Olga of Alaska

Saint Olga of Alaska, the Righteous, also known as Olga Michael, Olga of Kwethluk or Matushka Olga, was a Yup'ik midwife and priest's wife, seen in visions and dreams as a comforting and healing figure. Born in 1916 at Kwethluk in Alaska, she passed to the Lord of cancer in 1979. In 2025 she became the first woman of North America and the first member of the Yup'ik people to be canonized in the Orthodox Church. She is commemorated on 27 October.

Childhood and marriage

Olinka Arrsamquq was born on 3 February 1916 in the village of Kwethluk in the Territory of Alaska, to Yup'ik parents, and received at baptism the name Olga, which remained the name by which she was known. On 7 January 1935 she was married, in a marriage arranged by the families according to local custom, to Nicolai Michael, and from then on she bore the name Olga Michael. Nicolai founded and ran a general store in Kwethluk and opened the village's first US post office. He was at first not particularly devout, but he was ordained priest in 1963, the first priest of Kwethluk, and eventually became an archpriest.

After her husband's ordination Olga became a matushka, a respectful name given in Orthodoxy to a priest's wife, and she stood at the centre of the parish's life. She was known for her generosity: she baked food for neighbours and made clothes and gave them to others. She and Nicolai had thirteen children, eight of whom reached adulthood.

Midwife, healer and teacher

Olga was the village midwife, helping at births, and a healer, using in her methods traditional Yup'ik medical practices. Her opinion and counsel were sought by those around her, especially women. Later she was a teacher, instructing adults in English as a second language.

Death

She died of cancer on 8 November 1979 at Kwethluk. People of the region told after her death of signs they connected with it: ground that suddenly thawed at the burial, flocks of birds flying over her grave when they should long since have gone south, and an unexpected warm spell that made river travel to her funeral possible.

Visions and canonization

After her death people began to say that they saw her in dreams and visions as a healing figure. The Orthodox priest Michael Oleksa, who had earlier written a book containing details about her, told that around 2003 a non-⁠Christian woman from New York sought him out, who had had a vision about her: she dreamed that a woman who named herself Olga healed her of the wounds of past sexual abuse. According to Oleksa, the figure in the dream fit the Yup'ik way of life, though the woman from New York said she knew nothing of Alaska, and she later received Orthodoxy. The Orthodox Church in America has also recorded many other miracles, visions and occurrences related to her. A 2015 article in the Canadian Journal of Orthodox Christianity called her "an unofficial patron saint of battered and abused women".

According to Bishop Alexei of the Diocese of Alaska, many believers, especially Alaskans, among them Oleksa, had asked for her canonization for decades. Oleksa gathered many accounts of her miracles and sent them to the bishop, who presented them to the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America. On 2 November 2023 Alexei formally petitioned the Synod for her canonization, and on 8 November 2023 the Synod proclaimed that she would be glorified. On 16 November 2024 her grave at Kwethluk was opened, in the course of bringing her remains, considered relics, to the church of Saint Nicholas in the village, the last major step before canonization. The glorification took place on 19 June 2025 at Saint Nicholas church in Kwethluk, presided over by the primate of the Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Tikhon (Mollard). About three hundred people came to the small village, among them prominent clergy. On 20 August 2025 Metropolitan Tikhon asked Patriarch Kirill to include the name of Saint Olga the Righteous of Alaska in the calendar of the Russian Church, and on 30 October 2025 the Holy Synod of the Russian Church decided to enter her, with commemoration on 27 October (9 November).

Veneration

The Diocese of Alaska has proposed building a new large church at Kwethluk to house the relics, and since 2024 has been working with the Kwethluk tribal council on land for the project. On icons Olga is often shown wearing a traditional Yup'ik dress (kuspuk), holding a basin of water and a towel, signs of her work as a midwife, or with the northern lights in the background. On the official icon she holds the church that will house her relics. Many icons also bear the words she is reported to have spoken in a dream: "God can create beauty out of complete desolation."