On August 15, early on August 16 Moscow time, Vladimir Putin met Archbishop Alexei (Trader) of Sitka and Alaska at a memorial cemetery near Anchorage. The visit took place after Putin’s talks with Donald Trump and replaced a previously planned joint lunch.
Several Red Army soldiers are buried at the cemetery; they died in the Alaskan region while ferrying aircraft supplied by the United States to the USSR during World War II. The graves have no religious symbols, however, with neither Orthodox crosses nor icons present.
During the meeting, Archbishop Alexei presented Putin with an icon of Saint Herman of Alaska, a Russian monk from Valaam who was sent to Kodiak Island in 1793 by order of the St. Petersburg Synod to preach Orthodoxy to the local Indigenous population.
Putin, in turn, gave Archbishop Alexei an icon of the same saint, Herman of Alaska. The Russian leader also added an icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God, apparently proceeding from the assumption that the Orthodox Church in America, which includes the Diocese of Alaska, observes the feast of the Dormition on the new-style date of August 15.
But, as the outlet notes, that assumption did not match local practice. The Diocese of Alaska is considered one of the most conservative within the Orthodox Church in America, preserves old Russian traditions, and follows the old calendar style, like the Russian Orthodox Church.
As a result, the Dormition feast in that diocese will be observed not on August 15, but on August 28.