Preface

Our North American mission, as is well known, celebrates this September the centennial jubilee of a hundred years of its work on the soil of the New World. Its history is in many respects quite remarkable. If the living activity of the Church is measured, especially in the West, by the energy and extent of its missions, then the North American mission presents, particularly in the beginning of its work, striking testimony to the zeal of the holy Orthodox Church in fulfilling the last commandment of Christ: to go to all peoples and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is already noteworthy that the mission here went hand in hand with the discovery of lands hitherto unknown. Somewhere beyond the boundless ocean, in an inhospitable climate, lands were opened populated by peoples “knowing no law,” and thus dwelling entirely in darkness and the shadow of death, and at the first call of Church authority, into these inhospitable lands with their wild population a band of brave warriors of Christ set out, ready to bear the light of Gospel truth into the most remote wilderness, to endure all manner of hardships and trials, and even to lay down their very lives for that truth. And this is even more remarkable because the missionaries in this case were not recruited from some specialized institution, like those which the “Roman propaganda” possesses, sending forth already specially trained and fully prepared missionaries, supplying them with all the means to secure the comforts of civilized life. No, these were simple monks, who never even thought that they would have to go to the ends of the earth to preach about Christ, and

who quietly completed their life’s path in prayers and labors. Yet at the first call, they roused themselves and without the slightest hesitation set out upon that vast journey, which even now, with improved means of transportation, cannot fail to frighten the imagination of most ordinary people; and they labored devotedly for the glory of Christ’s name, and with such zeal tilled the virgin soil of the northwestern frontier of the New World that even to this day it bears good fruit, thanks to the labors of these first heralds of Orthodoxy in the newly opened land. And if we take into account also that on this same soil, somewhat later, labored also our celebrated missionary, whose fame reflects glory on the Orthodox Church far beyond its boundaries—namely, Innocent of Moscow—whose labors aroused genuine admiration even abroad—then the history of our North American mission undoubtedly takes on a vivid church-historical interest, and therefore even a brief sketch of its century of work would be far from unnecessary in the pages of our journal[1].