A saint's day
St Olga of Alaska
Matushka Olga, called Arrsamquq, “the hidden one,” was born in 1916 in the Yup'ik village of Kwethluk on Alaska's Kuskokwim River and married Nicolai Michael, who was later ordained a priest. She raised a large family in poverty, baked prosphora, sewed clothes for the needy and served as a midwife, and she listened without judgment to those suffering in silence, especially women who had been abused. She bore cancer without complaint and reposed in 1979, and the Orthodox Church in America numbered her among the saints in 2023, the first woman saint of North America.
The dates
- Kept on
- 10 November on both calendars
- Next
The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.
How the day is kept
Orthodox Christians pray to her above all for those wounded by abuse, for mothers in childbirth and for the grieving; many have told of her comfort in dreams, of healings and of safe births.
Her feast is new, and official sources differ on its day: the Holy Synod's proclamation sets one, and the OCA's online calendar another.
Women named Olga traditionally keep the feast of St Olga of Kiev as their name day.
The saint
Icons for the feast
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