Recently,
my wife and I boarded a plane in San Jose, California, located our window
seat accommodations, and settled back to enjoy a spectacular journey
catapulting us over the dusty brown foothills of northern California
and into a world of ice-blue glaciers, green forests, deep bays and
inlets, and a panorama filled with breathtaking, seemingly endless horizons.
This, our first trip north to Alaska, had been long in coming.
Those who
have followed AGAIN through the years will be familiar with our first
stop, Saint John the Evangelist Cathedral in Eagle River. The visage
of this beautiful church, laden with snow, has graced several AGAIN
covers, as has that of the small hand-crafted St. Sergius Chapel built
within walking distance. AGAIN has featured several articles by Father
Marc Dunaway, the priest of Saint John Cathedral. Our 20th anniversary
issue carried two “then and now” articles by Barbara Dunaway,
Father Marc’s mom, which spanned over twenty years of the community’s
history, from establishment as “Maranatha North” to its
current form—an active parish with a church school and a community
of over three hundred souls. Many of the members live and dwell within
one mile of the church.
The yearly
“Eagle River Institute” had concluded only a few weeks prior
to our visit, drawing people from all over the country to five days
of intensive study under several prominent Orthodox scholars. Now that
the busyness of sponsoring that event was over, the community was working
at full speed to finalize preparations for the school year which was
just around the corner. The small school building was alive with carpenters,
cleaners, teachers, and other willing workers, volunteering their time
to get things ready for the approximately 50 schoolchildren soon to
be in attendance.
From Eagle
River, we traveled to the Kenai Peninsula, eventually arriving at Homer,
Alaska. For all intents and purposes, the highway stops at Homer. Though
there are native fishing villages further on, they can only be reached
by boat or light plane. Spruce Island, home of the great missionary,
Saint Herman of Alaska, was only a ferry trip away. Its unseen presence
seemed to cast a holy light over the entire region—even through
the rain.
The little
mission church established last year in Homer by Father Paul Jaroslaw,
formerly of St. John’s in Eagle River, was started with the blessing
of Metropolitan PHILIP. In addition to being a little outpost of Orthodoxy
in this distant corner of the globe, the mission has been laboring to
establish the Holy Cross House, a ministry for Orthodox youth desiring
to become more firmly rooted in their faith. The fruit of this effort
can be clearly seen in the lives of the young people who have attached
themselves to All Saints of America parish. It is a work being written
on tablets of flesh and blood.
The facilities at Homer, on the other hand, are only now beginning to take form. The
large house—a former bed and breakfast—shows the stress
and strain of a constant flow of young people coming and going, eating
and sleeping, working and worshipping—almost without interruption.
Around this building is clustered a menagerie of small, hand-built sheds
and cabins. All are within earshot of each other, and close to the main
house. The community is never far apart.
The little
chapel, rising up out of the soil of its rugged environment, reflects
the loving dedication of a group of Christians who, under the guidance
of Father Paul, his wife Bonnie, the inimitable Sub-deacon Basil (cook,
liturgical assistant, teacher, and resident apologist— Baptists
beware!), and a handful of former students, have given everything they
know how to give to the work of establishing an Orthodox place of prayer
in this community. Everything. To walk inside this little structure,
beholding the altar and small iconostasis, the vigil lamps glittering
before icons along spruce-paneled walls, and to hear the voices of those
young people singing and worshipping together, is to be translated from
Homer to heaven—something one would not expect to happen at first
sight of Homer!
No, it hasn’t
been easy for either of these communities. Nothing comes easily in Alaska—the
land is already well on its way toward obliterating the nameless graves
and collapsed shacks of those Gold Rush miners whose futile dreams died
in this harsh country one hundred years ago. “There were times,”
Father Paul told me, “when I honestly didn’t know how we
were going to survive our first year. It’s been the hardest experience
of my entire life—but it was worth every minute.” The pain
and struggle of survival, the sorrow of failed attempts and halting
missteps, the relentless, cruel attacks of the enemy— always seeking
to rend and destroy—all have taken their toll.
Yet in both
of these parishes, one in spirit yet diverse and unique as everything
else in the Alaskan wilderness, I believe I have been granted to see
once again the spirit of Orthodoxy in North America. It is a spirit
alive, untamed, and unconquerable—even by the very gates of hell.
Though at times the odds seem insurmountable, this spirit will indeed
survive. And in its survival, even in its very struggle to
survive, the opportunity for this Faith to truly capture the hearts
and minds of those who are earnestly seeking for Christ and His Holy
Church grows brighter each day. Brighter, in fact, than the first brilliant
sunrise after the long night of a dark Alaskan winter.
From Again Magazine
Publication of the Antiochian Orthodox
Christian Archdiocese of North America
Volume 20 No. 3/Fall 1977
p. 3
