07 Works, Today, July 2nd, is Juvenaly of Alaska's day, his story in icons #183

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St. Juvenaly – First Martyr of America

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The holy, glorious, right-victorious hieromartyr Juvenaly of Alaska, Protomartyr of America, was a member of the first group of Orthodox missionaries who came from the monastery of Valaam to preach the Word of God to the native inhabitants of Alaska. He was martyred while evangelizing among the Eskimos on the mainland of Alaska in 1796. 

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St. Juvenaly – First Martyr of America

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He was born in 1761 in Ekaterinburg, Russia In his monastic life he was tonsured and given the name Juvenaly in memory of St. Juvenal, fifth century Patriarch of Jerusalem. After becoming a monk he was successively ordained deacon and then priest, becoming a hieromonk.

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St. Juvenaly – First Martyr of America

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In 1793, a missionary group of eight monastics was organized to preach the Word of God to the natives of Alaska. Their destination was the Russian settlement on Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska. The group arrived on Kodiak Island on September 24, 1794, to an unexpected scene. The settlement was primitive beyond what they were told, and violence was commonplace. The promised church was not there, and the promised supplies for three years were absent.

Hieromonk Juvenaly and others in their party began their missionary work. Within two years their zeal had brought more than 12,000 Alaskans to the Orthodox Christian faith. 

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St. Juvenaly – First Martyr of America, Arrival at Kodiak

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As the group continued preaching further away from the settlement on Kodiak, Hieromonk Juvenaly began missionary work on the mainland of Alaska 1796. 

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St. Juvenaly – First Martyr of America, Preaching to the natives

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Here he continued the success of the past two years as he baptized hundreds of Chugach Sugpiag and Athabaskan Indians. But as his mission continued along northwest toward the Bering Sea, he disappeared. 

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St. Juvenaly – First Martyr of America, Depiction of the martyrdom

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Among the Alaskan people oral tradition relates of his martyrdom. The tradition is that as he moved into territory inhabited by Eskimos, some Eskimos did not understand some of his gesturing while making the sign of the cross. Disturbed, a Yupiat shaman ordered an attack upon the hieromonk, and he was killed by spears and arrows. Thus, Juvenaly became the first Orthodox martyr in the Americas. More on Juvenaly of Alaska

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Synaxis of All Saints of Alaska

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