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00:00:26Tantilae Gein, Tantilae Sweiling, Tantilae Tequiling
00:00:31Tantilae Gein, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae,
00:00:41Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae,
00:00:48Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, Tantilae, T
00:00:58I'm not going to do that.
00:01:36Thank you so much for joining us.
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00:05:06If I'm going to go hunting out into the wilderness, I need to know how to be quiet.
00:05:13I need to know how to observe and to listen.
00:05:22If I didn't know how to be quiet in the wilderness, the animals would not come and give themselves
00:05:30to me, to the hunter.
00:05:41I am living in the footsteps of those who walked the path before us.
00:05:48Everything that we have, we cannot say it's our own.
00:05:52Even in our own wisdom that we have, it's not our own.
00:05:56It was given to us by our elders because they shared verbally and taught verbally how we
00:06:03should live, sharing with one another, love being the Yupik word, kinka, kinka, being the
00:06:11major teaching in everything.
00:06:20When we receive fish, the berries, they help share that gift of life, that gift from Christ,
00:06:29that gift of life.
00:06:32It helps us to understand also how more fully that Eucharist is, the communion is, the meaning
00:06:41of that, to be connected, to receive the body and blood of Christ who is the source of life.
00:06:50That's life in Orthodoxy in the village.
00:07:04CHOIR SINGS
00:07:22CHOIR SINGS
00:07:33CHOIR SINGS
00:07:35CHOIR SINGS
00:07:36CHOIR SINGS
00:07:36CHOIR SINGS
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00:07:41CHOIR SINGS
00:07:52CHOIR SINGS
00:08:10So, what are a bunch of Russian Orthodox monks doing in Alaska?
00:08:14You know, what's that all about?
00:08:16Well, Alaska's halfway across the world.
00:08:19But Alaska's also a place where the Russian Empire has hunters, traders, there's a whole
00:08:26Russian-American company there, and so a number of monks from Vala Monastery and the Konyavets
00:08:31Monastery were asked by the church to go over as missionaries to take care of the spiritual
00:08:36needs of these Russian-American company employees, but also to bring the gospel to the natives
00:08:41over there.
00:08:42Anyway, so they travel, and they leave in December of 1793, and it took them nine months
00:08:48to cross from Western Russia, St. Petersburg, all across Russia, Siberia, Kamchatka, to
00:08:55the Pacific Ocean, boarding a ship, heading over across the Bering Sea, which is a really
00:09:00rough area.
00:09:01It's very dangerous.
00:09:03And they end up on the island of Kodiak.
00:09:06When the missionaries came to Kodiak, they encountered Baranov exploiting native labor,
00:09:14forcing men even at gunpoint to go out and hunt for him.
00:09:16And Alexander Baranov is not pleased with their arrival, because he knows the jig is up.
00:09:22The way they've been treating the Kodiak-Alyutik people is no longer going to be a state secret.
00:09:27And in fact, within six months, the monks are writing letters back to the authorities in
00:09:32Siberia, complaining about the criminal activities of the Russian-American company, forcing people
00:09:39to hunt for fur at gunpoint.
00:09:42You're going to starve this winter.
00:09:44Your children are going to be crying from hunger if you don't get out there and deliver the
00:09:48goods.
00:09:48And that was the policy for the years before the monks arrived, and the monks became whistleblowers.
00:09:57The Vala monks took six or seven months of just listening to stories before they began preaching
00:10:03at all.
00:10:05They were really heroic in the sense that they identified with the Alaska Native peoples.
00:10:09They baptized thousands of converts.
00:10:12And the people willingly came to the monks because the monks were on their side, as opposed to
00:10:18the oppressive, abusive, and even criminal activities of Alexander Baranov, Ivan Kuzkov,
00:10:24and Nikolai Rezanov.
00:10:26And it's taken now two centuries to uncover what really happened and to expose the misdeeds
00:10:33of the Russian-American company officials, which the church has known because St. Herman,
00:10:40canonized 50 years ago, was already exalted as an intercessor and defender of the oppressed.
00:10:49And the people realized that he's the one who kind of risked his own life for their security,
00:10:54for their safety.
00:10:55The other monks had done the same, but they had perished pretty much in the calamities
00:11:00that occurred over the years.
00:11:03Ultimately, the only monk that was left out of the ten was Father Herman.
00:11:07And he was not safe.
00:11:09They tried to kill him three times in Kodiak.
00:11:11So he moved to a nearby island, Spruce Island, Yalovoy.
00:11:26The exact date that St. Herman moved to Spruce Island is actually unknown.
00:11:33He moved here, and his first winter he spent alone.
00:11:37He built a barabra, which is kind of a half-earthened dwelling, and he spent his first year in seclusion.
00:11:47The first challenge that any of us face living in a remote place like this, it's, you know,
00:11:56you have your physical hardships of survival, but more important and more difficult are the internal
00:12:07challenges that a person faces living in a remote location.
00:12:12St. Herman had already been fully trained.
00:12:16He was practicing noetic prayer, and it's a prayer of the heart, continually repeating the prayer of Jesus.
00:12:25He was experienced.
00:12:28He was not young, and so he already had that stability when he came out here, so he could focus
00:12:37his thoughts.
00:12:38He had a focused mind and a focused heart.
00:12:42He was here to practice prayer, to come closer to God.
00:12:48And then the unexpected event when people began to give him their orphans,
00:12:54and evidently he discerned that this was God's providence, and so he accepted that.
00:13:01People remember St. Herman as someone who was lively and had a sense of joy.
00:13:09But my mom remembered him.
00:13:12They referred to him as a small grandpa, yeah.
00:13:18A panjuk.
00:13:19A panjuk.
00:13:20A panjuk.
00:13:21He made cookies for the children.
00:13:24Those are the stories that I heard growing up.
00:13:27They called him grandpa because, of course, the last 20, 30 years of his life he had a long white
00:13:32beard.
00:13:33And they didn't have that many elders.
00:13:36But calling him grandpa, Appa, was a sign of affection, but also of reverence because elders are the respected.
00:13:42They're the encyclopedia you go to for information.
00:13:45It's only the elders who have lived long enough in the traditional tribal culture to have become a real person.
00:13:52The ancient name for the Alutic, Sukhpiak, means real people.
00:13:56The Yupik, the ending pikorpiak, means real.
00:13:58The Anupiak of the North Arctic Ocean, the shore, the real people.
00:14:03But you don't, you're born as a potential real person.
00:14:08But it takes a lifetime to actually become one.
00:14:11It takes a while to become that kind, that patient, that hospitable, that humble.
00:14:18I just know he had love in his heart for all of us.
00:14:22Yeah, he's remembered by a lot of us.
00:14:27I keep him in my bedroom.
00:14:31So I'll say good night to him.
00:14:38Father Herman writes a beautiful letter back to his abbot Nazarius.
00:14:43And he goes on to kind of give a rather poetic description of wild Alaska.
00:14:51And that, at the same time of being so far in this distant land, that he's keeping fondly in his
00:15:00memory and heart the brothers back at Valam Monastery.
00:15:04And then he names Monk's Lagoon New Valam.
00:15:08And the landscape, if you look at pictures of either place, it does look very similar.
00:15:13So he hasn't been lost in the sense of isolation.
00:15:18I think he loved the beauty of the spot.
00:15:22And today we marvel at Monk's Lagoon.
00:15:25And, of course, there's something more than just the trees, the moss, the forest, the waves, the birds, and the
00:15:34flocks.
00:15:36There's a special kind of grace there, but I think he was seeing that place as a place of beauty
00:15:43and finding inspiration in that.
00:15:48His prayerful presence on that island sanctified the island.
00:15:53There's this sense, this palpable sense of sanctity that one man saying his prayers in the wilderness has given us,
00:16:01really, as a spiritual inheritance.
00:16:08I always feel so good when I go there.
00:16:11It's so beautiful.
00:16:13You could just feel the peace.
00:16:16It's holy.
00:16:17The place is holy.
00:16:19All his prayers, you know, you feel them.
00:16:23After all this time, he's been gone, and you still are able to experience and witness his prayers.
00:16:34After his death, they built a chapel over Father Herman's grave.
00:16:38It had become a pilgrimage site.
00:16:41People went there to pray, to ask for his intercessions.
00:16:45Father Herman, pray to God for us, my child is sick.
00:16:49He just shone, and by his personal life, not necessarily even going anywhere, living in Kodiak and then coming out
00:16:59here in Spruce Island, but living the gospel in a way that changed other people's life, and that they could
00:17:05see the life of Christ reflected through him.
00:17:08That's the legacy that we have today.
00:17:11It's this internal gift that St. Herman gives us.
00:17:16I'm so proud of him.
00:17:18I'm so proud of him.
00:17:18He came and bring Orthodoxy to Alaska.
00:17:23Because of his love, and speaking, and trying to protect us, and all the persecution he went through, you know,
00:17:33and then his sacrifice, his journey just crossing all of Russia.
00:17:37And here, this little guy just, you know.
00:17:44He remains alive among his people as a living presence, whose intercessions continues to heal and comfort them in time
00:17:54of joy and in time of sorrow.
00:17:56From this day forth, from this hour, from this minute, let us learn to love God above all else.
00:18:09St. Herman of Alaska.
00:18:28The most moving aspect of his life, to me, we are familiar with his miracles.
00:18:34We've known people whose lives have been changed in a miraculous way.
00:18:39But when we think of St. Herman, we think of someone who is warm-hearted, simple, and loving.
00:18:57Of course, it's kind of a cliche, but they call Alaska the last frontier, right?
00:19:03It's a frontier where that's always open because there's, like, basically an immeasurable amount of land.
00:19:15There's this, like, elemental power.
00:19:18On one hand, an image of chaos, but then on the other hand, it's an image of power and God's
00:19:28power.
00:19:29And I've had many experiences being out in the ocean, and you just get the sense that you're in God's
00:19:36hand in that mighty expanse.
00:19:38You're in something much greater than you.
00:19:46And I think that part of life where we're no longer controlling and calculating every facet is very attractive, especially
00:19:57in the world we live in.
00:20:00A freedom to be not in control.
00:20:10We have one impulse, I think, to always be in control.
00:20:15And in some ways, that's needed to control circumstances and the environment.
00:20:22But I think it's part of that great mystery of life we can experience in Alaska to be not in
00:20:31control.
00:20:32And that's similar to, I think, to the experience of God.
00:20:37It's something unexpected.
00:20:41When grace comes, it's often not when we've done all the things that we think we should have done to
00:20:49receive grace.
00:20:50It's at a time when we didn't expect it.
00:20:53So, I think, also, again, going into wild Alaska, something that's bigger than us, touches on that.
00:21:01But when we're in something that's of a greater power than ourselves, we then discover who we are, not when
00:21:10we're completely in control.
00:22:03He's an amazing fellow.
00:22:05He's described as being big, husky, strong, an imposing figure.
00:22:12But his other contemporaries also call him gentle, kind, humorous, magnetic.
00:22:19And this individual has changed the history of Alaska, let alone the history of orthodoxy in Alaska.
00:22:29So initially, St. Innocent was parish priest, young fellow, newly ordained in Irkutsk, Siberia.
00:22:36That was going to be his future. That was his vocation, he felt.
00:22:39It was just a simple life of a priest and a pastor.
00:22:42The stories that he had heard as a seminarian and as a young priest coming back from Alaska, that it's
00:22:48a wild place, very rough and rugged.
00:22:51The temperatures and the winds and all, and the people that were there.
00:22:57So initially, when he heard this, he had no desire to become a missionary.
00:23:02And then another story kind of was circulating amongst the folks in his town, from folks who'd been there, that
00:23:08the folks living in the Aleutian chain have a tremendous spirituality, a tremendously deep spirituality.
00:23:14One not unlike our own orthodox spirituality, which was really a surprise to him, because that was very unlike the
00:23:19stories that he'd heard about folks living in the Aleutian chain before that.
00:23:22And so this idea of them having such a tremendous spirituality resonated with him.
00:23:27And as time went on, he realized that there was a call, a deep call, to go to Alaska.
00:23:34But why? He had everything he had hoped for all of his life there as a parish priest.
00:23:40But this call got louder and louder.
00:23:42And eventually he came home from church one day and came to his wife Catherine and said,
00:23:47I'm really feeling that God is calling us to go to Alaska, to become missionaries.
00:23:54So he and his family are living in Alaska, and he's got this entire parish of the entire Aleutian chain,
00:24:01many hundreds of miles.
00:24:03And so how does he get from island to island?
00:24:05Boat and kayak.
00:24:06He's traveling all up and down the Aleutian chain.
00:24:09He's learning the language.
00:24:11He's learning the culture.
00:24:12He's learning the ways of the people.
00:24:15He begins to translate the gospel into the language for them.
00:24:18He's baptizing hundreds and hundreds, and they say even by the end of his life, thousands of people.
00:24:24And so I cannot imagine the work that he did, the stick-to-itiveness of doing this work of God.
00:24:34St. Innocent's vision was a vision of love.
00:24:37We love the people.
00:24:39We hear their stories.
00:24:40We speak their language, and we teach the faith.
00:24:44And it's going to maintain a unique Alaskan context, which means it's going to be a little different in a
00:24:51Yup'ik area versus an Aleut area versus down here in the southeast where it's a Hlingit area.
00:25:08The Hlingit people have been in this country in southeast Alaska for well over 14,000 years.
00:25:17And they became part of this land in surviving in this country.
00:25:31The water, the trees, the land around them, the animals.
00:25:37They viewed everything spiritually.
00:25:45So later in life, St. Innocent was assigned to the church in Sitka.
00:25:51He spent a lot of time learning the language because he felt that was the best way for him to
00:25:59be able to reach out to people in the communities.
00:26:05He just spent a lot of time in the villages to get to know the people and be part of
00:26:14the culture of the Hlingit people.
00:26:29I was born into the Russian Orthodox Church.
00:26:34My mother was Russian Orthodox.
00:26:37My father was Russian Orthodox.
00:26:40My grandfather was Russian Orthodox.
00:26:44I'm with the Raven tribe, and I'm the chief spokesperson for the Kohu people.
00:26:55I'm very happy to be a part of the Russian Orthodox Church.
00:27:01Being, not part, being in the Orthodox Church.
00:27:30In his old age, St. Innocent was summoned back to Russia from his post as the Bishop of Alaska.
00:27:35And he was chosen to become the leader of the whole Russian Orthodox Church.
00:27:40So this obscure priest from Siberia ended up changing history.
00:27:47By the time he returned to Russia, he could barely walk due to the years of being crammed in a
00:27:52kayak for countless hours.
00:27:54And he was almost blind from the sun reflecting from the sea or the snow.
00:27:58He gave and sacrificed everything out of love for the people.
00:28:03200 years later, he still loved and remembered by people all over the world.
00:28:10One of the refrains throughout his life that he often mentioned was,
00:28:15The path of a good man is directed by the Lord, and he delights in his ways.
00:28:35Yakov Natsviatov was born on St. George Island in 1804,
00:28:41the first Aleut seminarian to attend school, theological school in Russia.
00:28:47And in 1827, at the age of 23, he came home and was assigned to Atka.
00:28:53And on the map of the Aleutian Islands, it's about the middle of the Aleutian chain.
00:29:00He was transferred to the Yukon Delta.
00:29:02He set up his headquarters at a town known in Yupik as Ikogemut,
00:29:07and now today in English called Russian Mission.
00:29:10He traveled in an area probably the size of Pennsylvania and Ohio combined
00:29:16on the Nushegak, the Kuskokwimand, and the Yukon.
00:29:21This is in a territory where the temperatures dip well below zero for half the year.
00:29:27And by dog sled in the winter and by kayak in the summer,
00:29:32it's really extraordinary how he managed simply even to navigate 18 years in that region
00:29:38and spread the faith using the Yupik language, which he had learned.
00:29:42They began worshiping in the Yupik language
00:29:44and forming Orthodox communities throughout the region,
00:29:48all of whom are still there to this day.
00:30:16They began worshiping in the
00:30:44Our people weren't forced to embrace
00:30:50Orthodoxy. It just started to grow in them. You know I could see like why our
00:30:58elders before us grasped Orthodoxy so well because everything kind of felt fit
00:31:07like a perfect love. So many people believe today that Christianity was
00:31:12somehow imposed on the Alaska Native people or on Indian tribes in general
00:31:16and the missionary history in some parts of the country is rather sad we have
00:31:20to admit. But in the case of Alaska over and over again we have the people
00:31:26requesting the missionaries to come giving them a fair hearing in a certain
00:31:31sense listening to what they have to say and then without objection accepting
00:31:37baptism at their own request. And I think this gives us the firm foundation in the
00:31:44faith that exists to this day that it was the Native people who heard the Gospel
00:31:48and received it with joy. Now what in the Gospel attracted them? I think it's
00:31:55important to mention this in the context of Father Yaakov because he was
00:31:58evangelizing people who had never heard of Jesus Christ at all.
00:32:04Alaska Native people believe essentially that all life is a mysterious and sacred
00:32:11reality not just in humans but in animals. The animals are sensitive and in many
00:32:17ways wise. The hunter can never surprise the animal or outsmart it or overpower it.
00:32:25They only get the animals who allow themselves to be caught. The animals must sacrifice
00:32:32themselves to keep the otherwise pitiful and pathetic humans alive. This is the traditional belief that goes
00:32:40back thousands of years. When the story of Christ was told to them it was obvious I think that they
00:32:49accepted the sacrifice of Christ in the same way.
00:32:55God himself comes to offer himself to sacrifice himself. This made perfect sense to the Alaska Native
00:33:02people and Father Yaakov being Alaska Native himself understood this perfectly.
00:33:08And Saint Yaakov built his ministry on his knowledge of the cultural and spiritual beliefs of the
00:33:15Alaska Native people. His wife died, his son died unexpectedly, tragically, his house burned down,
00:33:22he owned nothing. At the end of his life after all this heroic effort he was slandered and called to
00:33:28a church court
00:33:29in Sitka. Things couldn't get much worse. And then he was forgotten for a hundred years.
00:33:36Even now we're not quite sure at what spot was he actually buried. But we hope that in the near
00:33:43future
00:33:44we'll be able to find Father Yaakov. It's precisely because he endured so much. He's a testimony to all of
00:33:51us,
00:33:52it's a challenge to all of us to be faithful even to the end as Christ taught us. This heroic
00:33:58extraordinary missionary, Saint Yaakov Nezviatov.
00:34:05Then in 1867 when the Russians left, you would have expected the native people to throw everything
00:34:12related to the Russian regime into the Pacific Ocean, burn down the churches and anathematize anything
00:34:19that had anything to do with Siberia or Russia. But exactly the opposite happened. So clearly
00:34:25something else was going on. The missionaries were able to present Christianity as the fulfillment of
00:34:31what the people already knew, already believed and already understood about themselves and their world.
00:34:46So
00:35:00it's all about that.
00:35:11So
00:35:11we can't wait to see what happened.
00:36:44And it's like a stamp or image of the Creator is in every creation and it sings back and reflects
00:36:52back that image to the Creator.
00:37:03For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son.
00:37:13There are two words for world.
00:37:16The one is the one is the Ikumeni.
00:37:19The Ikumeni is the inhabited world, all the human beings of the planet, the Ikumeni.
00:37:26And the other word for world is cosmos.
00:37:56The human beings are the human beings are the only creature that has both.
00:38:01We were meant to be the connecting link between heaven and earth, between God and man, between the Creator and
00:38:07the creation.
00:38:08And we were to do that by being part of the created world and loving it and offering it back
00:38:15in humility and thanksgiving and gratitude to God.
00:38:18We were meant to see the world as God.
00:38:21We were meant to see the world as God's creation and work with him to fulfill his will and his
00:38:25plan for the whole creation.
00:38:28And that's exactly the vocation, exactly the role Adam and Eve refused.
00:38:34They rejected it.
00:38:36They break the link.
00:38:38They fail to do what human beings were meant to do, hold the whole thing together.
00:38:42So now we have two parts, heaven and earth, creator, creation.
00:38:47The problem is that the creation by itself has no life in it.
00:38:51The source of life and of all life is God.
00:38:58And so in a certain sense the story of the Bible is God's effort to reconnect.
00:39:07His desire to reconnect, to re-sanctify, to restore, to sanctify this world which he so loves.
00:39:22Whether it was running water or plants growing, we were taught at a very young age,
00:39:33to try to respect our life.
00:39:39I think intrinsic to the traditional Alaska Native way of seeing the world.
00:39:47Children are taught from a very early age that living things, all living things,
00:39:54are alive because there's a somehow a sacred or mystical presence in that animal, that plant, that makes it to
00:40:04be alive.
00:40:05There's a word for this in Yupik.
00:40:08It's called its yuah.
00:40:10The thing, the presence that makes that thing to be alive, it's yuah.
00:40:15The life in the animal, whatever makes that animal to be alive, it's yuah, is the same as the life
00:40:21in us.
00:40:23It's what makes the animal alive, it's what makes us alive.
00:40:27I believe that Father Yaakov, in preaching Christianity to the Yupiks in his day, simply named the yuah,
00:40:36Christ.
00:40:40Meaning the life of everything that's alive, in every leaf, of every tree, every flower, every bird, every animal.
00:40:53The source of all life is Jesus Christ.
00:40:56He's not just in a book.
00:40:57And he's not just a character who walked in Palestine 2,000 years ago.
00:41:04The life that animates, that enlivens everything, is Christ.
00:41:14Being in communion with Him puts us in harmony and in communion with all the yuah in the whole world.
00:41:23In the beginning was the meaning for the whole thing.
00:41:28The meaning of this tree is Christ.
00:41:31The meaning of this mountain is Christ.
00:41:34It's here because it's part of the creation as Christ, the Logos, created and designed it, and upholds and sustains
00:41:41it.
00:41:42It's sustained by Christ.
00:41:44Everything exists in the moment, because God wills it to exist in this moment.
00:41:50Creation is happening in this moment, and then it's happening again in this moment.
00:41:55And it just happened again in this moment.
00:41:59Because God, by His will, sustained it each moment at a time.
00:42:06So creation is not just a past event.
00:42:08It's a momentary miracle.
00:42:21The God of the universe is everywhere.
00:42:27And He holds all of life.
00:42:34All the creation in their own way is seen in a continual doxology to God.
00:42:41We kind of participate that if we've lost that center in ourselves where it comes out from us.
00:42:47We can at least be around in nature and be part of that as the creation sings its doxology back
00:42:56to God.
00:42:59I believe that our traditional people, traditional Native American people, tribal hunting, gathering people, saw the world in this practically
00:43:09miraculous way.
00:43:12That it wasn't the same old, ever.
00:43:16It wasn't the same river two days in a row.
00:43:18It wasn't the same sunrise two days in a row.
00:43:22It wasn't the same mountain two days in a row.
00:43:26And when something grows, it's equally miraculous.
00:43:29It could have just never have appeared at all.
00:43:32Nobody planted those berries that we're about to pick.
00:43:35They could have never have existed at all.
00:43:37They exist by the will of God.
00:43:40And the logi in them is Christ.
00:43:45In every blade of grass.
00:43:47In every salmon berry or blueberry on the tundra.
00:43:50In every fish that they harvest.
00:43:52In everything that they eat.
00:43:54Everything that they do.
00:43:55To be able to see the world in this extraordinary, miraculous, newly created, newly sustained, newly sanctified way.
00:44:06And to love it.
00:44:25All the fish that they eat.
00:44:29Which one a little bit differently?
00:44:36None of us are exposed.
00:44:42Any wine говорю?
00:45:05The river here is our source of food, travel.
00:45:13We have villages that in the summer, they'll come here by boat.
00:45:18In the winter, there's travel with snow machine, four-wheeler, or vehicle on the river.
00:45:25And it really is a lifeline for the communities.
00:45:30The river dictates what we do.
00:45:35We live right along the Cuscoquim River.
00:45:39And my uncle had recently stopped by to visit.
00:45:45And he said that living along the river is cleansing.
00:45:53That the flowing water cleanses a person.
00:46:00In order for the flowing river to be cleansing, it needs to be clean.
00:46:16The great blessing of water made great sense from the very beginning
00:46:19because they had a custom in January, the same time when we celebrate theophany,
00:46:24of returning some parts of the animals that they had harvested during the previous year
00:46:30were put through the ice as a gesture of gratitude and respect
00:46:34for the sacrifice that the animals had made in feeding the people.
00:46:39Now they see the priests go to the river and put the cross into that same spot,
00:46:45in that same hole through the ice.
00:46:48For native Alaskans, this is second nature.
00:46:50To go to bless the river on the theophany.
00:46:54The river out of which we pull all our fish, on which we travel.
00:47:02We are healthy when the river is healthy.
00:47:07One cannot be healthy without the other.
00:47:18You are a part of your surrounding in a way that you weren't otherwise.
00:47:24You begin to appreciate your place in your environment.
00:47:37We, as Yupik people, want to continue to reside and raise our families and remain in this place.
00:47:53Yupik people belong here in a way that they wouldn't belong elsewhere.
00:48:01This is where we want to be.
00:48:05We want to be able to live, continue to live off the land, provide for our families from the land.
00:48:19So it's because we can hunt and fish and harvest that we remain.
00:48:37Wet down here.
00:48:58Yeah, you heard about soul food, the food that we grew up with we use as our, the things
00:49:07that connect us with nature, with everything that, with the season and with being able
00:49:14to survive and just being one with everything that God created.
00:49:24In the old times they gave us, or everything that they caught, they always attributed
00:49:34to the gift from God.
00:49:37If you caught something instead of saying you killed, who would you say that it was provided
00:49:43for you, that it gave itself for you from, from God.
00:49:48So the people had this respect for nature.
00:49:54They had to, they had to be respectful with one another and with respect to nature.
00:50:03Everybody and good luck the rest of the season.
00:50:11They take the time out.
00:50:15Subsistence, the word subsistence means, you know, providing food so that you can survive
00:50:22the winter, survive the year, and help families survive the year.
00:50:26So it means subsistence could, could translate to, I am going to be living for the next year.
00:50:34I have life.
00:50:35I'm sharing life with that family.
00:50:37I'm sharing the gift of life with this other family that's not even related.
00:50:42Everything we share and we give of what abundance that we have.
00:50:50Myself growing up subsistence hunting, I learned and learned from my, my uncles and that we need
00:50:57to give thanks for the cash that we have.
00:50:59So when we catch something, give thanks to God, you know, that, that, that saying, I'm going
00:51:05to go get my fish.
00:51:07We don't do that.
00:51:09You know, you don't say that, that we say, so difficult, so hard to say that, and it's
00:51:15a hard thing to do.
00:51:20We were blessed with, with our catch.
00:51:23If we're blessed with fish, we get fish.
00:51:33To be orthodox is to fulfill the words of Christ's command, love one another as I have loved you.
00:51:45And, and, and in the Yupi culture, you know, you see, you live that out.
00:51:50Your back's breaking, your muscles are sore, and you're still smiling.
00:51:55You see the rack of fish cut up, dry, in the smokehouse, you see the, the smoke coming
00:52:02out and the rows of fish, and you, and you smell that, that aroma, that, that, that fish
00:52:09cam smell, and you smile.
00:52:21A person who doesn't share, who doesn't give, will not have anything, and will not have abundance,
00:52:30bounty, blessings.
00:52:40We subsist with the knowledge and the intention to share.
00:52:56We want to have the resource continue to be there.
00:53:01We want to have the resource continue to be there.
00:53:37You asked earlier what subsistence is.
00:53:42Subsistence is loving your neighbor.
00:53:48Subsistence is loving your family.
00:53:51You love them enough to feed them, to provide for them, to work hard,
00:53:56to provide for not just yourself, for the community.
00:54:24It's, as an Orthodox Christian, you're not set apart from your neighbor.
00:54:30That, you know, you're not set apart from them.
00:54:33If you see them hung or if you see them needing wood or other things,
00:54:38you provide, help provide for them.
00:54:43Without subsistence, we wouldn't be the unique people that we are.
00:54:59I'm going to try to be tired because he didn't want to squeeze Fisher.
00:55:22My grandpa was his daughter stay in the church, and, um, in those days,
00:55:32they had to make their own nets.
00:55:35At one time, I went to see him just to sit by him.
00:55:39And during the summer, it was nice and warm out, and he was making his net.
00:55:46And, um, while he was doing that, he was whispering something.
00:55:52I went to, went to his, uh, went close by, and I listened to him.
00:55:58And his words were,
00:56:03And his words were,
00:56:26Uh, that, uh, that grace, special grace that was, uh, given to him by simply being the servant of God.
00:56:43The presence of elders, the honor of elders, was, uh, a big part of living in the village.
00:56:49Because what they taught, and the wisdom that they have, and the teachings that they shared, were vital, uh, to
00:56:59our existence.
00:57:02They made us hear.
00:57:05They made us hear.
00:57:06They made us listen.
00:57:07It was like a textbook of life, that.
00:57:12But the one that you don't see, but it'll be the one that you remember inside, in your head.
00:57:21They received all the word, orthodox word, through the missionaries of God, of the scriptures, and they put it in
00:57:34their heads.
00:57:36My aunt, who raised me, was of my greatest influence.
00:57:42And she taught always about God, talked always about God.
00:57:46I represent my appa and my grandma, the people who raised me, who rooted me through their daily teachings.
00:57:56Not so many by, not by books or anything like that, but by, by action, by example, by being prayerful.
00:58:05Uh, their dedication, their simple, uh, simple trust in God.
00:58:14Even with no words at times, um, through their example, they, they were able to teach, teach us that, uh,
00:58:23that even today after they're gone, we still remember them.
00:58:26They are the number one teachers of our culture because they've lived their lives in a way that, um, taught
00:58:37them to balance any type of chaos that comes up against them.
00:58:42Just as the church tries to teach us, you know, just as the church tries to teach us how to
00:58:45handle, you know, things that come against us.
00:58:49We take even things like, um, alcoholism.
00:58:52We're taught to have, um, we're taught to have a path so that we can overcome and create that balance
00:59:00in our lives instead of creating more chaos.
00:59:02Of course.
00:59:03My uncle used to say, um, meaning the next generation people are faster than us now living.
00:59:23We didn't understand.
00:59:26He would say, the time will come and you'll see.
00:59:34Now that modern world is coming.
00:59:38The people are fast, moving faster.
00:59:42The town is faster.
00:59:44Things are coming.
00:59:47Deaths are fast and suicides fast and our cultural way of life can't keep up with them.
00:59:56It's a struggle.
00:59:58It's a struggle for us.
01:00:13If there's a tragedy in the village, everybody feels that.
01:00:17Everybody knows that person.
01:00:20Uh, if, if someone passes on, whether it be an elder or a young person,
01:00:26everybody is impacted, young and old.
01:00:51The elders saw life as not being easy all the time.
01:00:57Fulfilling.
01:00:59Uh, but, uh, and sometimes on a more personal level, it's, it's harder.
01:01:05It's hard to deal with.
01:01:07Life is changing world and everything.
01:01:15They practice their faith every day.
01:01:21We miss them sometimes.
01:01:26We miss the older, older people sometimes.
01:01:33I wish so and so would come up from his grave or her grave and teach us things, these things,
01:01:41some things.
01:01:41We miss, give us a word of advice or, or so as what to do.
01:01:54My grandfather was prayerful.
01:01:56My grandfather was prayerful.
01:01:56He lived his life in prayer, literally in prayer.
01:02:01And I thought his life was the most boring, the most boring life on earth.
01:02:06I used to think it doesn't have better things to do than to pray.
01:02:11There's life going on, life outside, going on in the world.
01:02:15And here my grandfather is being prayerful.
01:02:21But now that I'm older, I appreciate, and I, and I hope to, you know, never forget those things that
01:02:30I saw, that I witnessed with my own eyes.
01:02:33And I just witnessed my grandfather, when he was praying, the peace around him, and I was thinking, wondering where
01:02:41that came from.
01:02:43How can you be praying like that, with peace all around you, when your two sons are on the floor,
01:02:48drunk and fighting?
01:02:49I was like, how, how can that happen?
01:02:52How does that happen?
01:02:54But I saw it with my own eyes.
01:02:56The peace that passes our understanding that God gives to us, that he can give to each and every one
01:03:02of us.
01:03:05And it's available for us.
01:03:08But it's not, you know, he, God gives us free will.
01:03:20Can I ask you a question?
01:03:22Okay.
01:03:22When did you decide to become a priest?
01:03:26When I was in high school.
01:03:29When you were in high school?
01:03:31Oh man, how long did it take you to really decide to go in to be a priest?
01:03:39I...
01:03:43Maybe 12 years?
01:03:46Mm-hmm.
01:03:47Wow.
01:03:48When I was in seminary, the more I learned about the priesthood, I didn't want to be a priest anymore.
01:03:57But they...
01:03:58But the more they got to know me, they said, I think you'd make a good priest.
01:04:02Yeah.
01:04:02So, I listened to them.
01:04:05Yeah.
01:04:06No, I don't think you're going to regret it.
01:04:11It's a great blessing.
01:04:13It's a gift.
01:04:15It's a lot of good things, a lot of blessings there.
01:04:18You get acquainted with many people and you become family to many people in that community,
01:04:25in that village.
01:04:31You get to be a part of their lives, a major part of their life.
01:04:37The spiritual guide, the people that they trust, the person that they trust.
01:04:42But it also, it can be difficult.
01:04:47We're supposed to work together.
01:04:50The men, the women, the elders, the children.
01:04:53And it leads back into the center of life, the center of God.
01:05:00You know, and that's the true image of Yup'ik's history.
01:05:10You know, bringing that back, trying to, you know, once we were changed how to live a different way,
01:05:18those circles were broken.
01:05:22You know, there's these many different difficulties that we face as clergy, one being a suicide.
01:05:30Suicide is devastating.
01:05:35Devastating to a community.
01:05:37When a tragedy happens and you're there as one of the first calls,
01:05:44sometimes as a clergy you see things that any other person,
01:05:50that only the police would see.
01:05:54We are led to disrespecting our elders.
01:05:58We are led to leaving kids to OCS.
01:06:04We're, you know, not every family, but you know, it happens.
01:06:07Abusing elders and abusing children and abusing women.
01:06:10You know, it's not the right living.
01:06:14Because the true self, it's a fake living.
01:06:16You know, it's like we're in a dream.
01:06:19It's like a bad dream.
01:06:28But how do we get out of that bad dream?
01:06:31Well, we come back to God.
01:06:35The church brings us hope. God brings us hope.
01:06:39You know, we need to have that pastor, that clergy there,
01:06:44especially in the communities, to send that message that our God is a God of forgiveness.
01:06:50You know, that they're welcome in the church, no matter what they may have done.
01:06:56You share that message of hope.
01:07:00You share that message of hope for eternal life, hope for prayer, hope that God is merciful.
01:07:09And we do have a forgiving God.
01:07:14If a person can come back who is lost, to actually continually to reflect on their life.
01:07:22That's the point of being a real person.
01:07:25Is to admit that you are doing the best you can.
01:07:30You know, we are all sinners.
01:07:34And trying to help some other people along the way.
01:07:41Those who are broken.
01:07:42Those who are broken.
01:07:43God, our Lord Jesus Christ, comes to meet us and helps us heal together.
01:07:51That is a gift.
01:07:54That heals me as well.
01:08:03The prayer that was really strong with my mom and my dad.
01:08:09And she began with our Father who art in heaven.
01:08:13Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come.
01:08:16Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
01:08:20Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses.
01:08:24As we forgive those who trespass against us.
01:08:28And lead us not into temptation.
01:08:31But deliver us from the evil one.
01:08:34It's a simple, simple prayer.
01:08:38But if you really think about it, what is trouble?
01:08:44When we put our trust in the mercy and the love of this loving God.
01:08:49God who showed his mercy and love for each and every one of us.
01:09:05My mother was a matushka.
01:09:09She was very faithful and hard working.
01:09:16They didn't have a big house with lots of furniture and they just were grateful for what they had.
01:09:27And the subsistence lifestyle.
01:09:34She had to do most of the work with the fishing during the summer.
01:09:41Because my dad would be gone for long periods of time.
01:09:46Because there were only four or five priests to serve this area.
01:09:53And he always had to travel.
01:09:56So she always had to do the hard work.
01:10:02But she would never complain.
01:10:06My mom was a midwife.
01:10:09And we had this window in our bedroom.
01:10:12When someone would knock on that window and my mom would wake up.
01:10:20And if I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, she'd have to bring me with her.
01:10:28I'd go into this house and there was a woman in labor and I'd have to sit quietly on the
01:10:36chair and wait.
01:10:40Life was hard in those days.
01:10:44And we didn't have a lot of help or support from, you know, like the hospitals and the schools that
01:10:54we have now.
01:10:55She told me that we need to be compassionate about others.
01:11:04We need to have compassion on others who didn't have much, you know.
01:11:16Because that's showing love to other people.
01:11:20And I think that's why my friends always used to be happy to be at my house.
01:11:30Because my mom treated them like her own children.
01:11:33You know, making sure that they weren't hungry and unclothed.
01:11:43I used to be one of the kids that used to sleep at her house with Lily and my friend,
01:11:48my cousin.
01:11:49And every morning, literally every morning, she would be up early in the morning to make pancakes.
01:11:56And lots of kids would get up and we would eat and then she would already be done with chores.
01:12:06She did everything early in the morning while her family was sleeping.
01:12:10She was a very prayerful lady.
01:12:13She was very humble.
01:12:16And she, I never ever heard her say anything bad about anyone in the times that I was around her.
01:12:23And I was around her quite a bit.
01:12:26Grandma's house was always my, you know, they had me like babysit or watch me.
01:12:32So I would go to grandma's for a couple of days if they're traveling.
01:12:36And it was, I was so fortunate.
01:12:40I was, because she was like, naturally, you can feel the love from her.
01:12:49I mean, it was just natural love from her.
01:12:56One time I was very scared because a man came in and he was very, very angry.
01:13:05Hollering at first because he thought that one of my brothers had checked his net and took his fish.
01:13:16And my mom didn't say anything, would just watch him while he was yelling.
01:13:25After he said all of the things that he needed to say.
01:13:31And my mom said, why don't you sit down and have some tea?
01:13:36And, um, he, he got very calm.
01:13:41And he even, I think he apologized before he went out.
01:13:47Some ladies would come in very sad or have something.
01:13:53You know, you could tell by their expressions that they have something,
01:13:59like they're stressed about something or being very sad.
01:14:03And they'd sit and talk for hours after they'd have tea and talk.
01:14:11Um, it was like that stress or that sadness was gone when they left.
01:14:20A lot of women have shared their dreams with me and my sisters.
01:14:29Most of them are about my mom leading them to the church or reminding them to pray.
01:14:38The last time I saw her, she, you know, met me halfway to say farewell to me.
01:14:45And during the hardest times of my life, my personal life, she came to me in my dream.
01:14:50And she told me to never look away from the church, to always be prayerful.
01:14:55That that's where the inner strength comes from, through the prayers of the church.
01:15:00Because the people in the church help us to pray through singing, through the prayers.
01:15:06She reminded me that she lived her faith.
01:15:11She walked it.
01:15:13She practiced what she believed.
01:15:16She was prayerful.
01:15:18Just lived her life simply.
01:15:22She never wanted to waste a day doing nothing.
01:15:29She used it.
01:15:30She used the day that God feels to us.
01:15:35Mother's got a call.
01:15:44And we see how simple the people are.
01:15:51And, you know, the simple, saintly lives, that they live somewhere hidden from us.
01:16:04the elders would teach about love all the time always always about love
01:16:10that word
01:16:14permeated every teaching
01:16:17and that source of teaching of gun guys is christ
01:16:21if those elders were not connected to christ they wouldn't have been able to teach that
01:16:32they were orthodox they were real people
01:16:40i believe that
01:16:41that more that more of that message needs to continue because our elders are
01:16:48are not here forever they're passing and there's some communities that suffer
01:16:53because they don't have any more elders
01:17:04i grew up singing um that means lord have mercy on us
01:17:11we prayed all the time in church
01:17:18for every prayer
01:17:20and i think that is the most important prayer because we're so contradictory
01:17:28as human beings
01:17:32we're all the same and we all need mercy
01:17:41when we see ourselves
01:17:47created in the image and likeness of god
01:17:50um to see it in others is um uh very important to the people that you see you show respect
01:17:59and kindness and
01:18:01and uh this is uh this is simple way that that you can see that god is in everything and
01:18:09in everybody
01:18:14easy to look at yourself and see your faults and everything and to live
01:18:19um but um this is why we have confessions and to um so that you can see your real self
01:18:28we hear in our yupek tradition that um word yupek means real person
01:18:51yupek yupek i'm a real person real human being
01:18:55and and what is a real person we we grow up in teaching and hearing the teachings of our elders
01:19:01that that we need to care for one another and we care for our elders we we uh respect
01:19:10one another we respect respect one another's property we we give we provide for um
01:19:18it's a hard question to answer because um
01:19:26maybe it's not that hard just trying to find the right words to explain that
01:19:31it's it's who you are a person isn't a person until another person comes and acknowledges their
01:19:38person you know the two people each one person can be alone but they're they can never feel like a
01:19:44person when another person comes um that we have that that sense of who we are we have an identity
01:19:53you know we see ourselves in another person
01:19:59to know who you are
01:20:03to be yupek yupek yupek you know you could just in that that understanding it's you know in ethnicity i'm
01:20:13yupek yupek and you could be yupek and mea i'm you a real person
01:20:34Everyone welcomes the presence of a humble person, a simple, humble person.
01:20:41So, yeah, you saw that.
01:20:44That's me.
01:20:44That's okay.
01:20:45You know, I can improve.
01:20:48And in these lives, I think, as we mentioned with Saint Yaakov, these terrible hardships
01:20:54that he went through, that he endured, that purified him, also help us to rethink what
01:21:05makes a saint.
01:21:06Matushka Olga gives us a beautiful example, staying in her native village, making socks,
01:21:13giving them away, being normal, being generous, being hospitable, the idea that saints can't
01:21:21have faults or shortcomings.
01:21:23You can still be holy.
01:21:25And in fact, sometimes if you really look at it, you'll love someone who has more faults
01:21:32than someone who has no faults.
01:21:34It's really hard to love someone who doesn't have any faults or who hides all their faults.
01:21:46I suppose all of this actually begs the question, what does it mean to be canonized?
01:21:56What does it mean to be glorified as a saint?
01:21:59Well, first of all, we're all called to be saints, to do everything to the glory of God,
01:22:05and virtually nothing just for yourself, for your own selfish needs or purposes, or honor
01:22:10or glory.
01:22:11Matushka Olga certainly fit in that category, but so did St. Innocent.
01:22:18He was a high school graduate.
01:22:21Father Yaakov went off to the boonies and never expected any glory in this world.
01:22:26Father Herman retired to the woods and never expected to be remembered.
01:22:32So when we look at any of our saints, we see how humble they are.
01:22:35They simply do what God gave them to do.
01:22:39The path is not theirs.
01:22:41St. Innocent says the path of the Lord is directed by the Lord.
01:22:45But not all people follow that path.
01:22:48We go off in our own way.
01:22:49We want to have it our way.
01:22:52So to accept God's path and God's will and to do however humble it may be,
01:22:57what God has set before you, that's the path to sanctity.
01:23:01It's nothing extraordinary.
01:23:03Matushka hardly ever left her village.
01:23:06What did she do?
01:23:07She helped women in childbirth.
01:23:10She made socks and caps and mittens.
01:23:14She went to church.
01:23:16She said her prayers.
01:23:18She sang church hymns and Christmas carols.
01:23:21She did nothing extraordinary, but it was what God gave her to do.
01:23:26When we set aside a day to remember a saint, it's simply that.
01:23:30It's not for them, it's for us.
01:23:32It's an opportunity to look at a person's life and say, I can do that.
01:23:40I can be that kind of wife.
01:23:42I can be that kind of husband.
01:23:43I can be that kind of star of stuff.
01:23:45I can serve God in whatever way he's directed and given me the chance to do.
01:23:50And if I do that, then that's all God expects of me.
01:24:01So the saints are those who are given to us as an example to say, I think, especially in Matushka
01:24:08Olga's situation, you can be forgotten for decades.
01:24:15And that doesn't matter, because what people know about or think about or value on earth is not significant.
01:24:25You did what God gave you to do.
01:24:28And now we can hold her up as an example, because it says to all of us, you also have
01:24:36your God-given purpose in life.
01:24:39Find it and do it, and that will be your salvation.
01:24:54Find it and do it.
01:25:17Find it and do it.
01:26:04Find it and do it.
01:26:40Find it and do it.
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