The History of Orthodoxy in America

The History of Orthodoxy in America

This article will cover common American Orthodox history and the history of The Self-Ruling Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America

Dezhnyov's 1648 expedition's believed to had reached the American shore and that their men had founded a Russian settlement there. Such a colony was searched for by many Russian expeditions launched by the Russian-American Company from 1818 on and during the early 1820s.

Dezhnyov later founded the Anadyr Ostrog. Thus the Russian (and Orthodox) quest for new lands on the East and Alaska has begun.

In 1732 the first well-documented Russian expedition headed by Mikhail Gvozdev (Михаил Гвоздев) on a ship St Gabriel (Святой Гавриил) built on the orders of Vitus Bering sailed towards Alaska. Afterwards, new settlers and traders streamed to Alaska. Settlers shared the Holy Gospel with locals and baptized them according to laymen rule in absence of clergy. There were no permanent missions at the time. Sometimes priest accompanying ship crews would come and minister. The first Native Americans to become Orthodox Christian were the Aleuts.

On 24 September 1794 Archmandrite Joasaph Bolotov and a group of missionaries came to America from the Valaam Monastery. Under very primitive conditions he and his monastic companions established the foundations of an Orthodox presence in North America. Fr. Joasaph and his party of monks were very successful in evangelizing the natives and expanded their preaching and efforts to the mainland. Yet, reaching out to the natives involved dangers. Witness the martyrdom of Fr. Juvenaly in 1796.

In 1868, the first Orthodox church in the continental United States was established in San Francisco, California. Numerous parishes were established across the country throughout the rest of the 19th century. Although these parishes were typically multi-ethnic, most received support from the missionary diocese. In 1872 the diocesan see was relocated from Alaska to the city of San Francisco, California in the United States. The mission itself was instituted as a separate Diocese of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands on June 10, 1870, subsequent to the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867. In November 1870, the first Orthodox church in New York City was consecrated.

During this period education and charity was the focus of the diocese. In 1905 Archbishop Tikhon oversaw the creation of an Orthodox seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. St. Platon Seminary moved from Minneapolis to Tenafly, New Jersey in 1912 and enrolled 78 students til 1923. In 1916, an unaccredited Russian Women's College was established in Brooklyn. An immigrant society and an orphanage also were established, as well as the first Orthodox monasteries in the United States - Saint Tikhon Monastery for men in 1905 and Holy Virgin Protection for women in 1915).

Prior to the 13th All-American Sobor in November 1967, a proposal was prepared to change the name of the Church from the "Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America" to the "Orthodox Church in America." The name change, as well as the granting of autocephaly, was officially accepted at the 14th All-American Sobor (also known as the 1st All-American Council in recognition of the Church's new-found independence) in October 1970.