Publication

This reports provides a historical overview of the Russian Orthodox missionaries who emigrated to Alaska in 1795. The author points out that these religious pioneers left a legacy of Orthodox faith and architecture associated with it across the western American hemisphere prior to the sale of the territory to the United States. The missionaries who founded the first Orthodox parishes documented the church's developments in the American west. Working with these sources, the author analyzes what the Russian church wanted to accomplish in its exploratory mission at the turn of the last century.