Apostle to the Plains

The Life of Father Nicola Yanney

De: The Saint Raphael Clergy Brotherhood

Narrado por: A Member of the Saint Raphael Clergy Brotherhood

In 1892, a young man left his home in the coastal foothills of Lebanon in search of a better life. Coming to America with his newlywed wife, he found work as a traveling peddler, before settling on a small farm in central Nebraska.

Years later, personal tragedy and an unexpected midnight visit from a saint changed the course of his life.

Seeing the desperate need of his fellow orthodox Christians and heeding God’s call, he would spend the rest of his life traversing the Great Plains as a circuit-riding priest, known to his thousands of parishioners as Father Nicola Yanney.

His legacy stands alongside that of St. Raphael Hawaweeny, his mentor, as a seminal force in the American Orthodox Church of our day.

©2019 The Saint Raphael Clergy Brotherhood (P)2020 The Saint Raphael Clergy Brotherhood

Love requires sacrifice +

Fr. Nicola Yanney is a true example of what it means to follow Christ. His love for God is evident in his love for people and the Church. The brotherhood of St. Raphael did a wonderful job narrating this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone considering becoming clergy or desiring to know the Orthodox faith.

Glory to God

Good inspiration for our times. A true servant of God and an example to all in tmes of hardship. I enjoyed hearing of his journey.

The life & travels of Fr. Nicola Yanney

If, as some have said, Orthodoxy is “the best kept secret in America” then it follows that the history of Orthodoxy in America would be little known to many as well. Hence the importance of the book Apostle to the Plains: The Life of Father Nicola Yanney. Put out by The Saint Raphael Clergy Brotherhood and, for those like me who listened to the audiobook, read by a Brother of the Saint Raphael Clergy Brotherhood. More than just a biography of Fr. Nicola Yanney, it details the life of Greek, Russian, and most of all, Syrian Orthodox who settled in this country and laid the foundation for the faith so many of us converted to or were born into.

A quick note on the audiobook itself. The narration was soothing however the reader misses out on the pictures and maps that accompany the written text of the book. Hence why I am not usually an audiobook listener.

Fr. Nicola hailed from then Greater Syria, which at the time encompassed current day Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan. He immigrated with his new wife Martha to Ellis Island in New York in 1892. After a long and arduous journey, from a region many have only read of in Scripture, to this new and strange World, they settled in Omaha, Nebraska. Here Fr. Nicola, aside from being a devoted husband, father, and brother, became a peddler, then farmer, and later, unexpectedly, a priest. He was known throughout the country as a circuit-riding priest as his territory – assigned by then Bishop, now Saint Raphael Halloweeny – stretched across the Midwest including towns in places like Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska among other. Traveling several months of the year he baptized close to a thousand children, married dozens of couples, and buried parishioners as needed in his almost 15 year tenure. Personal loss, weather, politics, and legal and monetary hardship could not stop him from providing the sacraments to his vast flock, who would have had no Priest at all without his visits. If you think we have a shortage of priests today – imagine going months or years without the sacraments or even a service, as many immigrants did.

The chronicle of this life and travels can be at times arduous but it serves to bring the reader into the feeling of what life must have been like for Fr. Nicola.
During his priestly career he faced many unending trials:
- The harsh climate, “Traveling twelve hundred miles from the far southeastern corner of his missionary travels, Father Nicola arrived at its northernmost edge, not far from the Canadian border…When he stepped off the train in North Dakota, he found the weather dramatically different from that in southern Missouri. The temperature had dropped thirty degrees.”
- The deaths of loved ones, “After the services, the congregation and the visitors made a procession to the cemetery…There, with prayers and tears, Father Nicola laid yet another member of his family to rest.
- The politics of the time, “Though grateful for the support of the Russian Church for the past twenty years, most of the communities that father Nicola had served desired to be under the Church of Antioch. Several congregations wanted to remain with the Russian however, and still others were being torn in two by the strife, even individual families were bitterly divided”
He never however lost his faith or failed to turn to God in prayer. It is his strength that was a pillar permitting Orthodoxy to grow and spread in America and hence why this work is and will continue to be a vital piece of our American Orthodox heritage.

Author and Orthodox historian Matthew Namee in the Afterword of the book perfectly encapsulates this historical tribute of Fr. Nicola’s life:
“What, then, is the legacy of Fr. Nicola? It is not merely that of a pioneering priest, a founder of parishes, the first ordination by St. Raphael. No, the legacy of Fr. Nicola is much more than that - it is the legacy of martyrdom. By the choices he made in his life, culminating in his self-emptying death, he bore witness to the reality of the Gospel. No man of little faith could have endured such suffering and accepted such tribulation. No man of little faith could have so disregarded his own self-interest to care for the sick and the dying.”

Captivating

I could not stop listening to this book. It is beautifully read and the story of Fr. Nicola is one that deserves to be heard. The wealth of information on Fr. Nicola Yanney gives a complete picture of his life and priesthood. His sacrifice was not only for Syrian Orthodoxy in the early 1900’s, but it lays the foundation for American Orthodoxy as it is today. I highly recommend this book!

A life well lived...

Apostle to the plains is a detailed account of the life and times of Father Nicola Yanney, an Orthodox immigrant to the United states in the late 1800’s. I have listened to this audiobook four times and each time I am struck with a new depth of understanding in his continuous work towards the cross. His life was chock full of tragedy, hard work, and an unrelenting schedule.

How does one man almost single-handedly keep Orthodoxy alive in such a vast expanse like the Midwest. From Alabama to North Dakota, Colorado to the Mississippi River, he touched so many lives through the sacraments.

But it was his selflessness that strikes my heart. His willingness to be the chosen man to leave his Nebraska farm to become the great missionary to the Orthodox people. He lived a complicated life of schedules between our naturally complicated church calendar and the logistics of serving so many over an expanse I can barely wrap my head around. He managed to grow many churches among the Orthodox that still stand today in his fourteen years of missionary work.

Every year we take a trip to the western states, I have been struck at the number of small Orthodox parishes dotted around the countryside. Now I know this was part of the great work of Father Nicola Yanney and our Father in Heaven providing for His people.