use of native languages, and such be implemented in America itself. He envisioned the Alaskan mission as a prototype for the continued missions in the N. American continent.

It’s interesting that to this day segments of Orthodoxy still hold a certain devaluation of native languages. I’ve heard several times from Orthodox sources speeches lauding the great merits of Greek, or another language, and how it’s superior to English, which may well be so. And how the services are the best if performed in Greek, or said language, rather than English. But such a mentality falls short of the missionary vision that was established in Alaska. This vision is the continuation of the vision of Ss. Cyril and Methodius. Themselves Greeks, they worked diligently so that the Slavs could have the Liturgy and Scriptures in their own language. This is the Orthodox mission standard. For certain, some languages may be richer and more nuanced than others, but to those who do not understand them, it means absolutely nothing. St. Paul himself understood this when he proclaimed, “I’d rather speak five words with my understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue” (cf. 1 Cor. 14:19). The exaltation of a particular language can become a form of idolatry, as if somehow God is more pleased with it. This idea was clearly rejected by the Church when it confronted the Three Language Heresy.

Clearly, there is a place in N. America for the use of non-English languages in worship, as situations and pastoral realities may demand. The primary use of a native language does not absolutely negate the use of a non-native language. I believe the issue becomes problematic when a particular foreign language is elevated to a magical place of greater spirituality and purity than other languages. This mentality is not in the authentic ethos of Orthodox missions. The Russian Orthodox Mission in Alaska could have promoted the deep richness of Slavonic and required that all services be performed in it. But they did not; they labored so that the Natives would have the services in their own languages. Slavonic remained in limited usage, but in a more supplemental manner.

In 1867, Alaska was sold to the United States of America and incorporated into its territories. The factors behind this are many and are not the focus of this article. Suffice it to highlight that a clash of cultures ensued. In typical American fashion, men were appointed who knew little and cared not to expand themselves in understanding the people they were appointed over. One such character is Dr. Sheldon Jackson, a Presbyterian minister. He was more or less given free rein in Alaska. Fr. Michael notes that, “Since the Grant administration a decade earlier, the federal government has assigned various Indian reservations to specific Christian denominations and paid the salaries of the missionaries who operated the public schools on the reservations,” (Ibid, pp. 171-172). The US government has a dismal track record of dealing with Native Americans. Abuse and lies prevailed. The Government approach to the Native tribes in what would become the “lower 48” was perpetuated in Alaska. Frequently, Protestant missionaries strove to forcefully adapt Natives to the ways of white culture. Native ways were viewed as backwards and heathen. Fr. Michael continues, “In Alaska, boarding homes were established by federally funded Protestant missions whose goal was to ‘recreate’ young Natives in the likeness of their white mentors … as one Commissioner of Education expressed it, ‘We have no higher calling in the world than to be missionaries to these people [the Native Alaskans, my note] who have not yet achieved the Anglo-Saxon frame of mind,” (Ibid. pg 172). The fact that many Natives were already Orthodox Christians troubled the Protestant missionaries. “These Natives had embraced the ‘wrong’ kind of Christianity and adopted the ‘wrong’ alphabet” (Ibid).

It is striking that the Calvinistic Presbyterian ministers made a point of suppressing the Native languages. Dr. Jackson himself writes, “One strong stand that I know I was the first to take was the determination to do no translating into…any native dialects. I realized…that the task of making an English-speaking race out of these natives was much easier than the task of making a civilized and Christian language out of the Native languages. We should let the old tongues with their superstitions and sin die – the sooner the better – and replace these languages with that of Christian civilization, and compel the natives in our schools to speak English and only English,” (Ibid. pg 171). In their puritanical mindset, they view English as the superior language. In their understanding, there was no place for the “lesser” native languages. They also associated it with a lower culture that was considered heathen and backwards. Language is intricately tied to people. Thus, I believe it can be proposed that a devaluation of a local language reflects the inner disposition towards the people themselves. If the language is not worthy, the people are not worthy.

The Orthodox missionaries viewed native languages as God-given and a vital part of people’s worship of God. In Alaska, the native languages were used in the Orthodox missions; in the growing country of the United States, the predominant English was considered important to use. But it refrained from promoting one language above another; the vital question was simple: what is the native language? How do we reach people and proclaim the Gospel in their native tongues?

The puritanical Presbyterians viewed English as a superior language and ruthlessly enforced its exclusive use. It was connected to their missionary goal of making Natives into some copy of Anglo-Saxons, although never equal. It was the superior culture in their view. A predominant aspect of the puritanical mindset is superiority. One culture is elevated to a superior state over other cultures and people. Of course, this approach is in stark contrast to the Orthodox approach. The Orthodox mission diligently labored to establish and cultivate a native Orthodoxy in Alaska. The use of native languages together with respect for the many very good native ways was vital. Yet, if the goal is to suppress the native culture, then it generally starts with language and culture, as the Presbyterian approach indicates.

A portion of the Protestant mission was indeed racial, that is it viewed Natives as inferior to Anglo-Saxon descendants. In my opinion, racial degradation is primarily based on ideology rather than simply on phenotypic categories. American Anglo-Saxon prejudices were also directed towards white-skinned people of non-Anglo-Saxon roots, for example, the Irish and the Slavs. The explicitly American religion invented by Joseph Smith reflected a particular European/American Protestant belief and religious tendency (Mormonism is Protestant but not Christian) that white is superior. (Clearly, not all Protestants believed this.) In Mormonism’s early teachings, brown skin was caused by people falling away from God, but they could be restored as a “white and delightful people.” In 1981, this original version from the times of J. Simth of “white” was changed to “pure.” A certain segment of Protestant ideologies clearly valued “white” as a vitreous existence. The Gospel ascribes no merit to skin color whatsoever. The degradation of any phenotypic traits, such as “Black, white, brown, yellow,” and so forth, has no place in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Native Alaskan youth were forcefully removed from their families and put into Protestant-run schools. The predominant policies of these schools then refused Orthodox clergy the ability to come and minister to the captive Native Orthodox, even to the extent of refusing Orthodox burial services. Such policies were applied to non-Orthodox likewise, that is, it was a standard procedure in dealing with Natives. The Protestant goal was to make the Natives as close to white Protestants as possible, which was, in their view, a virtuous undertaking.

The Calvinistic missions approach was to sweep away all Native practices as “sinful, heathen, backwards, and unenlightened.” Let it not escape the reader that many Natives were Orthodox Christians. The Orthodox approach to missions had been to encounter, respect, and cultivate the good Native culture, of which there was much. The starting point was not the assumption that the Natives were totally impure heathens. Yet, this is the predominant starting point of most Protestant “missions” to Natives. A puritanical mindset always operates from a position of superiority rather than as a servant. The Orthodox missionaries followed Christ Jesus and came as those who serve; the Protestant method came as one who would lord it over. I’ll let the reader discern which is the more Biblical way.

It also wrongly utilizes Christianity as a vessel to promote what is considered a “superior” culture. Indeed, said culture may have many laudable aspects, but Christianity is not one earthly culture; nor is the intent to preserve one “superior” culture. Many earthly cultures have been deeply formed and influenced by Christianity. But true Christianity is both incarnate and local while being simultaneously cosmic and eternal. Earthly cultures can participate in the eternal through authentic Christianity. Yet, its job is not to perpetuate any one earthly cultural mode, but rather to sanctify all the earth and its peoples through the Lord Jesus. This will inevitably vary from people to people. Orthodoxy already reflects this in the many cultural variations that have beautifully existed within it for two thousand years, from the splendors of Orthodox Constantinople to the beauty and simplicity of Native Alaskan Orthodoxy.

Under US rule, the Orthodox clergy of Alaska found themselves in a great struggle to protect their native flocks. Many of them worked diligently to do so, but with much opposition from both the local Protestant missionary groups and the government, which in mass supported them. The Orthodox were impoverished while the Protestant missions had firm financial support.

Many native customs became the focus of the law, which sought to outlaw them. In the late 1800s, this actually facilitated a large segment of the Tlingit tribe to become Orthodox, because they recognized that the Orthodox Church respected many of their ways, unlike the Calvinistic Protestants. Fr. Michael writes, “The Orthodox clergy tended to tolerate, if not approve, many Tlingit traditions which the Presbyterians condemned as heathen … In turn, the American missionaries turned increasingly to the civil authorities to enforce assimilation policies … in Orthodox communities, memorial feasts continued to be held at the burial and on the fortieth day following the death, despite the legal ban on such ‘pagan practices,’” (Ibid., pp. 181-182).

In a spirit close to that which would emerge under Communism, Dr. Jackson declared that “’ The days of the Orthodox Church are numbered’ and that ‘twenty-five years from now, there will not be any Orthodox church members in Alaska,’” (Ibid). Together with the communists, he has realized that he is wrong.

During World War II, the Native Unangan, from the Aleutian Island Chain, were forcefully relocated and interned at Government camps due to fears of Japanese invasion. The Camps were inhumane, to say the least.¹ Most Natives were held against their will, and thus can be considered to have been imprisoned by the Government. The first-hand testimony of Dr. Berneta Block revealed, “Once she entered the first bunkhouse where multiple families shared only two or three rooms quartered off with grimy bed sheets for makeshift dividing walls, her horror overwhelmed her. “As we entered the first bunkhouse, the odor of human excreta and waste was so pungent that I could hardly make the grade,” she noted. She and the other investigators laid their eyes upon mothers and children who shared single bunkbeds, huddled together in the damp cold and darkness, and found other children “naked and covered with excreta.” No proper sewage system existed for the inhabitants and the only water supply from a nearby creek was “discolored” and polluted. As another official noted, no living being should be forced to inhabit these conditions.”²

At that time, the US military implemented a “scorched-earth” policy in some Native villages of the Aleutian Chain. Entire villages were burned to the ground, including the Orthodox church of St. Nicholas. The stated goal was to leave no structures that a potential Japanese invasion could occupy.³

The US Government supported actions that disrupted Native homes and foiled attempts to use the native languages, continuing up into the early 1970s. In the mid 1960s, the Government worked with the Assembly of God in certain areas of Alaska in a continued effort to assimilate the Native Orthodox. Besides the cultural suppression, other typical means of fragmenting Native cultures were used, such as saloons and alcohol, together with disruption of traditional ways of life, subsequent poverty, and then social programs to make Natives dependents of the Government. As a very side note, we should be aware that this method is now used widely to subjugate the general population. Drugs are now the substance of choice to cultivate dependency.

Over a century of Protestant missions and the US Government impressing upon the Native cultures that they are “just dumb natives” has had its effect today. This is a terrible reality and a sin of our Nation. Yet, Native Alaskan Orthodoxy survived about a century of focused persecution. The struggle was vastly uneven. A well-funded and focused mission to undermine Orthodoxy in Alaska ultimately failed. Thankfully, God is much greater than the US government. And He upheld the helpless and oppressed. The valiant and steadfast holding to Orthodox Christianity by our Native fathers and mothers in the Faith should be an inspiration and example to all Orthodox Christians in America today.

For us as Orthodox, we must once again bring to the forefront the mother Orthodox mission in America, which began in Alaska. Orthodoxy in America was, first of all, a strikingly Native reality. The Gospel vision and mission were courageously brought by the Imperial Russian Orthodox Mission, which was eager to cultivate and entrust it to the Native Alaskan peoples. Saints such as Jacob of Alaska exemplify this. Early on, the Orthodox missionaries had a focused and clear vision for a Native local church. One that was distinct in its unique culture but also organically part of the universal Body of Christ. May the daring and desire of these Orthodox missionaries guide us today. Although American culture(s) have many ailments, it likewise has many beneficial expressions. The Alaskan missionaries did not try to make Russians out of the Natives; rather, they strove to cultivate the Native tribes in their distinctive positive ways and cultures. Inevitably, there was cross-pollination. Orthodoxy is incarnate, and it is incarnate on the local level. This means that in America, we must strive not to make imitating Greek or Russian, or so forth, as the somehow end-all-be-all pattern of salvation. We must receive and respect the beautiful traditions they present while also laboring to incarnate a local native expression of Orthodoxy. As highlighted in previous articles, this will not be uniform across America because it has a variety of regional and cultural differences that must be authentically considered. The task is not easy, but it’s well worth the spiritual labor if we have a Gospel vision for our place and people. Not only should the varying local territorial cultures be considered, but also the linguistic expansion. In certain areas, Spanish may well need to be treated as a local language, for example.

Obviously, the goal is not an Americanized Orthodoxy, but an Orthodoxy that is native to Americans. If the Ancient Greeks were permitted the intense struggle of Christianizing Hellenism, together with other cultures, so may America be permitted. Sometimes it’s still not clear to me in some Greek places in America whether it is Christianized Hellenism or Hellenized Christianity.

In my opinion, the most troublesome cultural expression in America is that which comes from the Puritan influence. It’s not impossible, but its extremely puritanical mind must be shed for any of its positives to flourish. It is also the one that seeks to subjugate other cultures.

Fr. Michael observes that authentic Orthodox Christian missions “Preferred to encourage cultural and linguistic pluralism everywhere, while, at the same time, striving to bring all nations to Christ, to the truth. It required eight centuries to Christianize Hellenism … The same process was undertaken in Russia, and that nation received the Orthodox tradition in its own language and cultural context, inevitably emphasizing certain aspects of it, while paying less attention to others. The Orthodox Church recognizes that the same will be true as the same faith comes to America. No single nation or culture can ever fully manifest of become the ultimate expression of truth … However each person and each nation is called to strive to embody, to ‘incarnate’ the Word of God, each in its irreproducible, absolutely unique way,” (Ibid. pg. 193). Thus, cultures and the persons sanctified within their context bring into eternity the destiny of their people. It is both particular and universal. The fallen world tends to the right or the left, either it prioritizes the universal, the global, the commune, over the individual and local, or it magnifies the local in nationalistic elitism. Authentic Christianity honors the nation while lifting it into the Catholic reality of the Divine; thus, it harmonizes the universal with the national. May the Lord give us wisdom.

1The Other WWII American-Internment Atrocity : Code Switch : NPR

2The Wartime Internment of Native Alaskans | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

3World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska – Introduction (U.S. National Park Service)