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For many years, the Russians and the Alaskans battled for primacy over the territory. Eventually, the Russians were able to exert more control, and the Russian American Company eventually became the dominant player in the fur trade in Alaska, which at that point was the major economic reason that Russia had interest in the territory. Shelikhov himself, despite calling for the missionaries to Alaska, was known for his cruelty toward Alaskans. For many, the Christianization of the native people had more to do with trying to pacify, control, and Russianize them rather than actually bringing them the Faith. Furthermore, baptisms were sometimes performed for the purpose of appointing Russians as godparents, thereby giving them much more influence on the families of the Alaskans, whose culture, in general, directed them to be very reverent towards ancestors, including godparents.
==Missionaries and Martyrs==
The first martyr in the Alaskan territory was one of the group of monks from Valaam, Juvenaly, who was murdered in 1795 or 1796. Most of the group that arrived from Valaam would never return to their homeland of Russia, dedicating the rest of their lives to spreading the Word of Christ. St. Herman was the last of the group to fall asleep in the Lord; reposing on Spruce Island in 1837.
Tsarina [[w:Catherine the Great|Catherine II of Russia]] refused to grant Shelikov's Russian American Company exclusive right to business in Alaska, but after her death in 1796, her son [[w:Paul I of Russia|Paul I]] granted that right in 1799. The Russian American Company, for most essential purposes, became the government of Alaska, and they were in charge of managing the territory, including the spiritual needs of Russians, Creoles (those of mixed Russian and Alaskan ancestry) and the Alaska natives.
Many expected that the clergy sent to the Alaskan territory would merely be puppets of the Russian government or the Russian American Company, but, by and large, they worked largely independently, and at times would report back on the "bad behavior" of the Russian Administration. As far as the missions went, the missionaries did not believe in "Russianizing" the native Alaskans as much as bringing them the Gospel. Fr. John Evseyevich Popov-Veniaminov (glorified now as St. Innocent of Alaska) was a shining example of this, volunteering to go to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska as a young priest, and tirelessly laboring there for most of the rest of his life. He built a church there ([[Holy Ascension Cathedral (Unalaska, Alaska)|Holy Ascension Church]]) to replace a chapel that had been constructed in 1808, and he visited many islands, always recording information about the people and their ways of life. Almost immediately, he began working on translations of Church materials into Aleut languages so that the people could understand Christianity in their own languages. Later, he would be transferred to Southeast Alaska, where he did the same thing, but this time among the Tlingit peoples.
==See also==
*[[Timeline of Orthodoxy in America]]
*[http://www.helium.com/items/438755-russian-orthodox-missionaries-in-early-alaska Russian Orthodox missionaries in early Alaska]
*[http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=128 Russia's Colony]
*[http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/russian/ In the Beginning Was the Word: The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures] Library of Congress exhibit
[[Category: Places]]
[[Category: Church History]]
