Saint James (Jakov) Netsvetov

He was born on the island of Atka in 1802, to a Russian father and an Aleut mother. Traveling to Russia, he attended the seminary in Irkutsk, and returned to Alaska after being ordained to the priesthood. For the next thirty-six years he served as missionary and pastor to the Alaskan people, undergoing tremendous hardships to do so. He first traveled among the peoples of the Aleutian islands, using native kayaks to paddle between the islands. From 1845 to 1863 he worked among the native people of the Yukon valley, traveling from village to village by dog-sled. He was the first Orthodox priest to serve the area since the hieromartyr Juvenaly, companion of St Herman. He carried with him a tent which served as a traveling church, in which he served the Divine Liturgy wherever he went — though sometimes the services could not be held because the bread and wine had frozen. Toward the end of his life, worn out by his labors, he settled for a brief time in Sitka, where he reposed in peace in 1864.