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His Grace the Right Reverend Bishop '''Paul (Popov) of Novoarkhangelsk''' led the Novoarkhangelsk (Sitka) [[vicariate]] of the [[Diocese]] of Kamchatka during the troubled years following the sale of Alaska to the United States, from 1867 to 1870. He was faced with the departure of the Russian administrative organization and arrival of the American Protestants as well as the new governing apparatus.
==Life==
Bishop Paul was born Peter Popov in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, in 1813, in the Yeniseysk province of Russia. His father was a priest. Peter Popov attended the Irkutsk Seminary, graduating in July 1834. On [[October 18]], 1834, he was [[ordination|ordained ]] a priest and assigned to the church in Nerchinsk. Then, in 1837 he was assigned to the cathedral in Krasnoyarsk, where on [[December 6]], 1838, he was raised to the rank of archpriest.
On [[March 2]], 1860, Fr. Popov received a monastic tonsure, was given the name Paul, and then elevated to the rank of archmandrite. On [[March 6]], 1860, he was consecrated as the first bishop of the newly established auxiliary see of Yakutsk within the Diocese of Kamchatka, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands. Then, on [[November 9]], 1866 he was transferred to the see of Novoarkhangelsk while remaining a [[vicar]] [[bishop]] of the Kamchatka diocese. Bp. Paul arrived in Alaska as it was being sold to the United States, and he was confronted with the transition from Russian to American rule. The incoming American sectarians were accompanied by the military, and life, particularly in New Archangel, became perilous. Sitka, as the New Archangel became known, was reduced to a population of only twenty families by 1877. With the multitude of changes that this transition caused, his rule was marked by great difficulties.
