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State of Alaska


Early Russian Exploration







Establishment of the First Orthodox Churches

On September 24, 1794, a group of monks from Valaam Monastery (numbered between eight and ten) arrived to evangelize the native population thus beginning the spread of Orthodox Christianity in the New World. Among these were St. Herman of Alaska, and St. Juvenaly of Alaska. (The others named are Archimandrite Joseph (Bolotov), the Hieromonk Macarius, Hieromonk Athanasius, Hieromonk Stephen and Hieromonk Nectarius as well as Hierodeacon Stephen, and Hierodeacon Nectarius.) They landed at Kodiak, and while this would serve as a central point of their missionary activities, it was from this point that they traveled all around southern Alaska, travelling thousands of miles, going as far as the Aleutians. It was in Kodiak that the first Russian Orthodox Church was constructed in Alaska, in 1795, Holy Resurrection Church.

By this time, Russians had been in Alaska for many years, and some evangelization had been made among the native Alaskans by laypeople who were members of the Russian American Company. Some of these, such as Osip Prianishnikov, worked very hard to spread the Gospel among the Alaska natives, even learning the Kodiak, Aleut, and Chugach Yupik languages. However, the attitude toward the Church and the Native Alaskans was not shared by all.

For many years, the Russians and the Alaskans battled for primacy over the territory. Eventually, the Russians were able to exert more control, and the Russian American Company eventually became the dominant player in the fur trade in Alaska, which at that point was the major economic reason that Russia had interest in the territory. Shelikhov himself, despite calling for the missionaries to Alaska, was known for his cruelty toward Alaskans. For many, the Christianization of the native people had more to do with trying to pacify, control, and Russianize them rather than actually bringing them the Faith. Furthermore, baptisms were sometimes performed for the purpose of appointing Russians as godparents, thereby giving them much more influence on the families of the Alaskans, whose culture, in general, directed them to be very reverent towards ancestors, including godparents.

By 1800, although there were very few official Orthodox churches established, there were numerous communities that had come into contact with the Orthodox church, and thousands had been baptized. Besides the church in Kodiak, a church had been constructed in Karluk prior to 1800, and one in Old Harbor was constructed soon afterwards. Sitka would follow in 1808. (The first church located on St. Paul Island is believed by many to have been built by Russian sailors in 1779, though ascertaining this precisely is difficult.) Assessing the situation in 1796, the Holy Synod decided to create an auxiliary see in Kodiak and named Archamandrite Joasaph to lead it as bishop.

Missionaries and Martyrs

The first martyr in the Alaskan territory was one of the group of monks from Valaam, Juvenaly, who was murdered in 1795 or 1796. Most of the group that arrived from Valaam would die in Alaska, having dedicated the rest of their lives to spreading the Word of Christ. Archimandrite Joasaph returned to Irkutsk to be consecrated Bishop of Kodiak, and was consecrated on April 10, 1799. Hieromonk Makary and Hierodeacon Stephan had accompanied him on the journey; unfortunately all three perished at sea on the return trip, as it neared the Alaskan coast in May of 1799. (St. Herman was the last of the group to fall asleep in the Lord; reposing on Spruce Island in 1837.)

Tsarina Catherine II of Russia refused to grant Shelikov's Russian American Company exclusive right to business in Alaska, but after her death in 1796, her son Paul I granted that right in 1799. The Russian American Company, for most essential purposes, became the government of Alaska, and they were in charge of managing the territory, including the spiritual needs of Russians, Creoles (those of mixed Russian and Alaskan ancestry) and the Alaska natives.

Many expected that the clergy sent to the Alaskan territory would merely be puppets of the Russian government or the Russian American Company, but, by and large, they worked largely independently, and at times would report back on the "bad behavior" of the Russian Administration. As far as the missions went, the missionaries did not believe in "Russianizing" the native Alaskans as much as bringing them the Gospel. Fr. John Evseyevich Popov-Veniaminov (glorified now as St. Innocent of Alaska) was a shining example of this, volunteering to go to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska as a young priest, and tirelessly laboring there for most of the rest of his life. He built a church there (Holy Ascension Church) to replace a chapel that had been constructed in 1808, and he visited many islands, always recording information about the people and their ways of life. Almost immediately, he began working on translations of Church materials into Aleut languages so that the people could understand Christianity in their own languages. Later, he would be transferred to Southeast Alaska, where he did the same thing, but this time among the Tlingit peoples.

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