The OCA

While the denominational milieu ignited by the Protestant migration to North America in the 1600s and the Roman Catholic presence based largely in subsequent waves of immigration are the most familiar forms of Christianity on our continent , the Orthodox Church in America has a long history dating back to 1794 when the Russian Orthodox Church sent missionaries to the Alaskan territory.

The riches of the Apostolic Tradition were readily received by the native Alaskans, and soon the Holy Scriptures and Divine Services were translated into many of their indigenous languages.  Orthodoxy would become (and is today) the faith of the Alaskan peoples.  The Russian mission expanded southward down the western coast of North America, and the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America was born.

Almost 200 years later in 1970, this American Diocese of the Russian Church was granted autocephaly (self-rule) and commissioned to not only serve Orthodox Christians in North America but to faithfully witness to the Apostolic Tradition in a land that knew Christianity primarily in its Western expression.

The Orthodox Church in America, being deeply rooted in the traditional faith of the Church Fathers and Ecumenical Councils of antiquity yet independent of national ties to Old-World “Patriarchates,” is uniquely poised to offer the unchanging faith of the apostles in a truly American context.