St. Michael's Cathedral (also known as the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel) is a cathedral of the Orthodox Church in America Diocese of Alaska, at Lincoln and Maksoutoff Streets in Sitka, Alaska. The earliest Orthodox cathedral in the New World, 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 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 icons date to the mid-17th century; two icons are by Vladimir Borovikovsky. St. Michael's Cathedral is located in the downtown business district in Sitka, on the southwestern coast of Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeastern Alaska. 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, home of the first Orthodox Bishop of Alaska, Innocent (Veniaminov), is also nearby, operated by the National Park Service as part of the Sitka National Historical Park. A chapel was built by an employee of Alexander Baranov, the chief manager of the Russian-American Company, in time to receive icons salvaged 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 from the 1813 wreck of the Neva. In 1808 Baranov had shifted his headquarters of operation in North . 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. 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, also called the Sitka Madonna, from the workers of the Russian-American Company. In 1962, the National Park Service inscribed St. Michael Cathedral as a National Historic Landmark. 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.
