In Defense of St. Peter The Aleut

Jan 13, 2025

Multiple Roman Catholics have attacked the martyrdom of St. Peter the Aleut as being a fable conjured up to slander the Roman Catholic Church, they assert he never really existed, and the historical witness is not reliable. This should not be shocking for the Orthodox, as St. Peter was martyred by Franciscans for refusing to renounce the Orthodox Faith. I will defend the historical reality of St. Peter, and get into the disputes surrounding his martyrdom. I will seek to do so charitably even if some Catholics will not return the same to us. I would like to emphasize from the outset that not every Roman Catholic makes these claims, and is thus not applicable to them; it is applicable to the ones who do. May the truth reign, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Historical Context and Precedence

St. Peter was an Aleut Indian who converted to the Russian Orthodox Faith and later died for his faith on September 8th, 1815. But this starts further back in 1812; when Russians founded Fort Ross near San Francisco, California. This Russian-American company incited suspicion from the Spaniards who it belonged to at the time, and the Spaniards demanded that Fort Ross be abandoned. With tensions rising, a lack of able-bodied men, and fur commodities being a major factor in the Russians interest in following the migrating sea otters down south to California; a solution was to hire non-Russians including Aleuts and Americans such as Dr. John Elliott D’Castro. (1).

The Russians used Aleut birdaka fleets attached to their brigs; and among the Aleuts aboard was St. Peter the Aleut. The Spaniards wanting the marine wealth and resources for themselves frequently captured those in the fur trade. This is documented several times, such as Tarakanov and the Aleuts being tied together and forced to march to Los Angeles (2) and forced to labor in the fields (3). So far we can set a historical precedence that Russians employed Aleuts and even Americans in their trade off the coast of California, they were routinely in conflict with the Spaniards, with multiple cases of Aleuts being captured. This can answer one of the first disputes presented by Catholic Answers of what would an Aleut or Alaskan be doing in San Francisco? (4).

St. Peter’s Story at Dolores Mission

What do the Catholics have to do with this? Franciscans of that time were mostly benevolent, they would try to help the Indians and Aleuts seeking to convert them to Catholicism. Those that did so out of the kindness of the Catholics, due to language barriers did not know or realize how there was a “no way out clause” once you joined the settlement. It was for life. Many would flee, and once captured and returned to the settlement were severely punished (5). A certain mission in San Francisco, named Dolores Mission (also known as Mission of St. Francis of Assisi), was especially harsh in their treatment of runaways. The lesser punishments were working longer in shackles and imprisonment for periods of time. One of the more severe punishments was 25 lashes with a whip, which was carried out varyingly by both the priests and the soldiers (6).

The National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian notes how the missionaries there would force the natives to attend religious services and that Dolores Mission’s peak was between 1810-1820 when St. Peter was martyred (7). They had 1,100 immigrants and the missions holdings spanned 125 miles (8). There are an estimated 5,700 indigenous peoples buried in unmarked graves at Dolores Mission (9).

At Dolores Mission, St. Peter was confined to a cell with Ivan Kychaly who witnessed his martyrdom. He was tortured after failed verbal attempts to get him to renounce the Orthodox Faith. They cut off his fingers, then his toes, and eventually disemboweled him, while the testimony of Ivan says St. Peter kept repeating “I am Christian.” No one knows where St. Peter’s relics are, but many suspect they are somewhere in the Indian mass graves at Dolores Mission in San Francisco, California. His story was then related to Simeon Yanovsky who disseminated it throughout the Orthodox world; and as he describes “I reported the incident to the authorities in St. Petersburg. When I finished my story, Father Herman asked, "What was the name of the tortured Aleut?" I replied: “Peter. I do not remember his last name." The Elder reverently stood in front of the icon, made the sign of the Cross and said: "Holy New Martyr Peter, pray to God for us!"

The 1820 report of Russian official Simeon Yanovsky to his superiors in St. Petersburg & the 1820 report of the head of the Russian-American Company to the Tsar are two big pieces of evidence. It states, “Only two of them, Kykhklai (Ivan) and the wounded Chunagnak (St. Peter), were thrown into prison with the Indians who were being held. They suffered for several days without food or drink. One night the head of the mission sent the runaway Kodiak islanders with a second order for them to accept the Catholic faith, but again they remained steadfast in their own faith.

At dawn a cleric went to the prison, accompanied by Indians. When the prisoners were brought out, he ordered the Indians to encircle them. Then he ordered the Indians to cut off the fingers from both hands of the above mentioned Chunagnak, then to cut off both his hands; finally, not satisfied with this tyranny, he gave orders that Chunagnak be disemboweled. Tortured in this manner, Chunagnak breathed his last after the final procedure.” (10).

Fair Assessments & More Objections

Does this mean all Franciscans are bad? Or that they teach to torture people who won’t convert to Roman Catholicism? No. It’s unfortunate that people who claimed to be Christians/Franciscans did not represent it correctly, especially in clerical roles; but it indeed happened. St. Peter was a martyr for the Orthodox Faith. If Orthodox-Catholic dialogue wants to get anywhere on this particular subject I believe it has to start here; it happened, it is shameful, and an individual mission that poorly represents Christian values is not therefore representative of all Roman Catholics.

The history of the Roman Catholic church has many instances of killing people of other beliefs, anyone studying history knows this. For example, 1231AD, Pope Gregory of Rome issued a bull "Excommunicamus" that the punishment for unrepentant heretics was death (11). People were killed under the Roman church, yet Roman Catholics have no problem simply acknowledging this as bad and moving on? So why can’t they do the same for St. Peter? It’s not consistent.

A common objection is the issue of flip-flopping if this was done by Jesuits or Franciscans; with it being noted Jesuits were not in California at that time. The expectation that Russian Sailors and their fellow Aleut Indian workers, would know the difference between Franciscans & Jesuits is laughable. Yanovsky is the first one to mention Jesuits, which Russian readers of his time would recognize and frequently term to generalize Roman Catholics. Roman Catholic priest, Raymond Bucko even acknowledges this was commonly done (12). Indeed it was Franciscans, as are documented at Dolores Mission. And even if you want to argue Yanovsky got this detail wrong without context, it doesn’t negate the martyrdom from occurring by orders of Roman Catholics.

This has been hailed by Roman Catholics saying this disproves the credibility of the 1865 letter (13) since it came out 50 years later and he says ‘Jesuits’. So their argument is these two things mean it’s a fable. Firstly, based on that “letter coming out 50 years later” argument, they should then, reject the existence of numerous people throughout history if they were consistent with that logic including their own Juan Diego. Secondly, there’s still evidence from 1819 (Ivan’s Testimony ((14)) and 1820 (Yanovsky’s first reports ((15)) that details the events surrounding St. Peter. The 1820 documentation is from the same person as the 1865 letter they think is “making it up 50 years later,” despite having evidence from the SAME person Yanovsky just 5 years after the events. This is just a clear lack of diligence and looking for any way to dismiss it. As as I’ve already mentioned, Russians using Jesuit interchangeably with Roman Catholic makes sense (read Dostoevsky for example).

Another Catholic claims there was no mention of martyrdom in either of the two 1820 letters, however this is just another proof of not knowing the primary sources. There was mention of it as I already cited, and the Yanovsky letter itself says the deposition of the same time written by Russian official Kuskov is attached; this deposition is of the eyewitnesses, Yanovsky would attach this to spare him time of having to rewrite the entire account over again.

In this 1820 letter, Yanovsky writes, “I suggest that the Government intervene so that the Spanish do not do the same with the rest. But we have to keep in mind that the colonies cannot get along without grain from California.” Clearly this wouldn’t make sense if Yanovsky was just trying to stir up some kind of anti-Spanish sentiment. This has also left open the door on some who say it was the Spanish officials themselves who martyred St. Peter, instead of Franciscans. But as I’ve already notated earlier, both Franciscans and soldiers were noted as participating in the tortures. And a couple of those Franciscan priests had reputations of being especially angry and violent with natives (16). This would corroborate the accounts given of a Catholic cleric calling orders for the killing of St. Peter.

The OCA, the Orthodox Church in America, website itself states it is Franciscans to avoid any confusion (17). And as the 1820’s letters affirm it was a Roman Catholic cleric ordering the killing, whether he did it himself or put someone else up to do it is not relevant. It was the Franciscans at Dolores Mission, not Spaniards, not Jesuits. There are multiple people in history that people of all religious backgrounds believe existed and their stories with much less historical evidence than St. Peter the Aleut. Yet they do not attack these people or find it contradictory in belief. This overly-analytical and forensic approach can be a detriment making us fall into worldly standards. What the Holy Orthodox Church has to say on it, is what matters. Pray to God for us holy St. Peter! By your example may we never renounce the Faith as you bore torments for Christ.

Sources:

Khlebnikov, Kiril. Biography of Alexander Andreivich Baranoff. (Transcript and translation in Bancroft Library) Vol. IV, part 4, p. 135).
Ogdin, Adele. The California Sea Otter Trade 1784-1848 (Berkley, 1941) p. 61-62.
Tikhmenev, P. "Historical Review of the Russian American Company," Russian America (Bancroft Library, Univ. of California), p. 274. Bancroft, p. 307.
Catholic Answers Staff. The Martyrdom of Peter the Aleut. https://www.catholic.com/qa/the-martyrdom-of-peter-the-aleut
Berger, John A. The Franciscan Missions of California (New York, 1941), p. 77-79).
Dutton, Davis. Missions of California (New York, 1972). Ballantine Books.
National Museum of the American Indian. Source B. Smithsonian 2017. https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/california-missions-4/source-b/
Cleary, Guire. Mission Dolores Links San Francisco to its 18th Century Roots. January 31, 2003.
Winegarner, Beth. (2024). Mission Dolores curator aims to humanize site’s indigenous dead.Mission Local. https://missionlocal.org/2024/03/mission-dolores-curator-aims-to-humanize-sites-indigenous-dead/
Letter to Tsar Alexander I. (December 20, 1820). Russian-American Company Administrator.
Ott, Michael. (1909). Catholic Encyclopedia. Pope Gregory IX. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06796a.htm
Bucko, Raymond. (2007). St. Peter the Aleut: Sacred Icon and the Iconography of Violence.Creighton University. https://cdr.creighton.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7183a216-9868-4c5c-ba36-3a9314acf036/content
Simeon Ivanovich Yanovsky. (November 22, 1865). Letter to the Abbot Damaskin of Valaam Monastery. https://library.alaska.gov/hist/hist_docs/docs/asl_ms149_03.pdf
Kykhlai, Ivan. (1819). Deposition transcript to the martyrdom.
Yanovsky. February 15th, 1820. Originally published in The Orthodox Word, No. 131 (1986), pp. 286-288.
The California Missions Were Far From Faultless Francis F. Guest. Southern California Quarterly(1994) 76 (3): 255–307. https://doi.org/10.2307/41171729
Orthodox Church in America. Martyr Peter the Aleut. Commemorated September 24. https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2024/09/24/102713-martyr-peter-the-aleut>