Alaska-New Female Saint
This 1930s photo provided by her family shows Olga Michael, an Alaskan Yup’ik woman who became St. Olga of Kwethluk, Matushka of All Alaska, the first female North American saint in the Orthodox Church in America, and her husband, Nicolai Michael.
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The Orthodox Church in America has its first female saint from North America. Hundreds of pilgrims joined several bishops in an elaborate ceremony to canonize St. Olga Michael in her remote home village of Kwethluk in southwest Alaska. St. Olga, a Yup'ik woman who died in 1979 at age 63, was a midwife, a mother of 13 and the wife of an Orthodox Christian priest, honored as a spiritual mother by the title of “matushka.” She was known in life for her service and compassion, particularly for women who had suffered abuse and other traumas. After her death, she attracted devotion from admirers far beyond Alaska, and bishops approved their calls for canonization.