Welcome to our Parish. On June 19–20, 2025, Matushka Olga was glorified here in Kwethluk, Alaska, and numbered among the saints of the Orthodox Church. Pilgrims are always welcome to visit our parish and pray in the village where St. Olga lived and served. May your pilgrimage be prayerful and grace-filled. Should you require guidance or assistance in planning a visit, please view our pilgrimage guide.
Pilgrimage
For the Orthodox faithful, a pilgrimage to the home of a saint is a rare and profoundly spiritual blessing. In June 2025, the Church glorified Matushka Olga here in Kwethluk, recognizing a life transfigured by God’s grace. Visiting Kwethluk allows pilgrims to pray in the village where St. Olga lived and served, to ask the intercessions of this mother and helper of families and those in need, and to experience the rich spiritual heritage of Alaska’s Orthodox community. Pilgrims return home with her blessing for their own spiritual lives and communities.
Planning Your Pilgrimage
On June 19–20, 2025, Matushka Olga’s liturgical glorification took place at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Kwethluk, Alaska. Pilgrims are welcome to visit throughout the year. Kwethluk is a small, remote village, so please contact the parish before you travel so we can help you plan your visit and let you know about services.
How to Get to Kwethluk
Step 1: Fly to Bethel (BET)
- Alaska Airlines operates daily flights from Anchorage (ANC) to Bethel (BET).
Step 2: Travel from Bethel to Kwethluk
By small plane
Several local airlines fly between Bethel and Kwethluk. Flights fill up, so book ahead.
- Fox Air: foxairalaska.com, (907) 545-5771
- Yute Air: yutebethel.com, (907) 543-2684 (prone to delays)
- Grant Air: flygrant.com, (888) 359-4726
Charters typically cost around $500 each way and carry up to six passengers. Contact the airline directly to reserve a charter flight.
By boat (summer)
In ice-free months it may be possible to arrange boat travel up the river from Bethel. Please contact the parish ahead of time. Fuel in Kwethluk is expensive, so plan to help cover the cost of gas for your boat captain.
What to Expect in Kwethluk
Lodging: Kwethluk has very limited lodging. Please contact the parish before you travel to arrange a place to stay. If you stay in a shared space, bring a sleeping bag and a mat.
Food: Kwethluk has a small general store with limited supplies. Bring your preferred snacks and any food you need, especially if you are not used to fish.
Weather and insects: Conditions are rustic, so prepare for the outdoors. Summer brings many insects, so bring insect repellent and protective clothing. Winters are long and very cold.
What to Pack
- Sleeping bag and mat
- Insect repellent and protective clothing (summer)
- Warm layers and rain gear
- Snacks and any food you rely on
- Cash for fuel contributions and the local store
Commemoration List
Submit your prayer requests or the names of your loved ones to be remembered in prayer. These names will be carefully placed upon the casket of Matushka Olga, where they will be blessed prayerfully and lifted before God.
Righteous Matushka Olga of Kwethluk
“God can create great beauty from complete desolation and nothingness.”
In Kwethluk, where the Kwethluk River meets the Kuskokwim, there lived a woman the Church now calls Righteous Matushka Olga of Kwethluk, Matushka of All Alaska — and whom her neighbors knew simply as Olinka. She was born Olga Evan Nicolai on February 3, 1916; her Yup’ik name, Arrsamquq, means the lowly or hidden one. She spent her whole life in the village of her birth, and that quiet life has now touched the whole world.
She married Nicolai Michael, the village postmaster and storekeeper, who later became the first priest to come from Kwethluk itself. As a priest’s wife she became “Matushka”: a mother to her own thirteen children and to the entire village. She was a midwife who brought many children safely into the world, and a gentle refuge for women carrying hidden sorrows, especially those who had suffered abuse. The elders say her hands were never idle — always sewing, knitting, kneading or comforting — and the parkas, mittens, socks and boots she made found their way into nearly every home in the village, and to parishes far beyond it. She never raised her voice. She taught, as Yup’ik elders do, by example.
She reposed in the Lord on November 8, 1979. In the days that followed, a sudden warmth melted the November snow and river ice, so that mourners from distant villages reached Kwethluk by boat, and swallows that should long since have flown south circled over her funeral procession. The land itself seemed to honor her, and her people never forgot.
In the years after her death, prayers to Matushka Olga were answered across Alaska and far beyond. In November 2023 the Holy Synod numbered her among the saints. Her relics were uncovered in Kwethluk in November 2024, and on June 19–20, 2025, she was glorified in her home village. She is the first North American woman and the first Yup’ik person to be glorified as a saint in the Orthodox Church. Her feast is kept on October 27 on the Church calendar; in Alaska, where the Old (Julian) calendar is followed, that falls on November 9.
Pilgrims are welcome to venerate St. Olga’s relics at St. Nicholas Church in Kwethluk — see our Planning Your Pilgrimage page.
Read the full Life of Righteous Matushka Olga →
Holy and Righteous Mother Olga, Matushka of All Alaska, pray unto God for us!
