Orthodox Church in America

The Orthodox Church in America is the outgrowth of the Russian Orthodox mission to Alaska in the 1790s.

In 1794, eight missionaries from northeastern Russia reached Kodiak, Alaska, after traveling more than 6,000 miles across Siberia and the Bering Strait.

From that beginning, Russian Orthodoxy grew with the population of the North American continent, at first as a mission of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Russian traders and Natives of Alaska and Canada, then to mixed-Orthodox communities of the lower-48, and ultimately as an American-based jurisdiction with a vision to speak to all the people of the continent in their own languages.

In 1970, the Russian Orthodox Church gave administrative independence to the Orthodox Church in America.
