Mother, Midwife, and Saint
Fire of Love in the Bitter Arctic Snows
I knew next to nothing about the Native Alaskan woman in the icon, but her eyes were kind and she carried a towel and bowl of water, like an old-fashioned midwife. Friends had brought her icon to my delivery room as labor started and stopped and stopped and started again. Eventually, labor became steady and then dragged on. I was tempted to despair. That was when she caught my eye from her place across the room in the windowsill. As I gazed into her eyes between contractions, she felt so close to me. “You will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Comfort flowed from her icon to my heart and I found the strength for the remainder of a very hard labor. As I held my new baby, I thanked my birth team in my heart, including this spiritual midwife.
But who was she?
“…at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other…Between them went musicians: and after these a lady in whose honour all this was being done…
“Is it?...is it?” I whispered to my guide.
“Not at all,” said he. “It's someone ye'll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.”
“She seems to be...well, a person of particular importance?”
“Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things…Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.”C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Preparations are underway for the glorification of a new Orthodox Christian Saint. She is a person few have heard of and she spent nearly the entirety of her life in Kwethluk, Alaska, a native Yu’pik village that is inaccessible by road. Her name is Olinka Arrsamquq Michael and to many around the world who love her she is Saint Olga, Matushka of all Alaska. She wrote no books, but she sewed traditional mukluks. She served as midwife to her village, but gave birth with no attendant several times herself. She lived in poverty, but gave clothes to those with even less. And at her funeral in Alaska in November 1979, summer birds flew over the graveyard.
And she is the woman whose icon my friends brought to the birth of my third child.
“Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
Hebrews 12:1
About three years after the birth, I was in a dramatic car accident with my children. My husband had purchased an icon of Matushka Olga and her icon was with us in the car that day. There were many little miracles that added up to our survival. I firmly believe she was interceding for us.
Our God who makes the moving curtain of the northern lights made you as a living light, shining in the far north and lighting up the desolate with His great beauty. Beholding this radiance, we your children lift up our voices and sing: Rejoice, Matushka Olga, healer of the abused and broken!
From The Akathist to Matushka Olga
Like many, I saw the northern lights for the first time this year. How wonderful that the Aurora Borealis should have been seen across so much of the world this year as the glorification process for Matushka Olga, our first female Alaskan saint, is underway.
Icons of Saint Olga often show the northern lights in the background. This is not only because she lived in Alaska but also because, in a vision, she once told a woman that, “God gave us the moving curtain of lights to show us that God can create beauty from complete desolation.”
… you…fruitfully multiplied, bearing thirteen children, loving each one, and sorrowing over the ones who died. Now that you stand with them in heaven, you hear from us your children still on earth the hymn: Alleluia!
From the Akathist to Matushka Olga
On November 17, 2024 the relics of Saint Olga, Matushka of all Alaska were uncovered and moved to a reliquary in St. Nicholas church in Kwethluk. Her relics had been submerged in boggy water for years, but there was no foul odor. Her clothing had decomposed, but her head scarf which she always wore in prayer was still present.
You laboured in the far north as a new Tabitha, making clothes to shelter the poor from the cold and warming their souls with your love. We who endure the icy winds of this age also find shelter in your heavenly intercession, and we offer you these praises.
From the Akathist to Matushka Olga
Saint Olga’s sphere of influence may have been small in life, but her prayers are still aiding people all over the world, especially women in childbirth and those who have been abused. I am knitting a headscarf for to remind me of St. Olga’s faithfulness. As I knit I ask her to help me to have patient endurance as a wife, mother, and Christian. Each year as her feast day approaches I plan to knit another scarf to share with someone in my community.
“Rejoice, fire of love in the bitter arctic snows!”
To read the full Akathist to Saint Olga click here.
To read more about her life click here.
To read more about the uncovering of her relics in November 2024 click here.
Thank you for sharing this! I didn't know much about Matushka Olga until this past week, when one of my creative writing students wrote a scene about her for an assignment. I was immediately touched.
Similar to your hospital story, we brought an icon of my daughter's patron - St. Elizabeth the New Martyr - to the hospital when she was born. It was a scary and dramatic birth, but she was fine in the end. Later, my husband and mother-in-law expressed gratitude for the three nurses in the room. One of the attending nurses corrected them: "there were only two of us." She was adamant. We have always believed that St. Elizabeth was the third nurse.
We learned about St Olga from the film Sacred Alaska: https://sacredalaskafilm.com/. I've got an icon of her above my writing desk and have been trying to write about her.