St. Michael's Cathedral ( ''Sobor Arkhangela Mikhaila'', also known as the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel) is a

cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

of the

Orthodox Church in America Diocese of Alaska The Diocese of Alaska () is a diocese of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). The Dioces ...

, at Lincoln and Maksoutoff Streets in Sitka,

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

. The earliest Orthodox cathedral in the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

, it was built in the nineteenth century, when Alaska was under the control of Russia, though this structure burned down in 1966. After 1872, the cathedral came under the control of the Diocese of Alaska. It had been a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

since 1962, notable as an important legacy of Russian influence in North America and Southeast Alaska in particular. An accidental fire destroyed the cathedral during the night of January 2, 1966, but it was subsequently rebuilt. The new building's green domes and golden crosses are a prominent landmark in Sitka. Some of the

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...

s date to the mid-17th century; two icons are by

Vladimir Borovikovsky Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky ( – ) was a Russian artist of Ukrainian Cossack origin. He served at the court of Catherine the Great and dominated portraiture in Russia at the turn of the 19th century. Biography Vladimir Borovikovsky was born i ...

. St. Michael's Cathedral is located in the downtown business district in Sitka, on the southwestern coast of

Baranof Island Baranof Island is an island in the northern Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle, in Alaska. The name "Baranof" was given to the island in 1805 by Imperial Russian Navy captain Yuri Lisyansky, U. F. Lisianski in honor of Alexander Andrey ...

in the

Alexander Archipelago The Alexander Archipelago () is a archipelago (group of islands) in North America lying off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, the tops of submerged coastal mountains that rise steeply from the Pacific Ocean. Deep ...

Southeastern Alaska Southeast Alaska, often abbreviated to southeast or southeastern, and sometimes called the Alaska(n) panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, bordered to the east and north by the northern half of the Canadian provin ...

. Its surroundings along Lincoln Street and Maksoutoff Street, which ends at the cathedral, have not altered much during the last more than 100 years. Harrigan Centennial Hall on Harbor Drive lies behind the cathedral, while Pioneers' Home is to its left. The restored

Russian Bishop's House The Russian Bishop's House (), once the Russian Mission Orphanage (), is a historic house museum and National Historic Landmark at Lincoln and Monastery Streets in Sitka, Alaska. Built in 1841–43, this log structure is one of the oldest survivi ...

, home of the first Orthodox Bishop of Alaska, Innocent (Veniaminov), is also nearby, operated by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

as part of the

Sitka National Historical Park Sitka National Historical Park (earlier known as Indian River Park and Totem Park) is a national historical park in Sitka in the U.S. state of Alaska. It was redesignated as a national historical park from its previous status as national monum ...

History

A chapel was built by an employee of Alexander Baranov, the chief manager of the

Russian-American Company The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company, United American Company. Emperor Paul I of Russia chartered the c ...

, in time to receive icons salvaged from the 1813 wreck of the ''

Neva The Neva ( , ; , ) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of , it is the fourth- ...

''. In 1808 Baranov had shifted his headquarters of operation in North America from Kodiak to New Archangel (Novo-Arkhangel'sk) in Southeast Alaska, as it had better fortifications. Despite his previous inattention to the church in Kodiak, in his new base of operations he requested a priest and "the finest of church furnishings." In 1816, Fr. Aleksei Sokolov was the first priest to arrive in Sitka from Russia. He brought the festival icon of St. Michael and the silver-plated icon. The older, now dilapidated, church was replaced by a new building in 1834, also dedicated to St. Michael. The cathedral was founded and designed by Fr. Innocent Veniaminov, a Siberian-born priest who had worked at Unalaska, Alaska for ten years, where he had designed a two-domed church and also established a school. He designed the cathedral in the Russian ecclesiastical architectural style, for which it has been noted as one of the finest examples of its kind in North America. The foundation stone was laid in 1844, and the cathedral was completed on the 20th of November 1848. The Russian-American Company funded the project. The bells were forged in Alaska, and the clock fixed in the bell tower was made by Innocent. In 1867, Alaska was sold to the United States; Army Major General Jefferson C. Davis arrived in Sitka with several hundred soldiers who pillaged the cathedral, as well as local businesses and residences. A Temperance Society and Brotherhood formed within the cathedral was instrumental in maintaining the building during the lean years after the Alaska Purchase. In 1909, the society made a scale-model replica of the cathedral and exhibited it at the Smithsonian exposition in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. During Russian rule in Alaska, patronage from Russian aristocracy brought in significant artistic treasures, which were mostly retrieved from the fire of January 1966 and are now on display in the new cathedral. A notable gift was the icon of

Our Lady of Kazan ''Our Lady of Kazan'', also called ''Mother of God of Kazan'' (), is a holy icon of the highest stature within the Russian Orthodox Church, representing the Virgin Mary as the protector and patroness of the city of Kazan, and a palladium of all o ...

, also called the Sitka Madonna, from the workers of the Russian-American Company. In 1962, the

inscribed St. Michael Cathedral as a National Historic Landmark.

Original cathedral

The old cathedral, built between 1844 and 1848, remained in good shape with limited modifications for more than one hundred years, until it burned down in January 1966; it had then been the oldest church in Alaska. It had been built with logs of native wood with clapboard siding, domes made of metal and roofs of wood shingle, subsequently changed to asphalt shingles. The royal doors in the center of the Ikonostasis (a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

from the

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred space, sacred place, such as a shrine, protected by ecclesiastical immunity. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This seconda ...

) and the

chandelier A chandelier () is an ornamental lighting device, typically with spreading branched supports for multiple lights, designed to be hung from the ceiling. Chandeliers are often ornate, and they were originally designed to hold candles, but now inca ...

were the most treasured items retrieved and restored in the new cathedral. The silk and brocade

vestment Vestments are Liturgy, liturgical garments and articles associated primarily with the Christianity, Christian religion, especially by Eastern Christianity, Eastern Churches, Catholic Church, Catholics (of all rites), Lutherans, and Anglicans. ...

s were also retrieved. However, the handmade bells, the large icon of the

Last Supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, ''The Last Supper (Leonardo), The Last Supper'' (1495-1498). Mural, tempera on gesso, pitch and mastic ...

that decorated the top of the royal doors, and the clock in the bell tower were lost. Also lost was the large library containing books in the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

Tlingit The Tlingit or Lingít ( ) are Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. , they constitute two of the 231 federally recognized List of Alaska Native tribal entities, Tribes of Alaska. Most Tlingit are Alaska Natives; ...

, and

Aleut Aleuts ( ; (west) or (east) ) are the Indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleuts and the islands are politically divided between the US state of Alaska ...

languages.

Present cathedral

Architecture

Reconstruction was based on 1961 drawings of the old cathedral by the

Historic American Buildings Survey The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

. This facilitated building a replica to the same measurements at the same location, but with modern fireproof material in its construction. The materials used in the construction of the new cathedral consisted of concrete and steel with

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...

siding duplicating the original finish, roof covering of asphalt shingles (bitumen-soaked paper covered with aggregate) and

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

for the roofing of the domes. The Cathedral of St. Michael was re-consecrated in 1978 by architect Sergey Padyukov.«Cathedral Reconsecrated», Anchorage Daily News, Wednesday, November 24, 1976, page 8 The old Chapel of St. John the Baptist (The Precursor) was renamed in honor of St. Innocent Veniaminov of Alaska. All of the icons and religious artifacts were donated by wealthy Russians and Imperial government officials in the early 19th century; those saved from the fire were reinstalled in the new cathedral in the same order that had existed in the original building. Its frontage is in the form of a

Greek cross The Christian cross, with or without a figure of Jesus, Christ included, is the main religious symbol of Christianity. A cross with a figure of Christ affixed to it is termed a crucifix and the figure is often referred to as the ''corpus'' (La ...

with a bell tower, which was "neither

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

nor Gothic". Similar churches are stated to exist in

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, in an architectural style dated to late 18th century and early 19th century. It has two domes and one is above the sanctum of the cross. In plan, the façade and the width of the cathedral are , and its length is . The exterior surface is painted light blue-grey with white border. The western facade houses the bell tower at the center and measures approximately . It is in the shape of a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

. It has eight arched openings, each fitted with a bell. The dome is needle-shaped and has a triple-bar

Orthodox cross The Russian Orthodox Cross (or just the Orthodox Cross by some Russian Orthodox traditions) is a variation of the Christian cross since the 16th century in Russia, although it bears some similarity to a cross with a bottom crossbeam slanted the ...

. The cupola is circumscribed by a balustrade. False windows are designed on the top half of the tower. A round clock with

Roman numeral Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, ea ...

s and a

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

is fixed between the two 15-light false windows in the north, south, and west directions. A central double door provides entry into the vestibule or

narthex The narthex is an architectural element typical of Early Christian art and architecture, early Christian and Byzantine architecture, Byzantine basilicas and Church architecture, churches consisting of the entrance or Vestibule (architecture), ve ...

of the cathedral in the lower floor of the bell tower, to the east of which is the nave. The cruciform plan of the cathedral is formed by the exterior walls which are extended arms to the west of the two chapels. The dome is in the shape of an

octagon In geometry, an octagon () is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a ...

with windows on each side. An onion-shaped dome is built above the structural dome, over an eight-sided cupola. The decorative

onion dome An onion dome is a dome whose shape resembles an onion. Such domes are often larger in diameter than the tholobate (drum) upon which they sit, and their height usually exceeds their width. They taper smoothly upwards to a point. It is a typical ...

is fitted with a three-bar cross at its

pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was main ...

. The cathedral's

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

is at the eastern extremity, with dimensions the same as the exterior walls of the nave. There are two chapels, each of the same dimensions, which are aligned along the north and south sides of the nave. A double door (not in use) provides entry to the chapels. The cathedral has public halls that are well-lit. Lighting is natural from the windows fitted in the dome, and also from two large windows fitted in each chapel. The north and south walls of the nave have windows for lighting. Many false windows are also provided as decorations at the façades. The interior also has a cruciform plan, as in the original cathedral. The walls and ceiling have rough natural-colored sail-cloth covering, as existed in the original cathedral. The western port of the nave has horizontal ceiling of natural-colored sail-cloth, providing access to the center of an open dome enclosing the middle of the naves placed above the Bishop's Throne. Instead of eight columns as in the original, the new cathedral has only four columns, made of steel and concrete and covered with sail-cloth.

Fittings

The interior decorations and fittings consist of the rich and much valued original collection of Russian religious art that had embellished the earlier cathedral. Two notable icons, both by Borovikovsky, are ''Our Lady of Sitka'' (familiarly the "Sitka Madonna") and ''Christ Pantocrator'' ("Christ the Judge" or "Christ Omnipotent"). The icon screens that divide the nave and the chapels from the

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

s are hung on the walls; a raised

podium A podium (: podiums or podia) is a platform used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podiums can also be used to raise people, for instance the conductor of a ...

at the center of the nave is the bishop's throne, which has a backless cushioned seat, representing the Diocese, and an intricately embroidered carpet or " orlets" used by the bishop while offering divine services. The iconostasis of the main sanctuary, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, has the deacon's doors and royal doors made in the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

Roccoco design, contrasted to the simple exterior and interior walls. The screen of iconostasis, however, is new, carved out of wood and painted white with gilded border; it is an exact replica made from a small remnant of the original, retrieved from the fire. The icons are of Christ the Savior and the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

, made in eighteenth–nineteenth-century style, and are silver-plated. The icon of the

Archangel Michael Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel and the warrior of God in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second ...

is depicted on the extreme right and of St. Nicholas on extreme left; they are made in silver but gilded. Also seen are icons of the

Four Evangelists In Christian tradition, the Four Evangelists are Matthew the Apostle, Matthew, Mark the Evangelist, Mark, Luke the Evangelist, Luke, and John the Evangelist, John, the authors attributed with the creation of the four canonical Gospel accounts ...

on the four corners carved in relief on the door. Icons of the

Annunciation The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...

and the

Theotokos ''Theotokos'' ( Greek: ) is a title of Mary, mother of Jesus, used especially in Eastern Christianity. The usual Latin translations are or (approximately "parent (fem.) of God"). Familiar English translations are "Mother of God" or "God-beare ...

(Mother of God) are carved at the center; all the icons are of recent restoration. Paintings of scenes from the Old and

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

s, in the style of western religious art, decorate the walls of the dome and the chapel. These were gifts from Count

Viktor Kochubey Prince Viktor Pavlovich Kochubey (); ( – ) was a Russian statesman and close aide of Alexander I of Russia. Of Ukrainian and Zaporozhian Cossack origin, he was a great-grandson of Vasily Kochubey. He took part in the Privy Committee that o ...

and Countess Anna Orlova, who were close to the Tsars

Alexander I Alexander I may refer to: * Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon from 495 to 454 BC * Alexander I of Epirus (370–331 BC), king of Epirus * Alexander I Theopator Euergetes, surnamed Balas, ruler of the Seleucid Empire 150-145 BC * Pope Alex ...

(1800–1825) and Nicholas I (1825–1855). Apart from all the decorations in the interior, there are five display cases filled with treasures of the cathedral retrieved from the fire; two are in each chapel and one is in the nave.

References