America is ecclesiastically Russian?

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

I have heard several times now that America is canonically the territory of the Russian Church. This has been somewhat of a meaningless subject given todays circumstances, but...

I'm not sure of all the reasons this is said, although one recurring theme seems to be that the Russia Orthodox Church landed "here" first via Alaska.

Well that seems somewhat hard to argue without any research, but "Alaska" was actually part of Russia until 1867. By then, there were already Greek Orthodox communities in the United States.

Is there some argument that the first Orthodox Church in the United States was Russian? If simply landing on the continent is a legitimate claim to say all of North America is Russian canonical territory, then by the same measure, all of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East is Greek unless stated otherwise.

Thoughts anyone?

[尼古拉前执事]

Well it became part of Russia, yes. But the Alaskan missionaries were soon in California, hence Saint Peter the Aleut who was slayed by the Jesuits in California for not converting to Papism. It has been tradition that the first local church to start missionary projects in a new land are the ones who have the right to establish the Church there and others local churches may not. This is why the Mp was in a rush to get their church set up in Antarctica before the EP did. Also why the Arabs and Greeks alike were under the Russian Bishops here in America until the revolution, which was used as an excuse to bring their own in against the tradition of the Church.

[bogoliubtsy]

Dont' know if this will help much but...that was the pre-revolutionary arrangement recognized by all local Churches at the time. I believe this recognition did stem from the fact that the Russian Church was the first Church to establish missions here. There were certainly parishes of other ethnicities, but these were all under the administrative control of the Russian Church.

[TomS]

In a book that my Greek in-laws have "The Greek Orthodox Church in America" it talks about how initially the Orthodox Churches were set up under the auspices of the Russian Church and the all the Orthodox used to worship at the same Church in a city. But as soon as the Greeks were of a large enough part of the congregation they would break off and start their own Church.

This was held up as a positive by the author of the book.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

It just doesn't jive in my rational mind.

The area now known as Alaska was a defined territory belonging to Russia; so how could a few missions to serve Russian settlers in what was then actually Russia (Alaska), be considered a claim for the whole of North America?

As far as I know the Orthodox Church was not present on the West coast and this is not part of the claim, or is it? But even if so, did the few Russian fur trappers actually bring priests and churches into California, which was even still not part of the United States until 1850.

But I guess my real question would then be, what consitutes "a new land", what defines it? Is it all the land that is connected to it regardless if anyone even has it mapped or can even make the journey and survive, or is it "the land" defined by political arragments? If it is all the land geographically connected, does this include South America? And then who is the canonical Church for Hawaii, Cuba, and Australia? And then how could the Russian Orthodox justify building churches in England, France, Italy, ect. which would by the same definitions fall under the Greeks?

It would seem to me, not being an expert or anything, that it would have to mean which ever church is reasonably established in a local/regional sense of community and goverment. But to tell you the truth, I havn't even read the canon so that goes to show what I know.

TomS or bogoliubtsyk, if you have any more information regarding this that would be helpful.

Perhaps it was that the Russians were the first to set up a church structure in the States properly?

[TomS]

The book is at my in-laws beach house. We are going down for Fathers Day -- I will try to remember to get it so that I can reference it correctly for you.

[ania]

OOD,
The first people to establish a mission were 8 monks from Valaam in 1794, in Alaska.
Here are sites that might help...
http://www.russian-americans.org/CRA_History.htm
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/general/amer_jur.aspx
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1203/p18s02-trgn.html
There are lots more, but I have work to do.
Just Google Orthodoxy, History, & California and you should find a bunch of stuff.