Saints of North America
On the second Sunday after Pentecost, each local Orthodox Church commemorates all the saints, known and unknown, who have shone forth in its territory. Accordingly, the Orthodox Church in America remembers the saints of North America on this day.
Saints of all times, and in every country are seen as the fulfillment of God’s promise to redeem fallen humanity. Their example encourages us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us” and to “run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). The saints of North America also teach us how we should live, and what we must expect to endure as Christians.
Although it is a relatively young church, the Orthodox Church in America has produced saints in nearly all of the six major categories of saints: Apostles (and Equals of the Apostles); Martyrs (and Confessors); Prophets; Hierarchs; Monastic Saints; and the Righteous. Prophets, of course, lived in Old Testament times and predicted the coming of Christ.
- St. Herman of Alaska, Wonderworker of All America
- St. Tikhon of Moscow,Patriarch of Moscow and Apostle to America
- St. Innocent of Alaska, Equal to the Apostles and Enlightener of North America
- St. Raphael, Bishop of Brooklyn
- St. Alexis Toth, Confessor & Defender of Orthodoxy in America
- St. Jacob, Enlightener of the Native Peoples of Alaska
- St. John Kochurov, Missionary to America and First Hieromartyr under the Bolshevik Yoke
- St. AlexanderHotovitzky, New Hieromartyr of Russia and Missionary to America
- St. Juvenal of Alaska, the Protomartyr of America
- Martyr Peter the Aleut of Alaska, America, and San Francisco
- St. John of San Francisco and Shanghai
- St. Nicholas of South Canaan
- St. Brendan the Navigator
- St. Nikolai Velimirovic
- St. Seraphim of Uglich
- St. Barnabas the New Confessor
- St. Anatole (Kamensky) of Irkutsk
In addition to the saints listed above, we also honor those saints who are known only to God, and have not been recognized officially by the Church. As we remember these saints, let us also remember that we too are called by God to a life of holiness.
We magnify you, All Saints who have shone forth in North America,
and we honor your holy memory,
for you pray to Christ our God for us.