Orthodoxy came to America in 1794 when Russian monks landed in Alaska. But the story’s more complicated than one arrival date, and for those of us in the Antiochian tradition, it includes Syrian immigrants, a bishop consecrated in Brooklyn, and a long journey toward becoming truly American.
The first Orthodox Christians on what’s now U.S. soil were Russian missionaries. Eight monks and two novices from Valaam Monastery arrived at Kodiak Island on September 24, 1794. They came to evangelize the native Aleut people, and they succeeded. One of those monks, Herman, would later be glorified as St. Herman of Alaska. Another missionary, Juvenaly, was martyred in 1796. These weren’t just explorers planting flags. They baptized thousands, translated the liturgy into native languages, and built churches that still stand.
For most of the 1800s, Russian Orthodoxy was the only organized Orthodox presence in North America. Even after the U.S. bought Alaska in 1867, the Russian diocese continued its work. Bishop Innocent (originally a missionary named John Veniaminov) had already spent decades translating Scripture and liturgy into Aleut and Tlingit. The Russian Church wasn’t perfect, but it established something real.
Then came the immigrants.
Starting in the 1860s and accelerating through the early 1900s, Orthodox Christians poured into America from Greece, Syria, Lebanon, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Russia itself. They weren’t coming for religious freedom, they were coming for work. And they brought their faith with them. Greeks established Holy Trinity parish in New Orleans in 1864. Syrians and Lebanese Christians settled in Brooklyn, Boston, and industrial cities across the Northeast and Midwest. Serbs and Romanians followed. Each group started parishes, usually in their own language, often tied directly to the patriarch back home.
For Antiochian Orthodox Christians, the pivotal figure is Raphael Hawaweeny. He arrived in New York in 1895 to serve Syrian immigrants, and in 1904 he was consecrated as Bishop Raphael of Brooklyn, the first Orthodox bishop consecrated in North America. He traveled constantly, establishing parishes, serving liturgy in Arabic, and caring for people who’d left everything behind. He’s now known as St. Raphael of Brooklyn, and his feast day is celebrated every February 27. He didn’t just preserve Syrian Orthodoxy in America. He planted it.
But here’s where things got messy. By the early 1900s, you had Russian parishes, Greek parishes, Syrian parishes, Serbian parishes, all operating in the same cities, sometimes on the same block. Canonically, you’re not supposed to have multiple bishops in the same territory. That’s basic church order. But practically, what were people supposed to do? A Greek immigrant wanted a Greek-speaking priest who understood his village back home. A Syrian wanted Arabic liturgy. Nobody was trying to create division. They were trying to survive.
This jurisdictional plurality has lasted over a century. We’ve got the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese (under the Ecumenical Patriarchate), the Antiochian Archdiocese (under the Patriarch of Antioch), the Orthodox Church in America (which received autocephaly from Moscow in 1970), and several others. Some people see this as scandal. Others see it as pastoral reality. The OCA’s autocephaly was supposed to solve the problem by creating one American Orthodox Church, but not all the other jurisdictions recognized it. So we’re still here, multiple jurisdictions, overlapping territories.
Does that mean we’re not really one Church? No. We’re in communion. An Antiochian Christian can receive communion at a Greek parish or an OCA parish. Our bishops concelebrate. We believe the same faith. But we don’t have unified administration, and that’s abnormal by Orthodox standards.
What’s changed is language and culture. When my grandparents’ generation came to America (or great-grandparents for some of you reading this), liturgy was in Arabic or Greek or Slavonic. Now it’s mostly in English. Priests are American-born. The little old ladies who knew every hymn by heart in the old language are mostly gone. That’s loss and gain both. We’ve lost some beauty and cultural memory. We’ve gained the ability to actually evangelize Americans who don’t speak Arabic.
The Antiochian Archdiocese has been particularly focused on this. We’ve produced English liturgical texts, we’ve welcomed converts (lots of them, especially from Evangelical backgrounds common here in Texas), and we’ve built institutions like Ancient Faith Radio and St. Vladimir’s Seminary that serve the whole Orthodox world. Metropolitan Philip Saliba, who led our archdiocese for decades until his death in 2014, pushed hard for English, for mission, for becoming American without ceasing to be Orthodox.
Where does that leave us now? Orthodoxy in America is growing, but it’s still small. Maybe two million people, depending how you count. We’ve got seminaries, monasteries, publishing houses, podcasts. We’ve got parishes in every state. But we’re also still sorting out who we are. Are we ethnic churches preserving immigrant heritage? Are we missionary churches evangelizing America? Can we be both?
I think we’re figuring it out. St. Michael’s here in Beaumont is part of that. We’re Antiochian, but we’re Texan too. We serve the liturgy in English. We’ve got people whose grandparents came from Lebanon and people whose grandparents were Southern Baptist. That’s American Orthodoxy in 2025.
The jurisdictional mess will get sorted eventually. Maybe in our lifetimes, maybe not. The Church has survived worse. What matters is we’ve received the faith once delivered to the saints, we’re celebrating the same liturgy St. John Chrysostom wrote 1,600 years ago, and we’re here. Russian monks brought Orthodoxy to Alaska in 1794. Bishop Raphael brought it to Brooklyn in 1895. Somebody brought it to Beaumont. And now it’s ours to keep and pass on.
