A brief history of Russian America & the Russian Orthodox Church

15 January 2015 ©HISTORICPHILIPPINES.COM 2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1
A brief history of Russian America &
the Russian Orthodox Church

The Flags
The flag of the United States of America with only 37
stars representing the states of the union before
Alaska joined the union.
The flag of the Russian American Company from
1799 to 1867 as approved by the Czar of all the
Russias, in 1806, Alexander I.
The State Flag of Alaska starting in 1867.

Peter 1
The Great
2 Nov 1721 to 8 Feb 1725
Catherine I
8 Feb 1725 to 17 May 1727
Peter II
18 May 1727 to 30 Jan 1730
Anna
13 Feb 1730 to 28 Oct 1740
Ivan VI
28 Oct 1740 to 6 Dec 1741
Disputed
Murdered 16 Jul 1764
Elizabeth
6 Dec 1741 to 5 Jan 1762

Peter III
9 Jan 1762 to 9 Jul1762
Murdered
Catherine III
The Great
9 Jul 1762 to 17 Nov 1796
Paul I
17 Nov 1796 to 23 Mar 1801
Assassinated
Constantine I
1 Dec 1825 to 26 Dec 1825
Disputed
Alexander I
23 Mar 1801 to 1 Dec 1825
Nicholas I
1 Dec 1825 to 2 Mar 1855
Alexander II
The Liberator
2 Mar 1855 to 13 Mar 1881
Assassinated
Alexander III
The Peacemaker
13 Mar 1881 to Nov 1894
The Czars and the Czarinas who ruled the Russias from the 1760s to the 1890s.

Russia laid claim to Alaska in 1741, following Vitus Bering’s pioneer voyage across the
Pacific from Siberia. Hundreds of Russian fur-seekers followed. The first Orthodox house
of worship in America was a chapel built by laymen on Umnak Island in the Aleutians in the
1760’s.
The Orthodox mission established a formal presence in North America, at Kodiak, in 1794
with the arrival of ten monks including North America’s first Orthodox Saint, the humble
monk Herman.
Another great cleric, Bishop (also Saint) Innocent (Veniaminov) designed and built the first
Russian Orthodox cathedral in North America, St. Michael’s in Sitka, between 1844 and
1848.

Original Chapel on Umnak Island at Attu, Alaska

Nikolski Orthodox Church, Umnak Island, Alaska

Russian Orthodox Church at Umnak, Alaska, by Sam McLain
The original Chapel was built on this location during the 1760s.

The island of Unalaska was first inhabited by the Aleut people, who named it "Ounalashka",
meaning: "Near the Peninsula". They developed an intricate and complex society long before
their first contact with the Russian fur traders who would document their existence.
Unalaska and Amaknak Islands contained 24 settlements with more than 1,000 Aleut inhabitants
in 1759, when the first Russian group under Stepan Glotov came and started trading for three
years on Umnak and Unalaska.
Between 1763 and 1766, a conflict between the Russian fur traders and the Unalaska Natives
occurred; the Aleuts destroyed four Russian ships and killed 175 hunters/traders
The Port of Unalaska as seen by Louis Choris in late summer 1816.

Old Russian Orthodox Church, Kodiak, Alaska destroyed by fire July 1943 by Sam McLain

Holy Resurrection Russian Orthodox Church, Kodiak, Alaska by Sam McLain

Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov (1747-1795) was a Russian seafarer and merchant born
in Rylsk.
Shelikhov organized commercial trips of the merchant ships to the Kuril Islands and
the Aleutian Islands starting from 1775.
In 1783–1786, he led an expedition to the shores of Russian America, during which
they founded the first permanent Russian settlements in North America. Shelikhov's
voyage was done under the auspices of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company, the other
owner of which was Ivan Larionovich Golikov.
The company would later form the basis on which the Russian-American Company
was founded 1799.
In 1784, Shelikhov arrived in Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island with two ships, the
Three Hierarchs, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom and
the St. Simon.
The Awa'uq Massacre or Refuge Rock Massacre, was an attack and massacre by
Russian fur trader Shelikhov and 130 Russian armed men & cannoneers of the
Shelikhov-Golikov Company against the Qik’rtarmiut Sugpiat tribe of Koniag Alutiiq
(Sugpiaq) people of the Kodiak Island in 1784 in Russian-controlled Alaska.

This happened in April. When our people revisited the
place in the summer the stench of the corpses lying
on the shore polluted the air so badly that none could
stay there and since then the island has been
uninhabited. After this, every chief had to surrender
his children as hostages. I was saved by the fact that
my father begged to be exempted and paid with many
more sea otter pelts than demanded.
It occurred on the secluded stack island Refuge Rock
(Awa'uq in Alutiiq language) of Partition Cove on
Sitkalidak Island, near and across Old Harbor, in the
Kodiak Archipelago. The Russians slaughtered 500
men, women and children on Refuge Rock, although
some sources state the number to be 2000 or worse
between 2,500–3,000. Following the attack of Awa'uq,
Shelikhov claims to have captured over 1000 people
and detaining 400 as hostages. There were no
Russian casualties. The massacre was an “isolated
incident” and the Alutiiq were completely subjugated
by Russian traders thereafter.
1784 to 1818 were called the "darkest period of
Sugpiaq history," and it ended with a change in the
management of the Russian-American Company.

Over a half century later, an old Sugpiaq (Koniag Alutiiq) man, Arsenti Aminak, reported his own
recollections of the same events to a Finnish naturalist and ethnographer Heinrich Johann Holmberg
(1818–1864) who was collecting data for the Russian governor of Alaska.
This is the memory of Russian conquest at Awa’uq that Aminak had survived as a young boy. He stated:
“The Russians went to the settlement and carried out a terrible blood bath. Only a few were able to flee to
Angyahtalek in baidarkas; 300 Koniags were shot by the Russians.
Having established his authority on Kodiak Island, Shelikhov founded the first permanent Russian
settlement in Alaska on the island's Three Saints Bay Kodiak Island was explored in 1763 by Russian fur
trader Stephan Glotov. The first outsiders to settle on the island were Russian explorers under Grigory
Shelekhov, a fur trader, who founded a Russian settlement on Kodiak Island at Three Saints Bay near the
present-day village of Old Harbor in 1784. The settlement was moved to the site of present-day Kodiak in
1792 and became the center of Russian fur trading. (Unalaska had existed long before, but it was never
considered the permanent base for Russians until Shelikhov’s time).
In 1790, Shelikhov, back in Russia, hired Alexandr Baranov to manage his fur enterprise in Russian
America.
The settlement of Grigory Shelikhov in Kodiak Island.
A gulf in the Sea of Okhotsk, a strait between Alaska and Kodiak Island, and a town in Irkutsk Oblast in
Russia bear Shelikhov's name. Shelikhov actually travelled via Shelikhov Bay in the Sea of Okhotsk in
December 1786-January 1787, after he had been left behind at Bol’shereck in Kamchatka as the winds tore
the Three Hierarcs from her anchors and carried her out to sea.

The Russian colony in Alaska was established in 1784 by
merchant Grigory Shelikhov. Shelikhov's colonisation attempt at
Kodiak Island was met with resistance by the native population.
He returned to Russia and installed Alexandr Baranov as director
of the colony.
In order to convince the Russian imperial court of the seriousness
of his colonial ambitions, Shelikhov recruited volunteers from the
Valaam, an environment that appears strikingly similar to the
Kodiak archipelago's landscape, and Konevitsa monasteries to
travel to the new colony.
The volunteers, led by Archimandrite Joasaph (Bolotov), departed
Saint Petersburg on December 21, 1793, and arrived at Kodiak
Island on September 24, 1794. When they arrived they were
shocked by the harsh treatment of the Kodiak natives at the
hands of the Russian settlers and Baranov.
They sent reports to Shelikhov detailing the abuse of the local
population, but were ignored. In response, however, the Holy
Synod created an auxiliary episcopal see in Alaska in 1796, and
elected Fr. Joasaph as bishop. Fr. Joasaph and a small party
returned to Russia in 1798 for his consecration, and to offer first-
hand accounts of what they had seen. During their return voyage
to the colony in May 1799, their ship sank and all aboard died.
In 1800, Baranov placed the remaining monks under house
arrest, and forbade them to have any further contact with the
local population.
Russian outpost at Three Saints Harbor, 1790
Alexander Baranov of the
Russian-American Company &
the first governor of Russian
Alaska.

Despite the lack of leadership, the Orthodox mission
in Alaska continued to grow.
In 1811, however, the Holy Synod officially closed the
episcopal see. It was not until 1823 that the Holy
Synod sent instructions for a new priest to travel to
Alaska.
Father John Veniaminov of Irkutsk volunteered for the
journey, and left Russia in May 1823.
He and his family arrived at Unalaska Island on July
29, 1824. In 1840, after the death of his wife, Fr. John
accepted monastic tonsure taking the name Innocent
and ordination as the Bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurile
and Aleutian Islands, making him the first ruling
bishop of the Alaskan mission since Bishop Joasaph.
Bishop Innocent was elevated to archbishop in 1850.
For his missionary and scholarly work that had
focused on blending indigenous Alaskan languages
and cultures with Orthodox tradition, Innocent
became a saint of the Orthodox Church in America in
1977, and is referred to as the Enlightener of the
Aleuts and Apostle to the Americas.
Fr John Veniaminov
Fr John Veniaminov, his wife & children arrive in Alaska,
painting by: Nikolai Solomin
St Innocent of Alaska
=

The Shelikhov-Golikov Company appealed to the Most Holy
Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church to provide a priest for the
natives. Catherine the Great decided instead to send an entire
mission to America. She entrusted the task of recruiting
missionaries to Metropolitan Gabriel of St. Petersburg, who sent
ten monks from Valaam, including Herman. The missionaries
arrived on Kodiak on September 24, 1794.
Herman and the other missionaries encountered a harsh reality at
Kodiak that did not correspond to Shelikhov’s rosy descriptions.
The native Kodiak population, called “Americans” by the Russian
settlers, were subject to harsh treatment by the Russian-American
Company, which was being overseen by Shelikhov’s manager
Alexander Baranov who later became the first governor of the
colony.
The men were forced to hunt for sea otter even during harsh
weather, and women and children were abused. The monks were
also shocked at the widespread alcoholism in the Russian
population, and the fact that most of the settlers had taken native
mistresses. The monks themselves were not given the supplies
that Shelikhov promised them, and had to till the ground with
wooden implements. Despite these difficulties, the monks
managed to baptize over 7,000 natives in the Kodiak region, and
set about building a church and monastery.
Herman was assigned in the bakery and acted as the mission’s
steward (ekonom).
St Herman of Alaska
St Herman’s Crucifix & Chains

The monks became the defenders of the native
Kodiak population. Herman was especially noted for
his zeal in protecting them from the excessive
demands of the RAC, and Baranov disparaged him
in a letter as a “hack writer and chatterer.”
A contemporary historian compares him to
Bartolomé de las Casas, the Roman Catholic friar
who defended the rights of native South Americans
against the Spanish.
After over a decade spent in Alaska, Herman
became the head of the mission in 1807.
Although he was not ordained to the priesthood, the
local population loved and respected him, and he
even had good relations with Baranov.
Herman ran the mission school, where he taught
church subjects such as singing and catechism
alongside reading and writing. He also taught
agriculture on Spruce Island.
However, because he longed for the life of a hermit
he soon retired from active duty in the mission and
moved to Spruce Island.
The Russian Orthodox church founded its first mission in
Alaska in 1794 Church in Kodiak

Herman moved to Spruce Island around 1811 to
1817. The island is separated from Kodiak by a mile-
wide strait, making it ideal for hermit life. Herman
named his hermitage “New Valaam.”
He wore simple clothes and slept on a bench
covered with a deerskin. When asked how he could
bear to be alone in the forest, he replied, “I am not
alone. God is here, as God is everywhere”.
Despite his solitary life, he soon gained a following.
He received many visitors—especially native
Aleuts—on Sundays and church feasts.
Soon his hermitage had next to it a chapel and
guesthouse, and then a school for orphans. Herman
had a few disciples, including the Creole orphan
Gerasim Ivanovich Zyrianov, a young Aleut woman
named Sofia Vlasova, and others. Entire families
moved in order to be closer to the Elder, who helped
to sort out their disputes.
Herman had a deep love for the native Aleuts: he
stood up for them against the excesses of the
Russian-American Company, and once during an
epidemic he was the only Russian to visit them,
working tirelessly to care for the sick and console the
dying Herman spent the rest of his life on Spruce
Island, where he died on November 15, 1836.
Spruce Island in Herman’s time
Aluets winter lodge

On March 11, 1969, the bishops of the Orthodox
Church in America (OCA) formally declared their
intention to canonize Herman, “as a sublime
example of the Holy Life, for our spiritual benefit,
inspiration, comfort, and the confirmation of our
Faith”.
On August 9, 1970, Metropolitan Ireney of the OCA
along with Archbishop Paul of Finland and other
hierarchs and clergy presided over the canonization
service, which was held at Holy Resurrection
Cathedral on Kodiak Island. His relics were
transferred from his grave underneath the Saints
Sergius and Herman of Valaam Chapel, on Spruce
Island, to the Holy Resurrection Cathedral.
The major portion of his relics are preserved at Holy
Resurrection Cathedral in Kodiak, Alaska, while his
burial site at the Sts. Sergius and Herman Chapel,
Spruce Island, Alaska is an important pilgrimage site,
where the devout will often take soil from his grave
and water from the spring named in his honour..
Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, Kodiak, Alaska
destroyed by fire July 1943 by Sam McLain
St Herman’s Reliquary at Holy Resurrection Cathedral
in Kodiak

The Watercolours in this story are part of a set of 106 paintings by Alaskan Artist Sam McLain.
His works are now part of the Alaska State Library Historical Collections. We have included on
the following pages about 30 of Mr. McClain’s work. We will provide you with more examples of
these beautiful watercolours over the months to come.
SAM McCLAIN (1919-1994).
Sam McClain was born in San Angelo, Texas. He came to Alaska in the
late 1940s and worked as an architect for the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, Alaska District Office, in Anchorage from 1949 until his
retirement in 1979.
He married Christine Ferrari Reeder in Anchorage in 1950. McClain
was an artist, specializing in pen and ink drawing and watercolors. He
studied under watercolor artists Rex Brandt and Robert E. Wood in
California in the late 1960s. He was best known for his drawings and
watercolors of Russian Orthodox churches and other historical buildings
in Alaska.
McClain contributed drawings and designed the cover for Fern
Wallace's book, The Flame of the Candle: a pictorial history of Russian
Orthodox Churches in Alaska, which was published in 1974.
He also taught watercolor art classes and performed volunteer work for
the Anchorage School District and other local organizations. Sam
McClain died in Anchorage in 1994.

St Nicholas Church, Hoonah, Alaska

Russian Orthodox Church, Wood Island, Alaska

St. Michael the Archangel Chapel, Kolignak, Alaska

Holy Resurrection Russian Orthodox Church, Belkofski, Alaska

Saints Peter and Paul Church, Pitkas Point, Alaska

Holy Transfiguration Russian Orthodox Church, Kashega Village, Unalaska Island, Alaska

Church of the Ascension of Our Lord, Karluk, Alaska

Original St. Nicholas Church, Kwethluk, Alaska

St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, Kwethluk, Alaska

Saints Sergius and Herman of Valaam, English Bay, Alaska

Nativity of Our Lord Chapel, Ouzinki, Alaska

St. Michael Chapel, Cordova, Alaska

Church of the Holy Trinity, Kasigluk, Alaska

Church of Saint Nicholas, Juneau, Alaska

St Michael the Archangel, Russian Orthodox Cathedral,
Sitka, Alaska

St. George Church,
St. George Island, Alaska

St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Chapel, Sand Point, Alaska

Old Russian Orthodox Church, Eklutna Village, Alaska

St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Chapel, Ekuk, Alaska

Old Russian Orthodox Church, Kodiak, Alaska

Russian Orthodox Chapel, Eyak, Alaska

Russian Orthodox Church, Douglas Village, Alaska

St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, Tyonek, Alaska

St. Seraphim Russian Orthodox Chapel, Lower Kalskag, Alaska

Russian Orthodox Chapel, Aiaktalik Island, Alaska

Saints Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Chapel, Sleetmute, Alaska.

St. Innocent Chapel, Bench River, Alaska

Original Church, St. Michael, Alaska

Nativity of Christ Russian Orthodox Church, Makushin Village, Unalaska Island

Transfiguration of Our Lord Church, Newhalen, Alaska

Alaska State Library, Historical Collections.
Roselyn J Parrenas, She Who Must be Obeyed,
my wife, facilitator, translator. & de BOSS!
Wikipedia,
the on-line-free encyclopedia.
This work by Fergus JM Ducharme is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.historicphilippines.com. Permissions beyond the scope of
this license may be available at fergus@historicphilippines.com .

A brief history of Russian America & the Russian Orthodox Church

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A brief history of Russian America & the Russian Orthodox Church