The first female Orthodox saint in North America was an Indigenous woman who spent her entire life with her Yup'ik family and neighbors in a village in southwest Alaska. Olga Michael was born in 1916 in Kwethluk, a remote village of about 800 people. She married a priest, had 13 children and worked as a midwife. Her reputation for compassion and piety extended far beyond her village. After she died in 1979, devotion to her spread beyond to Orthodox faithful in distant states and countries. She’s often depicted in unofficial icons framed by northern lights, with the words, “God can create great beauty from complete desolation.”

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.