The Alaskan Orthodox Literary Resurrection
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A JOURNAL OF ORTHODOX FAITH AND CULTURE ROAD TO EMMAUS Help support Road to Emmaus Journal. The Road to Emmaus staff hopes that you find our journal inspiring and useful. While we offer our past articles on-line free of charge, we would warmly appreciate your help in covering the costs of producing this non-profit journal, so that we may continue to bring you quality articles on Orthodox Christianity, past and present, around the world. Thank you for your support. Please consider a donation to Road to Emmaus by visiting the Donate page on our website. THE ALASKAN ORTHODOX LITERARY RESURRECTION A Tradition of Linguistic Diversity in Orthodox Alaska Road to Emmaus interviews Reader Mikhail Ivanovich, spokesman for the online native Alaskan linguistic project of All Saints of North America Church in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. RTE: Mikhail, will you please tell us about the Alaskan native language project and how it developed? MIKHAIL: First, I’d like to thank you and the staff of Road to Emmaus for your interest and enthusiasm for the Alaskan Orthodox texts project. We’ve received an outpouring of goodwill and support from around the world: Alaska, Finland, Russia, Latvia, Hong Kong ... we thank God every day for the encouragement it has provided us and for the growing worldwide audience who are learning about our Orthodox brethren in Alaska. Father Geoffrey Korz, the rector of All Saints of North America Orthodox Church in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, is the spiritual head of this effort, while my wife and I have been blessed to research and Official emblem of publish the original Alaskan language texts. I’m of the historic Alaskan Orthodox Texts project. mixed Mediterranean and Eastern European back- ground, and only came to Orthodox Christianity in my mid-twenties, as did my wife who is of Chinese heritage. I currently serve as a church reader in Toronto. Some people say that Toronto is the most multicultural city in the 3 Road to Emmaus Vol. VIII, No. 2 (#29) THE ALASKAN ORTHODOX LITERARY RESURRECTION world, and I think that has had a great influence on my love of languages MIKHAIL: I looked on the internet and found many Orthodox sites in and travel. Before coming to Orthodox Christianity, I had the opportunity Russian, Serbian, Greek, Albanian, even Orthodox Brazilian Portuguese- to travel and live in Russia, Finland, Greenland, and Canada’s Arctic terri- language sites, but nothing in the Alaskan languages. Everyone seemed to tory of Nunavut. Part of my experiences in Russia and Finland were key to know about the Alaskan native translation work, but nobody on the internet my conversion to Orthodoxy, while my time spent in the Arctic regions of seemed to know where these texts were. After reading about the courageous Greenland and Canada engendered a love and passion for the north. contemporary struggles of the Church in Alaska (as discussed on www.out- One day, in the winter of 2005, I was visiting Father Geoffrey in Hamilton reachalaska.org/history.html), I prayed to St. Herman to help me, according (about an hour’s drive west of Toronto), and knowing my love of historic to God’s will, to see what could be done to assist Alaska. His Grace Bishop books and the Arctic, he gave me a book called Alaskan Missionary Seraphim of Ottawa and Canada (Orthodox Church in America), gave his Spirituality by Orthodox author Father Michael Oleksa. The book is essen- blessing for this project, and off I went into the unknown. tially a collection of documents, letters, and journal entries – translated into At this point, a stroke of inspiration appeared out of nowhere, and using English – of the most well-known people associated with the Orthodox the internet, I found a treasure trove of rare Alaskan Orthodox texts scat- Christian mission to Alaska in the 1800’s ... this tered around various repositories throughout would include St. Herman of Alaska, St. the United States. Many of these hadn’t seen Innocent Veniaminov, St. Jacob Netsvetov, and the light of day since the early 1900’s. Through others. This collection and the excellent com- the dedicated work of many people, especially mentary discuss the efforts of the mission to the staff at the Alaska State Library Historical reach the native peoples in their own languages; Collection, I was able to obtain copies of the to baptize their venerable cultures into their texts, and set to work typing them out. natural fulfillment in Orthodox Christianity. However, I soon ran into the difficulty of try- Anyone who reads the life stories of St. ing to typeset Old Slavonic-looking letters Innocent and St. Jacob is sure to learn about which were especially invented by the mission- their heroic exploits and their incredible trans- aries for the Alaskan languages (particularly, lation work into the native languages of Alaska. Aleut and Kodiak Alutiiq). In fact, in everything I read about these saints, it After more prayers to St. Herman for God’s Original Aleut-language is obvious that their work in Alaska paralleled help, it appeared possible to come up with a Title page of a bilingual Alaskan Aglemiut-Russian prayerbook Holy Gospel of St. Matthew that of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in evangelizing scheme of creating “font composites” by super- translated by St. Innocent published in 1896. Veniaminov and St. Jacob the Slavic peoples. We all know of the rich imposing existing computer fonts on top of each Alaska State Library, Alaskana Collection, Netsvetov. Slavonic literary legacy of Sts. Cyril and other so as to create the necessary characters. PM 2455.Z71 D6 1901 Methodius, but where, I wondered, was the physical evidence for the work of The technical details aren’t that interesting, but the fact is that the Lord Sts. Innocent and Jacob in Alaska? provided the right answers at the right time. However, many of the copies I was working from were difficult to read as the originals had decomposed RTE Years ago, I asked this same question of Kodiak natives, and they told : somewhat, and in many places were completely unreadable. What to do? me that they knew of nothing except some very old Slavonic-Aleut service Dictionaries for these languages weren’t readily available, and certainly not books, still in use in small churches in the Aleutian Islands. They had been in the 1800’s Cyrillic alphabet (since all Alaskan languages converted to the printed in the late 1800’s, under the influence of St. Innocent’s mission. Latin-based, English-type alphabet by the 1970’s). I called the Russian How were you able to track down these sources? Orthodox Diocese of Alaska, and they directed me to Father Paul Merculief, 4 5 Road to Emmaus Vol. VIII, No. 2 (#29) THE ALASKAN ORTHODOX LITERARY RESURRECTION a fluently-speaking Aleut archpriest and foremost linguist. To my amaze- that have been scattered around Europe. I remember him saying that ment, he had a nearly complete library of Alaskan Orthodox texts, but had Horologions and Psalters are the most used books in existence. They were met with little success in typing them out due to the “font composite” read page by page at every service, every day, for centuries, and that in problem I mentioned earlier (i.e. the use of specialized characters that didn’t working with them you know that you are touching books through which exist in any other languages). thousands of people have sanctified their lives. Saints have used them or This was a match made in heaven. With his linguistic expertise, my expe- even written them.* As you say, these truly are relics. rience with computers, and many long-distance phone calls, we were able MIKHAIL: It’s interesting you should mention that. Fr. Geoffrey and I were to transcribe the complete set of all known just discussing this idea during a road-trip to a monastery we took last Orthodox texts in the Aleut, Kodiak Alutiiq, month. For me, it is all a matter of love for Tlingit, and Yup’ik languages. These texts are God in His Saints. Before I became Orthodox currently available at: www.asna.ca/alaska. I had an iconoclastic fear of icons and relics Through the course of this project, my wife of any kind. Yet, once, a number of years ago, learned how to type Cyrillic in one day without on a very rough flight over the mountains of any prior knowledge, (a miracle in itself), Bolivia, I found myself kissing a wallet-pic- which greatly helped the digital production of ture of my beloved who later became my the texts. Father Michael Oleksa (the author of wife. Why? It was a way of expressing love. the book Alaskan Missionary Spirituality that This was not idolatry. Kissing the photo of had inspired this work) also sent Yup’ik-lan- my beloved, I thought, “If I never see you guage materials for transcription — work that "Collection of Church Hymns again in person, I will treasure these few had begun 30 years ago, but is only now enter- and Prayers" in the Aglemiut- moments I have to see a photo of your smil- Kuskokwim dialect published ing the electronic age. ing face.” Love, that was all. in 1896. We’ve had much assistance along the way: Icon of St. Jacob holding a In a similar manner, if we have the diary of translation of Matthew 28:20 in historians, scholars, archivists, Alaskan native peoples, and the prayers and both Cyrillic Aleut and English. a loved one who has departed this life, would support of His Grace Bishop Nikolai of Sitka, Anchorage and Alaska (OCA), Photo courtesy Orthodox Church in America we not kiss this diary? Would we not hold it which has been a constant source of encouragement for us.