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UAF HOSTS WORLDWIDE CONFERENCE ON ALASKA SAINT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 25, 1997
Fairbanks, Alaska - The journey of "A Good and Faithful Servant" will continue to Fairbanks next month when the traveling museum exhibit commemorating the 1797 birth of Russian Orthodox priest Ioann Veniaminov-Popov opens at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The exhibit's debut in Fairbanks coincides with a worldwide symposium at UAF Dec. 5 - 7 marking the Veniaminov Bicentennial Year.
Anthropologists, linguists, historians and scholars from Russia, Europe, Canada and the U.S. will meet at UAF to discuss Veniaminov's contribution to Arctic social science. UAF anthropology professor and symposium organizer Lydia Black said Veniaminov is an important part of U.S. and Russian history.
"Alaska was for 100 years part of the Russian Empire. And in Russia, especially in the Russian Far East in spite of 75 years of Soviet suppression, Veniaminov is today a venerated figure," Black said. "He was the first ethnographer of Alaska's people. He was also an educator and founder of a bi-cultural educational system in Alaska during the Russian period."
He developed the first written form of language, widely used until the 20th century, for Natives in Alaska and Yakutia in the Russian Far East. He was also considered a missionary of immense tolerance. He encouraged the use of Native languages and permitted many traditional customs to continue among Natives in Alaska and Eastern Siberia, a practice not generally followed by other early Christian missionaries.
Veniaminov served in Alaska from 1824 - 1852. The original Church of the Holy Ascension of Christ on the Aleutian Island of Unalaska was designed and built by Veniaminov in 1825. He founded the first school at Unalaska and the first Orthodox school, seminary and orphanage at Sitka. A majority of the students were Native Alaskans but included some American Indians from California.
Veniaminov arrived in Alaska in 1824 accompanied by his wife and two children, including a daughter born aboard ship en route to Alaska. He took monastic vows in 1840 after the death of his wife and was later appointed the first Christian bishop in Alaska. He was canonized as Saint Innocent in 1977.
The legacy of America's Russian past is still visible throughout Alaska today, where onion-domed Orthodox churches dot the landscape of many parts of the state. In all, there are 87 Orthodox parishes in Alaska.
The Veniaminov exhibit will hang at Signers' Hall and is free to the public. On Dec. 7, the Fairbanks Choral Society will present a Russian Orthodox Christmas concert at the Davis Concert Hall at 4 p.m. featuring the visitation known as "starring." An exhibit guide published by UAF and a poster by Alaska artist Byron Birdsall will be available for purchase.
CONTACT: UAF Anthropology Professor Lydia Black, (907) 474-7288, or
UAF Public Information Officer Debra Damron, (907)
474-7122.
DPD/11-21-97/98-26