Case file · Sacred site
Hieromonk Juvenaly
Juvenaly, a monk of the 1794 Valaam mission to Alaska, disappeared in 1796 while travelling near Lake Iliamna and is venerated by the Orthodox Church as the first martyr of America.
1796 CE · 59.75, -154.90 · status: legend
The account
How he died is uncertain: accounts collected long afterwards say he was killed by local people, possibly over his opposition to customs or as a result of misunderstandings. A diary once attributed to him was later shown to be a forgery.
The sceptical view
There is no contemporary record of his death; the story was assembled from later oral accounts.