Juvenaly of Alaska

Saint Juvenaly of Alaska
Protomartyr of America
Born	1761 Ekaterinburg, Russia
Died	1796 Alaska
Feast	September 24

Juvenaly of Alaska (1761-1796), Protomartyr of America, was a Russian hieromartyr and member of the first group of Orthodox missionaries who came from the monastery of Valaam to evangelize the native inhabitants of Alaska. He was martyred while evangelizing among the Yupik Eskimos on the mainland of Alaska in 1796. His feast day is celebrated on July 2, and he is also commemorated with all the saints of Alaska (September 24), and with the first martyrs of the American land (December 12).

He was born in 1761 in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and was named Yakov (Jacob) Govorukhin. In his monastic life he was tonsured and given the name Juvenaly in memory of St. Juvenal, fifth century Patriarch of Jerusalem. After becoming a monk he was successively ordained deacon and then priest, becoming a hieromonk. He lived much of his early monastic life in the area around Lake Ladoga in northern Russia near Finland at the Konyavesky and Valaam Monasteries.

In 1793, a missionary group of eight monastics was organized at the Monastery of Valaam, near Lake Ladoga, to preach the Word of God to the natives of Alaska. This group of missionaries was led by Archimandrite Joseph (Bolotov) and was composed of four hieromonks including Juvenaly and Makariy, one hierodeacon, Steven, and two lay monks including Herman. Their destination was the Russian settlement on Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska, some 8,000 miles away across the length of Asia through Siberia and then the cold Bering Sea of the northern Pacific Ocean. The group arrived on Kodiak Island on September 24, 1794, to an unexpected scene. The settlement was primitive beyond what they were told, and violence was commonplace. The promised church was not there, and the promised supplies for three years were absent.

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