7 Orthodox Saints Who Brought the Faith to America

On the second Sunday after Pentecost, Orthodox Christians in America keep the feast of All Saints of North America. The list has grown steadily since a humble Alaskan monk became the first saint glorified on American soil in 1970. Here are seven of the saints who planted the faith in the New World, from the Aleutian Islands to Brooklyn.

1. St. Herman of Alaska - the wonderworker of all America

Feast: December 13 (and August 9, the day of his glorification)

Herman was one of the monks of the first Orthodox mission to America, which reached Kodiak Island in 1794. He outlived the rest of the mission and spent his last decades on Spruce Island, which he called New Valaam, running a school and an orphanage and defending the native Alutiiq people against the Russian traders who ruled them. He reposed in 1837, and in 1970 he became the first saint glorified in North America.

Read the life of St. Herman of Alaska →

2. St. Innocent of Alaska - the apostle to America

Feast: March 31 (and October 6)

Father John Veniaminov arrived on Unalaska in 1824 with his young family and spent ten years crossing between the Aleutian islands by kayak. He devised an alphabet for the Aleut language, translated the Gospel of Matthew into it, and wrote An Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven, which is still read today. Widowed, he became a monk, taking the name Innocent, and then bishop of a diocese that stretched from Kamchatka to Alaska; he ended his life as Metropolitan of Moscow, where he founded a missionary society to carry on the work. He was glorified in 1977.

3. St. Tikhon of Moscow - the bishop of all America

Feast: April 7 (and October 9)

Before he was Patriarch of Moscow and a confessor under the Bolsheviks, Tikhon spent nine years as the Orthodox bishop of North America. He moved the see from San Francisco to New York, traveled the continent consecrating churches, and blessed the founding of St. Tikhon's Monastery in South Canaan, Pennsylvania, in 1905. He also hoped for an American Church that would pray in English and gather the immigrant groups into one. He reposed in 1925 and was glorified in 1989.

4. St. Alexis Toth - the defender of Orthodoxy in America

Feast: May 7

A Greek Catholic priest from what is now Slovakia, Fr. Alexis came to Minneapolis in 1889 to serve Carpatho-Russian immigrants. The local Roman Catholic archbishop refused to accept him because he was a widowed priest of the Eastern rite, and in 1891 Fr. Alexis led his parish into the Orthodox Church. Over the next two decades he helped tens of thousands of others make the same journey. He reposed in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1909, and his relics rest at St. Tikhon's Monastery.

5. St. Raphael of Brooklyn - the good shepherd of the lost sheep

Feast: February 27 (and the first Saturday of November)

Born in Beirut in 1860, Raphael Hawaweeny came to New York in 1895 to care for the Arabic-speaking Orthodox of America. In 1904 he became the first Orthodox bishop consecrated in North America. For eleven years he traveled constantly to find scattered Syrian and Lebanese families, built up St. Nicholas Cathedral in Brooklyn and some thirty parishes, and published a prayer book in Arabic for his flock. He reposed in 1915 and was glorified in 2000.

6. St. John Maximovitch - the wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco

Feast: July 2

In Shanghai, Bishop John gathered orphans off the streets; when the communists came in 1949 he led thousands of Russian refugees out of China and went to Washington himself to win them entry to the United States. As archbishop in Western Europe he encouraged the faithful to honor the ancient saints of the West. He ended his life in San Francisco. He slept little, served the Liturgy daily and was known for healings and insight. He reposed in Seattle in 1966, and his relics rest in the cathedral he completed in San Francisco.

Read the life of St. John Maximovitch →

7. St. Sebastian Dabovich - the first American-born Orthodox priest

Feast: November 30

Born in San Francisco in 1863 to Serbian immigrant parents, Sebastian Dabovich was the first American-born man ordained an Orthodox priest. He founded St. Sava Church in Jackson, California, the first Serbian Orthodox church in America, and spent decades as a missionary, preaching and publishing in English. He reposed in Serbia in 1940. His relics were brought home to Jackson in 2007, and he was glorified in 2015.

Read the life of St. Sebastian Dabovich →

Saints in waiting

Many Orthodox Christians in America also cherish the memory of Elder Ephraim of Arizona, the disciple of St. Joseph the Hesychast who founded seventeen monasteries across the United States and Canada. He reposed in 2019 and has not been formally glorified. Read more about him in Geronda Ephraim of Philotheou Monastery, and about his own elder in our list of saints of the twentieth century.

More lists of the saints

• 8 Orthodox Saints of the Twentieth Century - elders of Athos, a holy fool of Tbilisi and a martyr of Auschwitz

• 7 Holy Women of the Orthodox Church - martyrs, a princess, an evangelist and the enlightener of Georgia

• 8 Orthodox Saints Whose Books You Can Still Read - the Church Fathers behind On the Incarnation, the Ladder and the Philokalia

• 7 Orthodox Saints of the West Before the Great Schism - Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy in the undivided Church

Or browse every saint on our calendar, and read why the Church honors them in the role of saints in Orthodox Christianity.