Orthodoxy and Linguistics

[Maria]

Please go to this link and read this story about an Orthodox Christian family:

http://www.pravmir.com/spoken-with-hear ... t-dialect/

These Native Russian people were Traditionalists until recently.
Their history and language are so precious.

We have lost so much.
What the Americans did to the Alaskans was a betrayal!
At the time of the Alaskan Purchase, did the Russians stipulate that the Russian Orthodox faith was to be preserved?
If not, why not?

p.s. I would like to post this topic at E. Cafe, but I do not know where to move it.

[jgress]

I suppose I would put this in Miscellaneous Issues.

[Dcn.Ephrem]

After the transfer of Alaska, most Russian subjects returned to their native country. This is understandable since conditions were not particularly hospitable and most Russians were simply in Alaska for work in the fur industry and had no real connection to the region. Most of the Russians who stayed behind were either independent traders or Orthodox priests. So yes, there was a continuation of Orthodoxy after the purchase.

In fact, if you read the treaty (which can be found on the Library of Congress website), you'll find specific mention of the Orthodox churches (referred to as "Greek Oriental") under Article II:

"It is... understood and agreed, that the churches which have been built in the ceded territory by the Russian government, shall remain the property of such members of the Greek Oriental Church resident in the territory, as may choose to worship therein."

The document also afforded Russian who remained in the territory full entitlement to the freedoms of American citizens, including the freedom of religion (Article III).

(The document can be found here: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?co ... recNum=572)

[m. Evfrosinia]

I've read and heard from people that worked in Alaska at the time that though officially in Alaska, at the time of the purchase, everyone, both Russian and native, was granted religious freedom, Americans basically treated the native Alaskans as pagans, ignoring the Orthodoxy that had, by this time, become their native religion. Alaska was divided into 4 regions and each region was granted to a specific Protestant denomination as "missionary territory". There was a lot of pressure to convert, but the vast majority preserved their Orthodoxy, and there was even a new wave of converts to Orthodoxy, because many of the native Alaskans felt that if they had to become Christian (such was the pressure from the Americans) they would at least become "their own kind of Christian", ie Orthodox. The Alaskan diocese remained part of the Russian Church up until the Revolution.