Autobiographical Note

I had seen that article in the Amur journal itself, and had seen that it contained errors (the principal one of which I attributed, in any case, to an oversight of the printer). But I left this without any consequences, believing that the article would die along with the newspaper. But things did not turn out that way. And therefore it would now be, on my part, almost unforgivable not to point out these errors.

1) The register books kept in the Irkutsk diocesan chancellery do indeed record that I was born on 11 September (1797). But my late mother told me that I was born on the feast of Adrian and Natalia, that is, 26 August; and this day she remembered very well on account of a certain notable circumstance that occurred in our village at that time. A further confirmation is that my name-day fell on 2 September, that is, the eighth day after my birth—and in former times many people named their children thus, following the letter of the Trebnik. My father died not in April but in August: this I remember myself—by the time of the ripening of the vegetables. But these are not the errors I wish to point out. It would not be worth taking up a pen merely for that. Of what concern is it to anyone, except my own relatives, whether I was born on one day or another, or in which month my father died?

2) But the article goes on to say that at the age of four going on five I was already reading the Apostle at the Liturgy. That is greatly overstated! This cannot be allowed to pass; otherwise it may give some people occasion to think something extraordinary about me, or to compare me—God knows—to whom! No, it was nothing of the sort. At the age of four going on five I had only just begun to learn to read, and not from anyone else, but from my own father, who, being long ill, almost always lay in bed. I read the Apostle not at Pascha, but at Christmas. I remember this very well; and it was at a time when I was studying under my uncle, that is, after the death of my father (in 1803). Consequently, I was reading the Apostle when I was six going on seven—if not on eight.

One could have ended this little article here, since the further inaccuracies are quite trivial. But it may be that I shall not again have the occasion or opportunity to say something about myself. And so I shall go through the whole article as printed in the Dukhovnaya Beseda, correcting it where necessary, and shall supplement it with certain information—to the glory of God. May my example serve as fresh proof of the truth that from the Lord are a man’s paths made straight, and that all of us, servants of His Church, are nothing other than instruments in His hands. It was His pleasure to appoint me to a field of service in America—and this came to pass, despite even the resistance of my own will.

3) I entered the seminary at the age of nine and a half, and after several attempts by my mother to place me in my father’s position as sexton. These attempts were fruitless, notwithstanding that my mother was left in a helpless situation with three children besides myself. An attempt of the same kind was made two or three years after my entering the seminary, but again without success. And this, of course, was because I was destined to serve not in my native place, but in America.

4) The author of the article on whose account I am writing this will himself say that it was not someone else, but I, who would have had to go to the Academy, had I not already been married at the time when the order came to send two students from the Irkutsk Seminary; and all the more so because our rector himself had me in mind for this purpose, as he told me afterwards. As for why he did not prevent my marriage, the reason was a very rare and even extraordinary circumstance, namely: the Angara River, which separates the seminary from the monastery (where our rector lived and from which he came to the seminary for the whole day on every school day), in that year (1817), at the time of the ice-break, cut off all communication between the monastery and the city for many days. The ice had at first almost completely broken up, but then stopped again for several days, and so solidly, that Ivanushko, a monastic novice well known in Irkutsk at the time, walked across it from one bank to the other. And at this time the thought came to me of marrying, and I managed to submit a request, obtain leave to marry without the rector’s permission, and even begin the courtship. Had it not been for this circumstance, the rector would of course not have allowed me to submit a request for marriage. And in that case I should have had to go to the Academy, not to America.

5) But the will of God concerning me was most visibly at work in my transfer from Irkutsk to Unalaska, that is, to America. I was ordained deacon on 13 May 1817, and priest on 18 May 1821, to that very church mentioned by the author, where I served until my departure for America. And indeed, the settler (from Unalaska) whom he mentions was the visible cause of my going to America. But it was not his stories to me personally that won me over. The matter was otherwise—or rather, it was both so and not so.

This settler (one Ivan Kryukov, who had lived among the Aleuts for forty years), upon arriving in Irkutsk, stopped in our parish, where he lived from November until almost mid-February. I was his spiritual father and that of all his family, and so I knew him quite well. And indeed, there was nothing he did not tell me, both about America in general and about the Aleuts in particular, and there was nothing with which he did not try to persuade me to go to Unalaska; but I was deaf to all his stories, and none of his arguments touched me. Indeed, could I, or would it have been at all prudent for me—judging by merely human reckoning—to go off heaven knows where, when I was in one of the best parishes in the city, held in respect and even affection by my parishioners, noticed and esteemed by my superiors, already owning my own home, and receiving a greater income than the salary appointed for Unalaska?

And therefore, when by order of the late Bishop Mikhail all the clergy throughout the diocese were asked whether anyone would wish to go to Unalaska, and if not, why precisely—I too, among the others, signed that I did not wish to take this post, on account of its remoteness. And I wrote this with entire sincerity, bearing in mind that if our widows, living even ten versts from the authorities, are left without anything (there was no welfare board at that time), what would become of them ten thousand versts away? So I thought, and so I told my fellow-clergy.

But when this same settler—who had already taken his final leave of me and was still trying in parting to persuade me to go to Unalaska (this I remember vividly)—began, on that very same day, when taking leave of the bishop (at whose house I happened to be present at the time, even in the drawing-room, which had never happened to me before), to tell of the Aleuts’ zeal for prayer and for hearing the Word of God (which I had doubtless heard from him before, perhaps more than once): then—blessed be the name of the Lord! — I was suddenly and, one might say, wholly inflamed with the desire to go to such a people. I remember vividly even now how I was tormented with impatience, waiting for the moment to declare my desire to the bishop; and he was indeed surprised, but said only: “We shall see.”

After all this, can I, speaking in all fairness, count it to my credit, or regard as any kind of exploit, that I went to America?

Equally, can I claim for myself anything of the good and useful that was accomplished in my time or through me in the places where I served? Of course not; at the very least, I ought not. God sees how hard it is for me to read or hear myself praised for anything, and especially when what was done by others, or at any rate not by me alone, is attributed to me alone. I confess, I should wish—if only it were possible—that my name be mentioned nowhere except in ordinary lists and commemorations, or diptychs. But since this wish of mine cannot easily be fulfilled (for example, in enumerating episcopal sees, even the briefest history of the Russian Church cannot fail to mention me), I should sincerely wish that in such cases what is said of me should be similar to what appears, for instance, in the preface to the Gospel translated into the Yakut language—namely, that this was done under such-and-such a bishop: nothing better, simpler, or more just than this is possible, to my mind. “But how then,” the author of the article on whose account I am writing this will ask me, “how does one speak or write of your journeys? There one cannot say ‘under.’” How? Very simply! They conveyed him, or carried him—at most, he travelled from there to there—and nothing more: because in truth all my travelling exploits consist precisely in this alone: to stir from the spot, that is, to resolve to seat oneself in a carriage or on a ship; and once there, even if one wished to turn back, one could not; and who would not so resolve, and in whom would the strength for it be lacking, when duty or obligation demands it?

6) After I declared my desire to the bishop, a resolution from him soon followed to this effect: “Many of the clergy have declined service in so important and apostolic-like a mission on entirely insufficient grounds, and therefore the chancery is to cast lots among the following deacons (four, not two), and whoever draws the lot must depart without fail.” The day of the lot-casting arrived; the bishop himself had informed me of it beforehand, inviting me to be present. But no one summoned me—this grieved me greatly, and even drove me to despair… But it was not anyone else but me whom the Lord then destined for America. The one upon whom the lot fell (a former seminary classmate of mine, a close acquaintance) refused, putting forward various grounds: his sacred obligations to his elderly parents, and so forth—but chiefly the ill health of his wife, who, it must be said, outlived him and is perhaps alive even now; whereas he died in 1839 in Krasnoyarsk—as a soldier—bitterly regretting his stubbornness!

7) I set out for St Petersburg from America not merely out of curiosity, as the author says, but more—and almost solely—in order to see the Aleut translations of the Holy Books through the press under my own supervision, arriving there on 25 June 1839.

8) No, it was not the death of my wife that opened for me the path to the episcopate, for she died exactly a year before that, namely on 24 November 1839. Until 6 November 1840, that is, until the time when I began to prepare to return to America, neither word nor thought of establishing an episcopal see in America was entertained by anyone… But as to how and to whom the first idea of this came—may, in time, be told by our diligent and well-meaning writer A. N. Muraviev, who took the most active part in the matter; and as to all else concerning me, my successor may tell it, after examining all my papers and files.