Little Diomede Island - Saint Jude Catholic Church
Little Diomede is situated about 50 miles below the Arctic Circle in the middle of the Bering Strait half way between Siberia and Alaska. The Island has long been inhabited by Inupiat people because of its proximity to abundant food from the sea.
Fr. Bellarmine Lafortune, S.J., was the first Catholic missionary
to arrive at Diomede, in
June of 1913, though his stay was brief. Fr. Hubert Post, S.J.,
arrived three years after
Fr. Lafortune in 1916. "By this time a fair number of Little
Diomeders were already
Catholic, having been brought into the Church by Lafortune during
their annual
summers (stays) in Nome." It was Fr. Lafortune who, in 1935,
laid the plans for the first church building on the island.
Up to that time the parish had used a small building as place
of worship and living quarters.
Fr. Thomas Cunningham, S.J., was sent to Little Diomede in 1936.
He was the
first priest to take up residence there. He spent the total of
eight years living on the
Island between 1936 and 1947. He built the new church building with
donated lumber
from Nome and dedicated it to Saint Jude. After 1947, Fr.
Cunningham visited the
Island, weather permitting. Fr. Harold Grief, S.J., served
the parish intermittently and Fr. Gerald Ornowski, M.I.C., spent the summer of 1977 there.
While tenured on Little Diomede, Fr. Thomas Carlin built a new church
and living quarters with
the help of Brother Ignatius Jakes, S.J. It was blessed by Bishop
Robert Whelan, S.J.,
on March 3, 1979. Fr. Carlin remained as resident priest from 1979
until 1983.
The Little Sisters of Jesus were also residents at Little Diomede
beginning in
1954 up until 1996. Saint Jude parish has been
regularly visited by
priests out of Nome.