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Instructions and Teachings
St Tikhon of Moscow, Russian Orthodox American Messenger, 1898–1905
To Sheldon Jackson, General Agent of Education in Alaska (11 December 1899)
Dear Sir. 11 of December (new style) 1899.
I return to you the map of Alaska sent me by you. I have marked on it the places where there are churches and chapels of the Orthodox Mission. I enclose at the same time a list of our churches, schools, priests and teachers. From this list you will see that our Mission, in spite of its scant pecuniary resources, does not a little for the propagation of Christianity in Alaska, and for the enlightenment and improvement of the natives.
Both our Mission and our schools are most falsely and gratuitously charged with aiming at the russification of the country. That we are striving to maintain and even to propagate the Orthodox faith in Alaska, and to protect orthodox members against the influence of the other Missions, and that on this head we make no concessions— this we in no way conceal, and I do not think that you will deny the legality of such a course on our part. If we pray for the Russian Emperor, it is because he is the protector of the Orthodox Church, and because it is his liberality which supports the clergy and schools here: but we do not make the people pray for him as for our sovereign here; on the contrary —at the same time that we pray for him, we also pray for the President of the United States. If the Slavic Russian language is taught in our schools, it is because all our services are in Slavic, only a few prayers being translated into the native dialects and into English, and, to be understood, it must of course be studied. These are the only grounds on which we can be accused of russification. And is it not strange to speak of such a thing after the perfectly voluntary cession by the Russian Government of its American possessions to the United States? I have lingered on this subject because you, as a person in authority, can easily dissipate the prejudice entertained against our Mission by unfriendly persons.
In your capacity of General Agent of Education in Alaska, you also can direct your Government’s benevolent attention to our schools. You will of course not deny that we have schools in many places where there are no public schools, and in them the State language—English—is taught. Therefore, in my opinion, they are fully entitled to a subsidy from the Government. The confessional question has nothing to do with this: the State would pay not because the Orthodox religion is taught there, but because the English language is taught, because future citizens are trained and the wild natives are improved. And it would be much more to the State’s advantage, in localities which have a wholly Orthodox population, to subsidize schools already existing than to start public schools of its own, thus creating an utterly unnecessary duality. Such are my views on this subject, and I have taken the liberty of expressing them to you in the hope that you, as an enlightened worker in the cause of education, will sympathize with the efforts of others as well seeing they are directed towards the same beneficent object.—I shall be much pleased if, whenever you visit San Francisco, you do not pass me by.
Respectfully yours
Bishop TIKHON.