Today’s article on Blessed Olga highlights the enduring legacy of Orthodox Christianity in Alaska, particularly how it became inseparably woven into the fabric of Native culture, tradition and morality.
Blessed Olga was a modern-day Yup’ik woman of profound Christian faith who lived a subsistence life along the Kuskokwim River. The fact that she cared for the poor, and supported pregnant and abused women might lead one to think she would be celebrated by all groups claiming to be advocates of indigenous cultures and women’s rights.
Unfortunately, you won’t hear a peep about Blessed Olga from modern, leftist activist groups in Alaska. While they claim to be champions of Native spirituality, subsistence lifestyles and women’s rights, they have absolutely no use for the Christian faith that countless Alaska Natives have embraced and passed down for generations.
Villages across the state are graced with iconic Orthodox churches, as well as beautiful cemeteries filled with beloved ancestors and elders. As they have for centuries, many Alaska Natives pray in these houses of worship, which have been a source of hope and inspiration for ages.
Rather than celebrating this reality, modern leftist organizations like Native Movement, Fireweed Collective, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU want nothing to do with this distinctive indigenous expression of Christianity. They are too busy claiming that abortion, anti-colonialism, transgenderism and climate alarmism are somehow the defining concerns for Alaska Natives.
Beloved heroes like Blessed Olga do not fit the narrative. She spent her life worshiping Christ, raising eight children, supporting her priestly husband and serving the less fortunate with incredible generosity.
She could not – and cannot – be enlisted in this globalist effort to impose a radical, woke ideology on her people.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
4 Comments
Yes, it’s very sad the liberal leftist can just leave things alone. Let the people live as they did for thousands of years before European Americans showed up and changed the world for the worst. We now have what we left Europe for. Liberals can’t see that far down the road. They sometimes have good ideas BUT, they font see them all the way through and so in the end it all blows up in their collective faces and we all loose! I keep praying for tgem to be able to see more of the whole picture but I’m beginning to think there is no hope for them. They are unable to see the light!
DeWitt: “it’s very sad the liberal leftist can just leave things alone.“. Example whatever of Christian conservative hypocrisy. YOU and your right wing bible thumpers are the EXACT definition of not being able to “leave things alone”. Gawd, it’s SO frustrating playing cards with you when you predictably cheat.
There’s more concern about whether a man can breast feed or not, pretend bathrooms, removing aunt Jemima from syrup bottles and indians from butter boxes and spreading perversion to children then there is about protecting and solidifying America and all that made it strong, the left need several swift kicks in their behinds.
You should do a write up of the horrible and generational abuses that the Catholic and Anglican churches foisted upon the Native communities.