Gerasim (Schmaltz)

Father Gerasim (Schmaltz) was a monk who lived on Spruce Island in Alaska, the guardian of the grave of Saint Herman, and who reposed in 1969. He is venerated by the faithful without synodal canonization.

Saint Herman had prophesied: "A monk like me, fleeing the glory of men, will come and live on Spruce Island." The prophecy was fulfilled a hundred years later in Gerasim (1888 to 1969), who lived thirty years as a hermit on the island, praying alone for the world. He came there on 26 August 1935, after seeing Saint Herman in a vision. As a hieromonk in Alaska, in 1917, when revolution broke out in Russia, he saw in a dream Christ crucified and heard a voice: "Pray, Russia is crucified." For eighteen years he was a village priest at Afognak, while the partisans of Platon slandered him. Then, on Spruce Island, he endured poverty and cold for twenty-⁠five years, standing in prayer, like a solitary candle in the dense fir forest.