Saint Juvenaly of Alaska

Juvenaly of Alaska (Russian: Иеромонах Ювена́лий; 1761, Yekaterinburg, Russia – 1796, Kuinerrak, Alaska), Protomartyr of America, was a Russian hieromartyr and member of the first group of Orthodox missionaries who came from the monasteries of Valaam and Konevets to evangelize the native inhabitants of Alaska. He died 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 Yekaterinburg, Russia, and was named Yakov Feodorov Govorukhin. He was the son of smelting master Feodor Govorukhin of the Nerchinsk mines. Yakov himself also worked at the Voskresenskiĭ mines in Kolyvan with the rank of an ensign. In 1791 he left this position of his own will and went to live in the Valaam Monastery as a novice. In 1793 he was selected for the American mission and was tonsured a monk and ordained a priest. He was given the name Juvenaly in memory of St. Juvenal, fifth century Patriarch of Jerusalem. In 1793, a group of 10 monks and novices were selected from the Valaam and Konevets Monasteries to serve as missionaries in Russian America. This group of missionaries was led by Archimandrite Joasaph Bolotov and was composed of four hieromonks including Juvenaly and Makary, one hierodeacon and a monk named German, as well as four novices. 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 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.