The 1970 Glorification

On August 9, 1970, St. Herman of Alaska became the first Orthodox saint glorified on American soil — in two separate, simultaneous acts: the Orthodox Church in America’s glorification at Kodiak (its first canonization, four months after it received autocephaly) and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia’s own glorification in San Francisco. The two churches were not in communion, so these were parallel-but-separate acts, not a concelebration. This file establishes that distinction carefully, traces the translation of the relics, and reports the named analyses of the glorification’s place in the autocephaly year.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (glorified by the OCA and ROCOR, 1970)

A Glorification Long in Preparation

Herman’s glorification in 1970 ratified a veneration that had run continuously on Spruce Island and Kodiak for well over a century (see Local Veneration). The institutional movement toward it was old. The Metropolia and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia — not yet in their later estrangement — had begun cooperating toward a possible glorification as early as 1939, before the events that would divide them (christthesavioroca.org, St. Herman resource page; johnsanidopoulos.com, “40th Anniversary of the Glorification of St. Herman”). The proximate act came three decades later: on March 11, 1969, the Great Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in North America — the body that one year later became the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) — formally declared its intention to glorify the Elder Herman (orthodoxcanada.ca, “Saint Herman of Alaska”; Herman of Alaska, Wikipedia, used as locator).

The OCA Glorification at Kodiak (August 9, 1970)

The OCA’s act took place on August 9, 1970, at Holy Resurrection Cathedral on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Metropolitan Ireney (Bekish), primate of the newly autocephalous Church, presided, joined by Archbishop Paul (Olmari) of Finland — a hierarch of the autonomous Finnish Church under Constantinople, whose presence broadened the act beyond the Russian-descended churches — and by other hierarchs and clergy (OCA, “Days of Light and Joy: On the Canonization of St. Herman,” oca.org; orthodoxcanada.ca, “Saint Herman of Alaska”).

This was the OCA’s first canonization, performed only months after it had become an autocephalous Church (see below), and it was the first time an Orthodox saint had been glorified on American soil (Herman of Alaska, Wikipedia; OCA, “Days of Light and Joy”). The choice of Kodiak rather than a mainland cathedral was deliberate and theologically pointed: the new American Church glorified its first saint in the place where his relics lay and where the Alaskan native faithful had kept his memory.

The ROCOR Glorification at San Francisco (Same Date, Separate Act)

On the same date — August 9, 1970 (July 27 Old Style) — the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) glorified St. Herman in their own service at the Holy Virgin Cathedral (“Joy of All Who Sorrow”) in San Francisco. The First Hierarch, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky), led the celebration as chief hierarch of the Church Abroad; Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco served as local hierarch, with Bishop Laurus of Manhattan (the future ROCOR First Hierarch) and other archpastors among the celebrants (ROCOR Synod, “The Glorification of St. Herman of Alaska,” synod.com; orthodoxlife.org, “How St Herman was glorified by the Russian Church”).

This was not a joint glorification, and the distinction must be kept exact. The glorification of St. Herman is frequently misreported as a single “joint” act of the OCA and ROCOR; it was not. The two churches were not in communion in 1970 — ROCOR rejected the validity of the 1970 autocephaly that the Moscow Patriarchate had just granted the OCA, holding that a Moscow compromised by the atheist state could not lawfully grant it (see The Tomos of Autocephaly). The two glorifications were therefore simultaneous but separate — parallel acts of two churches not concelebrating with each other — even though the two bodies had cooperated toward Herman’s glorification as far back as 1939, before their split (christthesavioroca.org, St. Herman resource page; johnsanidopoulos.com, “40th Anniversary of the Glorification of St. Herman”; see also The Saints of North America, which carries the verified correction of the “joint” misreport). Both can rightly be called the first glorification on American soil; together they make 1970 the year Herman entered the Orthodox calendar, recognized on the same day by two estranged branches of the Russian tradition.

The Relics

The relics anchored both acts, in different ways.

At Kodiak, the glorification was accompanied by the translation of St. Herman’s relics. They were taken from his grave beneath the Sts. Sergius and Herman of Valaam Chapel on Spruce Island — where they had lain since his burial and been re-coffined during the 1935 chapel restoration (see Local Veneration) — and brought across the strait to Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Kodiak, where the major portion of the relics is preserved to this day (Herman of Alaska, Wikipedia; OCA, “The Saint Herman Pilgrimage in Alaska,” oca.org).

At San Francisco, where Herman’s body could not be present, the ROCOR celebration was anchored by smaller relics that had traveled east in earlier years. A particle of St. Herman’s relics, given years before by Fr. Gerasim (Schmaltz), the grave’s guardian, to Holy Trinity Monastery at Jordanville, was brought for the solemnities; so was a piece of the wooden coffin in which the relics had lain, brought from the Novo-Diveyevo Convent. Both were placed in a small silver reliquary and set upon the saint’s new icon (ROCOR Synod, “The Glorification of St. Herman of Alaska,” synod.com). The two churches thus venerated, on the same day, portions of one body — a unity in the relic that the jurisdictional division could not touch.

The Politics of the Autocephaly Year

The glorification fell in the same year as the OCA’s autocephaly, and the conjunction has been read — by named participants and historians — as theologically of a piece, even as it sharpened the jurisdictional quarrel.

The Tomos of Autocephaly, granting the former “Metropolia” independence from the Moscow Patriarchate as the Orthodox Church in America, bears the date April 10, 1970; the glorification followed roughly four months later, in August (Tomos of Autocephaly, oca.org; see The Tomos of Autocephaly). For the OCA’s leading theologians the timing was providential rather than coincidental. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his reflection “Days of Light and Joy: On the Canonization of St. Herman,” read the glorification of a native American saint in the year the local American Church was born as a single theological event — a sign that Orthodoxy in America was no longer an émigré transplant but a local Church with its own saint and its own soil (Schmemann, “Days of Light and Joy,” oca.org; cf. the autocephaly narrative in The Tomos of Autocephaly, where the synchrony is treated as central to the OCA’s self-understanding).

From the other side, the same conjunction underwrote ROCOR’s insistence on a separate act. Having rejected the autocephaly as canonically void, ROCOR would not concelebrate the glorification with a church it now regarded as irregularly constituted; it offered its own. The separateness of the two 1970 glorifications is thus not an accident of scheduling but a precise register of the 1970 rupture — the autocephaly that one church received as its birth, the other received as a wound (see The Tomos of Autocephaly for ROCOR’s full objection; the non-joint character of the glorifications is documented in The Saints of North America). Whatever one makes of the politics, the result is liturgically settled across jurisdictions: St. Herman is commemorated on August 9 (his glorification) and on December 13 / 25 N.S. (his repose), and is venerated as a saint throughout the Orthodox world.

References

Orthodox Church in America. “Days of Light and Joy: On the Canonization of St. Herman” (reflections of Fr. Alexander Schmemann); “The Saint Herman Pilgrimage in Alaska — A Long Tradition” (relics at Holy Resurrection Cathedral). oca.org.
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. “The Glorification of St. Herman of Alaska.” synod.com (the San Francisco service, July 27 O.S. / August 9, 1970; Metropolitan Philaret presiding; the Jordanville relic particle and the Novo-Diveyevo coffin fragment).
Orthodox Life (orthodoxlife.org), “How St Herman was glorified by the Russian Church”; ROCOR hierarchs present at the San Francisco glorification.
Tomos of Autocephaly (April 10, 1970), full text at oca.org/history-archives; and this repository’s The Tomos of Autocephaly (1970).
Canadian Orthodox History Project. “Saint Herman of Alaska.” orthodoxcanada.ca (the March 11, 1969 declaration of intent; the Kodiak service).
christthesavioroca.org, St. Herman of Alaska Special Resource Page; johnsanidopoulos.com, “40th Anniversary of the Glorification of St. Herman of Alaska” (2010) — the 1939 cooperation and the verified separate (non-joint) character of the 1970 acts.
“Herman of Alaska.” Wikipedia (used as a locator for the relics’ transfer and current resting place, cross-checked against oca.org).