Orthodox Church

The Russian fur traders who came to Alaska after 1743 were of the Russian Orthodox faith. They baptized some of the Alaska Natives with whom they came into contact. Some did this out of genuine religious conviction. Others did it because the Aleuts they baptized then regarded them as parents and would not work for other Russians. Some of the Aleuts, in turn, accepted baptism out of genuine religious conviction. Others accepted baptism because it excused them from paying a tax or tribute to the Russian government. The first recorded baptism of an Aleut was done by fur trader Stephan Glotov in 1759. His convert, the son of a Fox Islands Aleut chief, later went to school in Kamchatka and returned to his home to become a village leader.

In 1787, Gregory Shelikhov asked Russian Orthodox priests to come to Alaska and offered to pay the costs. The first formal Christian religious mission to Alaska came in 1794 when Archpriest Loasaf brought 10 monks from the Valaam monastery in northeastern Russia to Kodiak. In 1796, the first Russian Orthodox church in Alaska, the Church of the Holy Resurrection, was built in Kodiak.

Next Page