National Register Listing

Old St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church

Eklutna Village Rd., Eklutna, AK

Catherine the Second, Empress of All the Russias, issued a ukase (Proclamation) on June 30, 1793, granting merchants Gregori Shelikov and Polevoi Golikov's petition that clergymen be appointed for missionary work in Russian America By August of 1794 the archimandrite Iossaf had arrived with eighteen priests and lay servitors. Stormy times followed for the clergy and the "promyshlennik" (industrialist) squabbled over conflicting priorities, and the natives murdered both.

But even though missionaries were occasionally killed by hostile aboriginals, a succession of churches and chapels were built by the Russian Church. The first was built at the Harbor of Paul (Kodiak) in 1795 or 1796; and in 1840 when the diocese of Okhotsk, Kamchatka, and Alaska was established, Russian America had four churches and six chapels. By 1861 the territory boasted seven churches and thirty-five chapels. Even after the transfer of Alaska to the United States in 1867, the Russian church continued its activity in the new territory and was, until 1877, the only Christian church represented in Seward's Icebox.

The success of this representation is shown in an 1880 claim that over 10,000 Alaskan natives were converted to the Russian Orthodox faith. Among these converts, the Tanaina Indians of the village of Eklutna must be counted. When they were converted to Christianity is uncertain, but missionaries are known to have been active in the Cook Inlet area as early as the 1790s.

It is certain that Old St. Nicholas is a physical manifestation of the Eklutnas' belief in the tenets of the Russian Orthodox Church. Local tradition sets construction cà 1870, and this may be conservative since the chapel represents a less formal construction than is evidenced in late nineteenth-century buildings such as the Church of the Holy Ascension At Unalaska and the Russian Orthodox Mission church at Kenai. Although a complete study has not yet been made, it appears that these later structures were typically framed and erected on a stylized plan, such as the quadrilateral or vessel.

A 1904 U. S. Survey does show Old St. Nicholas, and the vestments and altar ikons now in the chapel are reported to have been brought to Alaska from the Soviet Union sometime in the 1920s.

Used actively until 1962, Old St. Nicholas was in that year supplanted by an adjacent frame church; since then the villagers of Eklutna have preserved the log structure as a historic building. It certainly deserves the recognition and protection of the National Register for its significance in the history of the village, as well as for being a symbol of the Russian church's historical activity in the United States.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1972.