“Matushka Olga” fulfilled role of spiritual mother counseling women who had suffered abuse, griefs such as miscarriage, widely admired for her compassion and piety.
“St. Olga of Kwethluk, Matushka of All Alaska,” as she is officially known, was canonized on June 19 as the first female Orthodox saint from North America.
Orthodoxy – the world’s second-largest Christian communion — gained a foothold in the present-day United States with the 18th and 19th century arrival of Russian Orthodox missionaries to what was then the czarist territory of Alaska.
While the Orthodox are a small minority within the Christian population in the state and the nation, Alaska is often considered a holy land for the now-independent Orthodox Church in America.
Olga Michael was born in 1916 in Kwethluk, where she resided her entire life with her Yup’ik family and neighbors. The Yup’ik, like the Tlingit, Inupiat and Aleuts, are broadly called Alaska Natives. The town’s name is derived from the Yup’ik term for “dangerous river.
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