The 2023 Annual Saint Herman Pilgrimage in Alaska comes exactly half-a-century after the first pilgrimage held in conjunction with Saint Herman’s feast day in August 1973. This year, festal services on August 7-9 in Kodiak and on Spruce Island will be led by His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) and His Grace Bishop Alexei of Sitka and Alaska.
While the tradition of celebrating Saint Herman’s summer feast with an annual pilgrimage to honor him began in 1973, it was in the year prior that the Diocese of Alaska first came together in pilgrimage on Spruce Island. Just two years after the triumphant glorification of St Herman in 1970, the “Mother Diocese” of the Church in North America found itself at a challenging and unsettled juncture. With the diocesan bishop called away to serve another diocese, a dearth of funding, and a perpetual shortage of clergy and lay leaders to meet the spiritual needs of the vast territory, Archpriest Joseph Kreta, the Temporary Administrator of the diocese, having convened the Diocesan Assembly over Labor Day weekend in 1972, saw fit to lead the diocese in pilgrimage to Spruce Island to fervently beseech the intercession of Saint Herman. Fortified in the Holy Spirit through the prayers of Venerable Father Herman, the Diocesan Assembly resolved to petition the Holy Synod to elect a new bishop for Alaska without delay and adopted a proposal to establish a pastoral school for the training of clergy and lay leaders. The prayers of the Alaskan clergy and faithful to Saint Herman bore fruit, as a diocesan pastoral school, now Saint Herman’s Seminary, was opened in February 1973 and the new ruling hierarch, Bishop Gregory (Afonsky) was consecrated to the episcopacy in Sitka in May. One of his first acts as diocesan bishop was to make the Saint Herman Pilgrimage an annual event, tying it to the festal commemoration of the Glorification of Saint Herman (August 9). Thus, the Second Annual Saint Herman Pilgrimage was organized on August 7-9, 1973.
Since its first celebration in conjunction with the Feast of the Glorification of Saint Herman in 1973, the annual pilgrimage has taken place every year, always led by the Bishop of Alaska, and often presided over by the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America. Over the years and decades, as the veneration of Saint Herman has spread throughout the Orthodox world and the pilgrimage itself has become a prominent event, numerous hierarchs from the OCA and other Local Churches, along with clergy and faithful from all corners of the world have flocked to the Pilgrimage in Kodiak and Spruce Island. May the wonder-working prayers and intercessions of Saint Herman, by which Saint Innocent was saved in turbulent waters provide peace and guidance to the path of righteousness for all in the turmoil of the world today.