9:00 AM – Welcome and Introductions – Innokentia and Mother Macrina
9:15 – Keynote Speaker - Maria Sakovich (MPH, MA)
Celebrating the Fourth of July: Orthodox Services Return to the Chapel at Fort Ross”. Orthodoxy returned to the former Russian settlement, Fort Ross, on the American Independence Day holiday, Fourth of July 1925. Three factors combined to create the resumption of services in the chapel: an invitation from the American fraternal organization Native Sons of the Golden West, newly arrived refugee-emigrants from the former Russian Empire after the Bolshevik revolution, and the inspiration of the rector of Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco, Archpriest Vladimir Sakovich, to meld a moment in time of Russia’s and California’s past with the present and future for his struggling-to-adjust parishioners. Over the past 100 years, this singular event has evolved into an annual celebration. Maria Sakovich, historian and granddaughter of Fr. Vladimir, will speak about the early years of this evolution.
Maria is a public historian and independent scholar who researches, writes, and lectures on immigration, family, and community history. For many years she has been documenting the history of the refuge-emigrants from Russia who arrived in San Francisco in the 1920s and 1930s. Their experiences have been included in several of her articles which have appeared in anthologies and journals as well as online. The history of two California State Parks, Fort Ross and Angel Island, specifically the Immigration Station, have featured prominently in her work including many efforts in regards to Fort Ross. She has recently embarked on writing a biographical portrait of her grandfather, Archpriest Vladimir Sakovich who began the pilgrimages to Fort Ross in 1925, and his refugee-emigrant parishioners. She is a member of the Institute for Historical Study.
10:15 – 10:30 - break
10:30 to 11:15 Very Reverand Archpriest Fr John Perich – St Herman of Alaska Church -Diocese of Eastern Pennsylvania
Fr John is the Head Curator at St Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania. He will offer insights to St Innocent and his time at Fort Ross as well as the canonization of St Peter the Aleut. Fr John, who lived in Alaska wrote the canonization papers for St Peter the Aleut. Fr John has many stories about these two saints as well as the history, the items that were once in the hands of these Saints, and the understanding of Orthodoxy at Fort Ross.
More to Come – check back
11:00 – 11:15 break
11:15 to 12:00 PM – Dr Susan Morris
Susan Morris is an independent researcher who has been involved in Channel Islands and California coastal research projects since 1987. She earned a BA from CSUN and a Certificate in Archaeology from UCLA. Morris conducted scientific field research on seven of California’s eight Channel Islands, including geology, paleontology, archaeology, and biology projects. Morris led a sea cave survey project on Santa Rosa Island and participated in the 1994 excavation of the nearly complete fossilized remains of a Pygmy mammoth on Santa Rosa, creating the on-site illustration of the mammoth skeleton. Her focus since 2010 has been historical research on the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, the model for Scott O’Dell’s protagonist in Island of the Blue Dolphins. The author of numerous articles on the Lone Woman and her people, the Nicoleños, Morris was the lead researcher for the Channel Islands National Park Island of the Blue Dolphins website. Her research on the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island was featured in the November 2022 issue of National Geographic History magazine and in the Spring 2025 issue of American Archaeology magazine.
The story of the Alaska native man, Chukagnak, who came to be known as St. Peter, the Aleut, has long fascinated generations of the Russian Orthodox faithful as well as historians and others interested in early California and Alaska history. Details about Chukagnak’s life and tragic death were speculative until recent review of 19th century Spanish and Russian manuscripts revealed the location of his violent death, the pueblo of Los Angeles, in 1815. Described in the native narrative of another Alaska native, Chukagnak’s murder followed his refusal to renounce his Russian Orthodox faith and accept Roman Catholicism, even under torture. His steadfastness, and Chukagnak’s resulting martyrdom for the sake of his religious beliefs, led the Orthodox Church of America to elevate him to the status of St. Peter, the Aleut, in 1980. I will discuss the details from the Spanish and Russian documents that illuminate the California coastal locations of these momentous events, and how these events reflect the conflicts that occurred between native peoples, the Spanish colonists, and the Russian otter hunting crews, during contact on the west coast of North American in the first half of the 19th century.
12:00 PM to 1:00 Lunch
1:00 to 1:30 - Dr. Nina Bogdan
Dr. Nina Bogdan is a historian, translator, and consultant. Her latest book, Before We Disappear into Oblivion: San Francisco’s Russian Diaspora from Revolution to Cold War (McGill-Queen’s University Press, May 2025), explores identity formation among Russian émigrés and immigrants in the noted period. A recent project she completed (2024) is a “Russian American Historic Context Statement” for the San Francisco Planning Department as part of the Citywide Cultural Resources Survey. The 160-page statement discusses the historical, geographic, political, and social forces involved in the establishment of Russian American communities in San Francisco, focusing on community adaptation of the urban built environment to house their institutions and histories. In 2015, she participated as a researcher/translator to a study for the National Park Service of Alaska, under the auspices of the Drachman Institute, College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture, University of Arizona: “Developing an Historic Ecclesiastical Landscape Study for Russian America from approximately 1840 to 1920” (2015-2017). Dr. Bogdan holds a PhD in U.S. History from the University of Arizona and an MA in Political Science (University of California, Davis). She taught U.S. History at the University of Arizona from 2018 to 2023. Her earlier work includes coauthoring a photographic history of the Russian community, Russian San Francisco, an Images of America series book (2010). She also wrote and self-published her family history, The Desolation of Exile: A Russian Family’s Odyssey (2013), traveling to Ukraine, Russia, and China to complete her research.
Before We Disappear into Oblivion | McGill-Queen’s University Press
1:30 to 1:45 Break
1:45 to 2:15 – Breck Parkman – Retired California State Park Senior Archeologist Northern District
Breck Parkman – the lead archeologist and historian at Fort Ross will share stories and pictures of the visit to Fort Ross in 1992 by the 5th Great Grandson of St Innocent, Fr Innocent. Fr Innocent came to walk in the footsteps of his 5th great grandfather on a pilgrimage. Breck will also speak about the people buried in the cemetery and their connection to Orthodoxy, and many unique and telling stories of Fort Ross people and faith.
2:30 to 3:15 Innokentia (Robin) Wellman – Retired Fort Ross.
Innokentia will share her research and stories of the five Saints known to have walked at Fort Ross. She will also share general history of Fort Ross, stories of the past and present.
For 30 years she worked at Fort Ross as the lead planner of events, research, and the everyday needs for the park. This included sharing stories of the people who lived and worked at Colony Ross, their little nuances of everyday life with thousands of visitors, school children, and academics as well as the orthodox church. Innokentia has traveled to Russia and Europe sharing the Fort Ross life, and orthodoxy of Fort Ross. She is honored to offer a few of those insights about the Saints and the everyday people who make up this story. In 2021 Innokentia (Robin Joy) became a newly baptized Orthodox Christian in the homeland of St Innocent, a little town called Anga Siberia, on the birthdate of St Innocent September 8th, by His Eminence Metropolitan Maximilian.
3:15 – 4:00 Open Discussion and Questions
4:30 or 5pm Vespers for anyone who would like to stay.
