www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Saint Peter the Aleut

There is a tradition current among some Orthodox Christians in San Francisco that Saint Peter is buried in the Mission Dolores Cemetery and pious pilgrims come there to pray:

After the meal, we left with Matushka Evgenia�s blessing and went to the place of the martyrdom of St. Peter the Aleut, the Mission Dolores. Even though it is not known the exact location of his martyrdom by the Roman Catholic �missionaries,� we sang the magnification to St. Peter in the cemetery (Duncan).

It seems to me that there are good reasons for sending the four Russian Indians to your [the Santa Barbara] Presidio, all the more because you already have a countryman of theirs through whom pertinent and customary questioning could be conducted.

May God grant that they really want holy baptism, but I think there is not reason why it should be administered here except that the neophytes who brought them happened to belong to this Mission [San Buenaventura] and therefore they were the ones who said that the four wanted to be baptized. As for the Russian Indians themselves, I can hardly understand a word they say. But if they feel inclined to become members of our congregation of San Buenaventurea and if the Governor has no objections to their admittance to a mission, we can very well comply with their wishes (Cited in Farris: 8; Se�an: 87).

Born: not available
Died: not available
Glorification Date: not available
Commemoration Date: September 24

How do you do those upside down exclamation marks?

Alex

May I venture to state the the OCA needing a group of Saints of North America for their own ideological purposes in their attempt to establish themselves as an American Church added St. Peter the Aleut to their list along with St. Alexis Toth etc.

I have my doubts about whether or not Peter the Aleut existed, but I must admit that the existence of another Native American was called into question prior to his own canonization:
Saint Juan Diego.

Oral and written, Indian and Spanish, the account is unwavering. To a neophyte, fifty five years old, named Juan Diego, who was hurrying down Tepeyac hill to hear Mass in Mexico City, on Saturday, 9 December, 1531, the Blessed Virgin appeared and sent him to Bishop Zum�rraga to have a temple built where she stood. She was at the same place that evening and Sunday evening to get the bishop's answer. He had not immediately believed the messenger; having cross-questioned him and had him watched, he finally bade him ask a sign of the lady who said she was the mother of the true God. The neophyte agreed so readily to ask any sign desired, that the bishop was impressed and left the sign to the apparition. Juan was occupied all Monday with Bernardino, an uncle, who seemed dying of fever. Indian specifics failed; so at daybreak on Tuesday, 12 December, the grieved nephew was running to the St. James's convent for a priest. To avoid the apparition and untimely message to the bishop, he slipped round where the well chapel now stands. But the Blessed Virgin crossed down to meet him and said: "What road is this thou takest son?" A tender dialogue ensued. Reassuring Juan about his uncle whom at that instant she cured, appearing to him also and calling herself Holy Mary of Guadalupe she bade him go again to the bishop. Without hesitating he joyously asked the sign. She told him to go up to the rocks and gather roses. He knew it was neither the time nor the place for roses, but he went and found them. Gathering many into the lap of his tilma a long cloak or wrapper used by Mexican Indians he came back. The Holy Mother, rearranging the roses, bade him keep them untouched and unseen till he reached the bishop. Having got to the presence of Zum�rraga, Juan offered the sign. As he unfolded his cloak the roses fell out, and he was startled to see the bishop and his attendants kneeling before him: the life size figure of the Virgin Mother, just as he had described her, was glowing on the poor tilma.

In addition, no Spaniard at the time would deny that the tilma of St Juan Diego bore the actual image of the Theotokos. That is not and never was in question here. The issue is the tremendous impact this revelation to a Native of the Spanish Empire had and the later attempts by the Spaniards to try and shift the emphasis away from the ramifications of the fact that She appeared to a Native and not to a Spaniard.

And it would not be the first time in history that such a thing occurred, in Ukraine alone there are similar instances.

Cheers,

Alex