By Fr. John Shimchick
Spring/Summer 1997
Come, O assembly of the Orthodox,
and with love let us praise the holy women,
men, and children,
those known to us and those known only to God,
and let us cry out to them:
Rejoice, All Saints of North America, and pray
to God for us.
(The
Commemoration of All Saints of North America)
Saints of
North America - known and unknown. While all of
the canonized Saints of North America have so
far been men, over the past few years an
Orthodox woman, native of North America, has
slowly become known to more and more people,
particularly other Orthodox women.
Matushka Olga
Michael, wife of the departed Archpriest
Nikolai O. Michael from the village of Kwethluk
on the Kuskokwim River in Alaska, as described
in Fr. Michael Oleksa's book, Orthodox
Alaska, was neither a "physically
impressive or imposing figure." She raised
eight children to maturity, giving birth to
several of them without a midwife. While her
husband was away taking care of many other
parishes, she kept busy raising her family and
doing many things for other people. One is
reminded of the story of Tabitha in the book of
Acts (9:36-ff) when hearing that "[i]n addition
to sewing Father Nikolai's vestments in the
early years and crafting beautiful parkas,
boots and mittens for her children, she was
constantly sewing or knitting socks or fur
outerwear for others. Hardly a friend or
neighbor was without something Matushka had
made for them. Parishes hundreds of miles away
received unsolicited gifts, traditional Eskimo
winter boots ('mukluks') to sell or raffle for
their building fund. All the clergy of the
deanery wore gloves or woolen socks ...[which
she] had made for them" (p. 203). While
fulfilling many of the other tasks (like
preparing the Eucharistic bread) that are often
assumed by other priests' wives, she also knew
the hymns of many feast days, including Palm
Sunday, Holy Week and Pascha in Yup'ik (her
Eskimo language) by heart. After, miraculously
surviving an initial bout with cancer when it
seemed that nothing could be done, she
eventually succumbed to a return of the
disease, preparing herself for death which took
place on November 8, 1979 with great courage
and faith.
It appeared
that the normal snow and river ice of that time
of the year would prevent many people from
attending her funeral. But, the weather
uncharacteristically changed and a southerly
wind helped to melt the ice and snow allowing
parishioners from the neighboring villages to
make the journey to Kwethluk. "Hundreds of
friends...filled the newly-consecrated church
on the extraordinary spring-like day of the
funeral. Upon exiting the church, the
procession was joined by a flock of birds,
although by that time of year, all birds have
long since flown south. The birds circled
overhead, and accompanied the coffin to the
grave site. The usually frozen soil had been
easy to dig because of the unprecedented thaw.
That night, after the memorial meal, the wind
began to blow again, the ground refroze, ice
covered the river, winter returned. It was as
if the earth itself had opened to receive this
woman. The cosmos still cooperates and
participates in the worship the Real People
[i.e. the name native people give to
themselves] offer to God" (p. 205) .
However, it
is not just her story, that has been so special
and life changing to others, but the actual
encounter with her presence that has taken
place in remarkable ways. One woman, originally
from Kwethluk but now living in Arizona, had a
dream in which Matushka Olga appeared, assuring
her that her mother would be alright because
she was coming to join her in a bright and
joyful place. This woman did not known her
mother was sick at the time, that she had been
rushed to Anchorage, and that she would soon
die. But the next day she received news of her
mother's emergency evacuation and rushed from
Arizona to Alaska, comforting her mother with
the news Matushka Olga had brought her about
her eternal destiny. The woman died in peace
and with her daughter without the shock and
grief that would have certainly ensued if the
dream had not reassured her.
Another
woman, after viewing a picture of Matushka
Olga, experienced a "compassionate, loving,
gentle, and very real - very accessible
presence."
The most
detailed account comes from an Orthodox woman
who, as in the previous example, had suffered
for many years from the consequences of severe
sexual abuse experienced as a child. This is
her testimony of meeting Matushka Olga:
One day I was
deeply at prayer and awake. I had remembered an
event that was very scary. My prayer began with
my asking the Holy Theotokos for help and
mercy. Gradually I was aware of standing in the
woods feeling still a little scared. Soon a
gentle wave of tenderness began to sweep
through the woods followed by a fresh garden
scent. I saw the Virgin Mary, dressed as she is
in an icon, but more natural looking and
brighter, walking toward me. As she came closer
I was aware of someone walking behind her. She
stepped aside and gestured to a short, wise
looking woman. I asked her, "Who are you?" And
the Virgin Mary answered, "St. Olga."
St. Olga
gestured for me to follow her. We walked a long
way until there weren't many trees. We came to
a little hill that had a door cut into the
side. She gestured for me to sit and she went
inside. After a little while some smoke came
out of the top of the hill. St. Olga came out
with some herbal tea. We both sat in silence
drinking our tea and feeling the warmth of the
sun of our faces. I began to get a pain in my
belly and she led me inside. The door was so
low I had to duck like bowing in prayer.
Inside the
hill was dry and warm and very quiet. The light
was very soft coming from a shallow bowl and
from the open hole on the top of the hill.
Everything around me felt gentle, especially
Mother Olga. The little *hill
house smelled like wild thyme and white
pine in the sun with roses and violets mixed
in. Mother Olga helped me up on a kind of
platform bed like a driftwood box filled with
moss and grasses. It was soft and smelled like
the earth and the sea. I was exhausted and lay
back. St. Olga went over to the
lamp and warmed up something which she
rubbed on my belly. I looked five months
pregnant. (I was not pregnant for real at that
time.) I started to labor. I was a little
scared. Mother Olga climbed up beside me and
gently holding by arm, she pretended to labor
with me, showing me what to do and how to
breath. She still hadn't said anything. She
helped me push out some stuff like afterbirth
which kind of soaked into dried moss on the box
bed. I was very tired and crying a little from
relief when it was over.
Up until this
she hadn't spoken, but her eyes spoke with
great tenderness and understanding. We both got
up and had some tea. As we were drinking it,
Holy Mother Olga gradually became the light in
the room. Her face looked like there was a
strong light bulb or the sun shining under her
skin. But I think the whole of her glowed. I
was just so connected to her loving gaze that I
didn't pay much attention to anything else. It
was the kind of loving gaze from a mother to an
infant that connects and welcomes a baby to
life. She seemed to pour tenderness into me
through her eyes. This wasn't scary even
though, at that time, I didn't know about
people who literally shone with the love of
God. (It made more sense after I read about St.
Seraphim). I know now that some very deep
wounds were being healed at that time. She gave
me back by own life which had been stolen, a
life that is now defined by the beauty and love
of God for me, the restored work of His Hands.
After some
time I felt like I was filled with wellness and
a sense of quiet entered my soul, as if my soul
had been crying like a grief-stricken abandoned
infant and now had finally been comforted. Even
now as I write... the miracle of the
peacefulness, and also the zest for life which
wellness has brought, causes me to cry with joy
and awe.
Only after
this did Holy Mother Olga speak. She spoke
about God and people who choose to do evil
things. She said the people who hurt me thought
they could make me carry their evil inside of
me by rape. She was very firm when she said,
"That's a lie. Only God can carry evil away.
The only thing they could put inside you was
the seed of life which is a creation of God and
cannot pollute anyone." I was never polluted.
It just felt that way because of the evil
intentions of the people near me. What I had
held inside me was the pain, terror, shame, and
helplessness I felt. We had labored together
and that was all out of me now. She burned some
grass over the little flame and the smoke went
straight up to God who is both the judge and
the forgiver. I understood by the "incense"
that it wasn't my job to carry the sins of
people against me either. It was God's, and
what an ever-unfolding richness this taste of
salvation is. At the end of this healing time
we went outside together. It was not dark in
the visioning prayer. There were so many stars
stretching to infinity. The sky was all shimmer
with a moving veil of light. (I had seen photos
of the northern light but didn't know that they
move.) Either Matushka Olga said, or we both
heard in our hearts -- I can't remember which
-- that the moving curtain of light was to be
for us a promise that God can create great
beauty from complete desolation and
nothingness. For me it was like proof of the
healing -- great beauty where there had been
nothing before but despair hidden by shame and
great effort.
What is one
to make of these accounts? If nothing else, for
now, one can acknowledge the special place that
Matushka Olga has had in the lives of certain
native people and a growing number of
contemporary women. But it is in the slow and
gradually expanding process of knowledge which
moves from local veneration to broader
awareness that God reveals how He can be
"wonderful in His Saints." Matushka Olga was
herself a midwife and may have also known from
personal experience the traumas of being abused
earlier in her life. Perhaps it is in this role
as an advocate for those who have been abused,
particularly sexually, that God will continue
to use Matushka Olga in drawing "straight with
crooked lines", His work of "creating beauty
from complete desolation and nothingness."
If God wills,
may it also one day be possible to exclaim: "O
Blessed Mother Olga, pray to God for us!"
[Special
thanks to Fr. Michael Oleksa, and to Fr. John
and Lyn Breck for their support and help in
providing the source materials for this article.]
