In 1868, Priest Dorimedont Protopopov was sent to the Tungus people on account of his knowledge of the Yakut language and wide popularity among the natives. Since there were no chapels or churches on their territory, they themselves sent messengers on reindeer for Fr. Dorimedont to come to one of the rivers where they gathered to worship.
There lived a merchant named Kirill Sukhanov among the Tungus and the Buryats in the Nerchinsk district. He actively traded with the natives and simultaneously preached the Word of God to them. At the insistence of His Eminence Innocent, he was ordained and devoted his life entirely to missionary work. The Tungus people baptized by him adopted the surname Sukhanov. Archpriest Kirill taught them to lead a settled way of life in small camps, and over time they became Russian in their lifestyle and speech.
The most difficult journeys of 1878–1879 fell to the lot of Fr. Grigory Prelovsky, who traveled for more than seven months through uninhabited deserts at a distance of 3047 miles. From the very beginning he was beset by continuous sorrows, hardships and dangers. They rode out of Aldan on reindeer, which was not easy even for experienced reindeer herders, but for an inexperienced and tall person like Fr. Grigory it was a nightmare. But soon the deep snow deprived him of this opportunity too—the reindeer were drowning in the snow, and there was nothing left but to ski.
The bitter cold and penetrating winds took away the remainder of the travelers’ energy. Moving from golets (the woodless top of a mountain in Siberia) to golets, from river to river for nineteen days, they barely reached the Yablonovy Ridge that separated the Amur tributaries from the Lena ones, and they did not encounter a single dwelling or trace of human habitation along the way. The lack of hot food except tea and dry bread exhausted Fr. Grigory, and his eyes were inflamed because of the bright light and the refraction of the sunlight onto the mountain tops and valleys. The bitter chill made his teeth and head ache, and his ears were pulsating. Being in a hopeless situation, the priest found a warm welcome at the Kuldzin gold mines, and since it was the first week of Lent, he confessed and gave Communion to the miners. Not only did they feed Fr. Grigory and warm him up, but they also gave him food supplies for the journey back, which he needed very much.
On the way home, he met almost no Tungus people, and because of the flooding of the mountain rivers the travelers had to wade knee-deep through water in winter clothes.
One day, during a dangerous crossing by reindeer of the fast-flowing Dzhompula River, a church server had an accident. The reindeer couldn’t hold out, rose to the surface and threw off the rider. He began to sink, but, fortunately, a small tree close by allowed him to stay on the surface of the water for a while, until the drivers approached and, risking their lives, saved him from imminent death. Soaked from head to toe and chilled to the bone, he could neither walk nor mount the reindeer.
Despite all the difficulties and obstacles, the missionaries returned to Yakutsk seven months later. Considering the hardships incurred, this travelling priest did not achieve much; he confessed and gave Communion to 245 people, baptized forty-six babies, performed twelve weddings and thirteen funeral services. And it was all because the Tungus people were migrating to the border of the Primorsky territory towards Zelenaya Mountain, where Fr. Grigory could not come because he had received an order from the Church authorities to return.
In 1878, the travelling Priest Vasily Nikitin travelled down the Lena River in a kayuk (a small flat-bottom river boat with two oars) and encountered obstacles in the form of strong contrary winds. Soon the river was covered with ice, and the kayuk ended up on an uninhabited island of the river. But the Tungus people helped the priest and his companions get out of there. In winter, the priest traveled along the shores of the Arctic Ocean from Bykov to the Olenyok River, visited the Yakuts, the Tungus people, and the Yukaghirs, performed the necessary services of need, and returned to Yakutsk.
A vivid example of missionary activity was the journey of Hieromonk Benedict to the Chukchi, from which he returned in 1889. During the journey Fr. Benedict had to stay on St. Lawrence Island (south of the Bering Strait) and, lacking an interpreter and a guide, as well as funds for the journey back, he stayed with agents of American trading companies.
At the first opportunity he went to the Chukchi camps, and after living in them for a month, had to return to the Americans. Then, with passing traders on dogs, he reached the mouth of the Anadyr River and lived at Cape Chaplin in Chukotka for a month, waiting for the Chukchi who had gone fishing. Having reached the mouth of the Anadyr River from Cape Chaplin, Hieromonk Benedict stayed with the Cossacks, waiting for a favorable moment, until a merchant on a sled came from the village of Markovo to buy bread. Fr. Benedict stayed in Markovo until winter, as the journey was even more unbearable in summer. Swarms of mosquitoes and various insects, scorching hot sun and prolonged rains made him seek shelter in unsightly Yakut yurts scattered at great distances from each other. His nutrition consisted of only dry bread and tea, the water for which was taken from ponds. There were swarms of jumping insects in the yurts, which made the body burn.
Icon of St. Joasaph (Bolotov) It’s easy to read about it, but it’s hard to experience it. Back at the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, the mission of the travelling clergy suffered serious losses and sorrows. The priests performed true feats without pride or vanity, devoting their lives to converting thousands of natives to the faith of Christ. The history of the spiritual mission on Kodiak Island shows how necessary chapels and churches were in places where native peoples lived, and how much safer and more fruitful the ministry of the local clergy was, as they did not have to search for nomads through the icy deserts.
In 1793, the Kodiak Spiritual Mission in Alaska was established under the leadership of Archimandrite Joasaph (Bolotov), initiated by an industrialist named Grigory Shelekhov from the town of Rylsk in the Kursk province. He pledged to support both the church and the missionaries at the expense of his industrial company. The first missionaries in North America were eight monks of Valaam Monastery: the head of the mission, Archimandrite Joasaph (Bolotov), the future Bishop of Kodiak; Hieromonks Juvenaly, Makary and Athanasius; Hierodeacons Stephen and Nektary; and Monks Herman and Joasaph. What were the destinies of these heroes?
Encouraged by the success of his preaching and having baptized over 700 pagans in Kenai Peninsula, Hieromonk Juvenaly was brutally murdered by savages. That’s how they recalled this holy preacher:
“He tried to convert us to his God, but we didn’t want to abandon our polygamy and tied him to a tree. But he, already dead, rose three times and began to convince us again until we gave him to our neighbors to eat him.”
In 1797, during a severe storm in the ocean, the ship Felix sank, with all its passengers perishing. On board the ship were the head of the American Mission, Archimandrite Joasaph (Bolotov), Hieromonk Makary, the enlightener of the Aleuts, and Hierodeacon Stephen, who had been consecrated Bishop of Kodiak Island in Irkutsk.
In 1806, Hierodeacon Nektary died at the Holy Trinity Monastery in the town of Kirensk of the Irkutsk province. Monk Joasaph reposed in 1823.
Of all the members of the Kodiak Spiritual Mission, only Hieromonk Athanasius and Monk Herman survived. Monk Herman did not leave the place of his ministry, practiced fervent prayer, ran a homestead, and taught literacy and hard work to Aleut orphans.
In 1801, Herman became the head of the Mission, and in search of solitary prayer, moved to the deserted Spruce Island, naming his monastery New Valaam, where he reposed in 1837. St. Herman of Alaska was glorified in a joint canonization by the Orthodox Church of American and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia on August 9, 1970.
This is what Orthodox “field mission” was like in the past.
