The Enchanting of Kwethluk

Jesus Prayer + Nature = Enchantment

“My grandpa was a starosta in the Church. In those days they had to make their own nets. One time I went to see him, just to sit by him. It was during the summer when the weather was nice and warm out and he was making his net. And when he was doing that, he was whispering something. I went close by, and I listened to him. And his words were: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ The simple life that he lived, you could feel that special grace that was given to him simply by being the servant of God.”

Father David Askoak, a Native Alaskan priest, tells this story in the documentary Sacred Alaska. I thought about Father David and his grandpa on Pentecost, when we sang the Troparion:

Blessed are You, O Christ our God,
Who have revealed the fishermen as wise,
By sending down upon them the Holy Spirit;
And through them, You drew the world into Your net.
O Lover of Mankind, glory to You!

I thought about them again the other day, when I read the following exchange between our friend

Paul Kingsnorth

and a gent named

Pauly the Fowler

.

“I’m acquiring a fairly dim view of ‘re-enchantment’ advocates as a whole,” wrote Mr. Fowler. “I don’t understand how they point to making life any more interesting or more Godly. It seems like people who purport to be attuned to the signal want to mix in a lot of noise.” (He was referring to the work of a certain Christian Hermeticist who will go unnamed.)

“I feel much the same,” Kingsnorth replied. “Orthodoxy will provide enough practical Christian mystical teaching to last a lifetime. I’m coming to the conclusion that just saying the Jesus Prayer, a la Way of a Pilgrim, preferably whilst wandering, will offer enough ‘re-enchantment’ for one lifetime.”

Father David Askoak would agree, I think. And so would Matushka Olga.

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On February 3, 1916—in the Yupik village of Kwethluk, on the banks of the Kuskokwim River—a baby girl was born. Her parents named her Arrsamquq. Her parents converted to Orthodoxy not long after. The whole family was baptized by Russian missionaries. The little girl was given a new name: Olga.

When she had grown, Olga’s parents arranged for her to marry a man from the village called Nikolai. Like most of his neighbors, Nikolai was a hunter and a fisherman. He wasn’t a kind man, and he didn’t like going to church. The first years of their marriage were difficult.

Olga prayed for him. Then, slowly, he began to change. He became gentle and patient—though he lost none of his strength or his courage. He loved his wife and their children. He grew to love the Church.

Eventually, Nikolai became a reader. Then he became a priest. In 1963, he was named pastor of Saint Nicholas Parish in Kwethluk. Nikolai was now Father Nikolai, and Olga was now Matushka Olga. (Matushka is what we call a priest’s wife in the Slavic tradition. It means “little mama.”)

Olga was a midwife. God gave her the power to sense when a woman was pregnant. She knew before the mother. Olga assisted at the birth of every child in her village and in the twelve villages that neighbored Kwethluk. She had thirteen children of her own. Eight survived to adulthood.

Olga was also a healer. When she suspected that a woman was being abused by her husband, she would invite her to a steam bath, where bruises and scars have nowhere to hide. She helped however she could. Women and children took refuge in her home. She gave them food and clothes. She went to their houses to do the cooking and cleaning. Above all, she prayed for them.

Matushka Olga died on November 8, 1979, from cancer. She had performed many miracles in her life. She performed many more after her death, beginning the day she was buried.

For Alaska, winter really begins in November. It’s not the coldest month, but it’s cold. The temperature drops to -5 degrees at night in Kwethluk. Lots of folks wanted to come say goodbye to Matuskha Olga, but the river was frozen, so they couldn’t come by boat, and the ice wasn’t thick enough for snowmobiles.

They people prayed and prayed. As always, Matushka Olga lent them a hand.

On the very day of her funeral, the temperature jumped up, and the river thawed. Mourners crossed the Kuskokwim into Kwethluk. Songbirds followed the procession at Saint Nicholas Church. Even the earth thawed, opening herself to receive her. She was buried in her wedding gown.

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In the years since Matushka Olga died, she has worked countless miracles in hundreds of families, including my own. Men who left the Faith were visited by Olga in a dream and told—gently; firmly—to get their butts back to Church. Women who were said to be infertile prayed to Olga and became mothers.

Come to find—after all the books, all the blog posts, all the podcasts and conferences and endless Substack newsletters—this is what Enchantment looks like.

It’s the wife who bears her husband’s stupidity with patience and love. It’s the mom who rises at 4am to clean the house before her children wake up. It’s the midwife who crosses a frozen river in the middle of the night to deliver a baby that probably won’t live. It’s the neighbor who sees that you’re down on your luck, cooks you a hot meal, and puts you up for a few nights.

There was nothing exceptional about Jesus of Nazareth, except that He happened to be the Son of God. And there was nothing exceptional about Matushka Olga, either, except that she happened to bear the mystery of Divine Love in her heart. (Can there any good thing come out of Kwethluk?)

This Thursday, the Orthodox Church in America will glorify Olga as a saint. The Primatial All-Night Vigil with the Rite of Glorification will be celebrated by His Beatitude Tikhon, Metropolitan of Washington, and His Eminence Alexei, Archbishop Alexei of Sitka. It will take place at Saint Nicholas Church in Kwethluk, where Mother Olga was born, baptized, lived, and died.

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Archbishop Alexei once recalled a member of his flock saying, “We Aleut people, we were always Orthodox. We just had to wait for Christ to come and show that to us.”

How can that be? Father Michael Oleska (of blessed memory) had a theory. He said,

Alaskan native people believe that all life is a mysterious and sacred reality, not just in humans but in animals. The animals are sensitive and, in many ways, wise. The hunter can never surprise the animal, or outsmart it, or overpower it. They only get the animals who allow themselves to be caught. The animals must sacrifice themselves to keep the otherwise pitiful and pathetic humans alive. This is the traditional belief that goes back thousands of years. And when the story of Christ was told to them, they accepted the sacrifice of Christ in the same way.

This, again, is what it means to be Enchanted. It doesn’t mean seeing the world as a place where anything is possible. It means seeing the world as a place where one thing is inevitable: Light will triumph over darkness. Love will conquer hate. God Himself will be with us and be our God, and He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and there will be no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying.

This is the order of the Universe: self-sacrificial love. Creation is the icon of the Creator—the unspeakably, unbearably beautiful face of Christ.

If we can quiet our thoughts and find rest for our hearts, we’ll hear the whole Universe breathe: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy.”

Then all we have to do is join in.

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Troparion of Matushka Olga

God has chosen a humble mother from Alaska
to be an example for all the servants of God;
He has given us Saint Olga as a helper in afflictions
and as a guide to leading a life of sacrificial love.
Therefore, we entreat you, O holy Mother Olga:
pray that we, your sinful children, may be saved
and rejoice with you in the Kingdom of Heaven.