Russian Orthodox Church & Alaska

Akhiok Russian Orthodox Church

Akhiok Russian Orthodox Church is still used today. The setting for this beautiful structure is adjacent to a cemetery and overlooks Akhiok Bay (essentially the Northern Pacific Ocean) to the East. The sunrise through the cloudy skies and humidity makes for beautify lighting and a setting that anyone would be at peace resting or worshiping in I would think.

Walking through the church that morning, it was quiet and cold. I thought maybe it would feel eerie for some reason, but it didn’t at all – just was an old building and seemed somewhat forgotten about even though it is still in use. It was peaceful and ornate as I think the pictures convey.

The magpie atop the cross makes a nice touch

View standing next to the church facing east. The ledge just ahead drops off via a rocky cliff to the Akhiok Bay beach.

Russian Orthodox Church History in Alaska

In the first part of the 18th century, Russian explorers and traders began their emigration from Siberia to Alaska bringing with them their Orthodox faith and Christian doctrine where they offered and imposed their beliefs to and on the Native people. Their aim was to teach about the church and serve as missionaries to the Alaskan Natives. As early as 1763, there were baptisms of groups of Aleuts on Umnak Island (in the mid/western portion of the Aleutian chain/islands), spreading later to Kodiak Island with the first formal Orthodox Christian Mission arriving to Kodiak Island in September of 1794. In 1794, the Russian Tsarina (a female autocratic ruler) granted the missionaries’ pleas to establish a mission in Alaska. The initial mission created was comprised of two novices and eight monks along with ten Alaskan natives who had been brought to Russia by one of the missionaries (Grigorii Shelikov) in 1786.

The Russian Orthodox missionaries made a significant impact on Alaskan Native populations resulting in many practicing the Orthodox Christian faith then and today. The Mission – called the Valaam Mission – was created under the order of Empress Catherine. There were detailed instructions set forth to guide the missionary work consisting of 34 main points. It is beyond the content of this blog to go deeper into to this aspect of its creation, but the history is rich and interesting, and I encourage those who are not asleep yet from reading this, to delve further.

The Valaam Mission left Saint Petersburg on Christmas day in 1793 and arrived in Kodiak September 24th, 1794 where they constructed the first Orthodox church in America named, the Resurrection of Our Lord. The mission discovered hundreds of Kodiak Native Americans who were educated on the fundamentals of the Orthodox Faith and were subsequently baptized and more churches were established extending from Kodiak Island initially, spreading to the surrounding islands and into mainland Alaksa. In just 3 years, hundreds of Natives on Kodiak Island alone were baptized. This is a most impressive culture shift in such a short period of time! The zealousness of the first Russian Orthodox missionaries is well documented with >12,000 new members and churches erected in EVERY Christianized settlement! In 1798, Archimandrite Joasaph returned to Siberia where he was consecrated the Bishop of Kodiak and the first Bishop for America. He later died in a shipwreck off Kodiak Island in 1799.

As expected, the initial confrontation of Native Alaskans and Russians was at times bloody, but relations between the Alaskan natives and Orthodox priests generally became more harmonious and mutually beneficial with the missionaries teaching the natives not only religious and spiritual topics, but practical skills and subjects including mathematics, agriculture, carpentry and animal husbandry.

As with most missions, the primary goal is spreading of the beliefs of the said religion and religious conversion. Similarly, the central goal of the Alaska mission was to convert Native Alaskans to Orthodox Christianity. Education and “pacification” of Alaskan Natives were adjuncts to this goal.

In 1867, when Alaska was sold by Russia to the United States, there was a change in the clergy status of the American Orthodox Mission – they became foreigners to the new government where some then became US citizens and foreigners to their mother country, Russia. Despite the radical changes brought by American culture, the deep impression of Russia and the Russian Orthodox church remains evident throughout Alaska.

Today, the American Mission is reduced to half of its original members.