“He arrived in the Aleutian Islands in 1824 and at first lived in a mud hut on the Island of Unalaska. By his labors a church was built there. He learnt the Aleutian language and translated the Gospel of St. Matthew, the text of the Divine Liturgy and the Small Catechism into it. He opened a school for boys in which he himself taught from textbooks prepared by him. For ten years, living on the Island of Unalaska, he visited the islands in a small canoe, and not for one day did he cease from his apostolic labor. In 1834 he was transferred to the Island of Sitka, built St. Michael’s Church there, and the first Orthodox seminary on American soil. When he was widowed, he was called to serve the church as bishop, which he carried out in Alaska. At the end of his life with failing health and being almost blind, this distinguished missionary returned to Russia and died as Metropolitan of Moscow. Metropolitan IRENEY on the 175 anniversary of Holy Orthodoxy in America, 1794 –1969.

 

Among the ones who came to Alaska was the monk, Herman, of Valamo Monastery in Russia. He lived simply among the indigenous peoples of the North defending them against unfairnesses in the fur trade. In time, he and others would be canonized North American saints. Gradually, the faith spread along the western California coast and along to other portions of the United States.

In the 1870s there were Syro-Lebanese merchants in Lennoxville, Quebec (near Sherbrooke) who were Orthodox. Priests travelled from the United States to meet their spiritual needs. Services were held at Bishop’s University, a college that dates to 1843.

 

 

 

 

Beginnings

Just prior to the onset of the 20th century, Canada opened its doors to immigrants from various lands with its twin policies of railway building and homesteading. Orthodox immigrants were among those who came. The majority of them were from parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia and Romania. They settled mainly in rural areas of western Canada that offered plenty of space. Much of the land was fertile, even resembling the black earth (chornozem) of parts of Ukraine. There were plenty of trees for fuel needs in the parkland areas.

Ernest W. Hubbell, Dominion Land Surveyor in 1894 gave this description of the land around Edmonton and how much it would cost to set up to farm:

“About 55 percent of the country is prairie. In some places the country is heavily timbered, in others lightly wooded, again in other parts beautiful grassy plains, surface is generally undulating, except when broken by the Beaver Hills or by the deep valley of the Saskatchewan River…horses…are worth generally $65 to $90, dressed beef is worth to the farmer 5 cents per pound, cows from $25 to $40…chickens, ordinary breed, $1 per pair. Binders cost $175, seeders $80, breaking ploughs $20, harrows $15, wagon $75…wheat brings 40 to 50 cents per bushel, eggs 20 to 30 cents per dozen…hay $5 delivered in town.”

In 1890, one of the first Romanian immigrants to Canada, Nicolae Zora, settled in the Regina, Assiniboia area. By the next year, there were thirty Romanian families homesteading in the district.

“Ruthenian” was used at the time to describe people of a particular western Ukrainian culture and dialect, those from the Sian River Basin of Galicia. It was often applied in a general way to most Slavic settlers in western Canada, including Galicians, Bukovinians, Carpatho-Rusyns, Volhyns and Lemkes. Immigration from Russia, Ukraine and other parts of the central Europe was a particular policy of Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior, 1896 – 1905, as he attributed special value to the hardiness of “the settlers in sheepskin coats.”

In the 1901 census, there were thirty-nine people of Greek descent in Canada. By 1910, immigrants from Greece and the Middle East were settling in Canada’s larger centers especially Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. In between the towns and farms, Syrian Orthodox peddlars travelled the prairies with their wares, stopping at the homes of Galicians, Bukovinians, Russians, Romanians and other settlers across the plains.