A Sunday Morning Scene Blog Mirror: Russian Christmas. Native Americans and Christianity

 This is obviously rather late:

Russian Christmas

And a bit unusual for our weekly post here. But it's such an interesting cultural phenomenon, or perhaps outside of what we expect, that we're putting it up here any way.

Alaska has 89 Russian Orthodox parishes, the highest concentration of the Orthodox in the United States and North America.

Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord Russian Orthodox Church, Ninilchik Alaska

This is the Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord Church in Ninilchik Alaska.  This community has had a Russian Orthodox Church since 1846, but this structure dates to 1901.  It is a regular Russian Orthodox Church in the Orthodox Church of America's Diocese of Anchorage.

Again, while we do not generally delve into such topics here, some explanation is again in order.  This church is a conventional Russian Orthodox Church, but its subject to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church in America, which is one of two bodies that formed in the U.S. to govern Russian Orthodox Churches following the Russian Revolution.  The Orthodox Church in America is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church that started to govern its affairs separately when Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow directed all Russian Orthodox churches outside of Russia and was originally the Russian Greek Orthodox Church in America.  It was granted autocephaly by the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia in 1970 and changed its name at that time, although the validity of that action is disputed by some.

79% of Alaskans profess to be Christians of which 12.5% are Orthodox.  14% are Orthodox.  These figures combined mean that over 25% of Alaskans are members of the Apostolic churches.  Evangelical Protestants, however, make up 26% of the state's population, making them the largest Christian denomination.

Almost all Russian Orthodox Christians in Alaska are Alaskan natives.  I.e., First Nations.

We are so acclimated to a false concept of what and who Indians and natives are that we imagine them all to be as portrayed in current film, whatever that current film is.  Our Indians are Val Kilmer in Thunderheart as a rule.  Occasionally we get a more realistic portrayal such as that in Wind River.  

Recently there was an event in Kansas in which a city council became concerned about a large rock that was purportedly sacred to a local Indian tribe.  The concern was what to do about the stone now that we're focused on such things. Should it be removed, or honored in some way. When consulted, the tribe in question showed little interest.  They're mostly Protestants, in that case, today.

Christian identity is part and parcel of many tribes and their histories. The current desire to rip that way as somehow imposed upon them and demeaning is insulting and highly misplaced.  Indian tribes adopted various Christian religions in many instances in histories that are rich and complex.  The intermarriage between Indians and the French produced an entire Catholic culture, the Metis, who are regarded as a type of First Nation today in Canada.  Mexico's population, and by extension, Mexican American's as well, largely descend from Spanish and Indian intermarriage.  Intermarriage was a feature of Catholic European cultures, unlike the English Protestant one that dominated what became the United States, and latter day efforts to characterize this all as forced are simply incorrect.  Indeed, the French, who never colonized in North America in really substantial numbers, freely intermarried with Indians right from the onset of their presence in the country.  The Spanish did as well.  And in both instances the conversion of the native populations, in spite of what latter day woke Americans, heir to the Elizabethan Religious Settlement and the immigrating Dissenters may now wish to believe, it was mostly freely done.

Which isn't to say that Protestant conversions by Indians weren't largely freely done as well, they very much were. And what this gives us is a period in which native peoples undertook to evolve their own heritage.  In Wyoming,on the Wind River Reservation, this meant that a large number of converts in the Arapaho Tribe now live near St. Stephens.  Elsewhere the Episcopal Church was very successful in establishing itself on the Reservation.  A not insubstantial number of Indians converted early on to the Mormon Church, a non Christian church in the view of Christians, which has a large church near Ft. Washakie today.

Sitting Bull

Even the 19th Century American Indians we imagine to have religious beliefs as portrayed in film often had more complex religious beliefs.  Red Cloud (Maȟpíya Lúta), who has gone down in history as the only Indian leader to have defeated the U.S. Army in a war, became a Catholic, as did all the rest of his family.  Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake) was also baptized a Catholic, although the degree to which he actually adopted the faith is unknown.  Black Elk (Heȟáka Sápa), who is adored by the modern American mystic set today, was a Catholic and there exists today a cause for his sainthood and whom the Faith as accorded the title of "Servant of God".  Geronimo (Goyaałé) had complicated religions beliefs, like many Indians who made the transition from native religions to Christianity, but was baptized a Christian.  Washakie was baptized as an Episcopalian but apparently later converted to Mormonism, a faith which may have had an advantage among the Shoshone who had a tradition of sororal polygamy, although that practice was common in other tribes as well.

Geronimo in 1913.

In Alaska, the rich Orthodox heritage is preserved by the state's native population.  It's part of who they are.  

In a way, today's native Russian Orthodox Christians are lucky in that they are more isolated than Native Americans who live elsewhere.  Modern white Americans, largely heir to Protestant Christianity and and now subject to cultural influencers who have retained Puritanism to a very strong degree while abandoning its religious tenants at the same time, are attacking the religious cultural heritage of all peoples, a feature that's ironically tied to that Puritanism which attacked first the established Church of England and then by extension the Catholicism that the Church of England itself attacked.  It's also not surprising that its Alaska where Native peoples have retained their strongest cultural heritage of all types.

The two aren't inconsistent, and indeed, are strongly united.