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The Russian American Orthodox Messenger, an official periodical of the Church in America, from the mid-1890s to the early 1970s has now been digitized and is freely accessible online for viewing and download.
The Messenger (or Vestnik, as it was commonly known in Russian), published largely in Russian, was established as the first official periodical of the Diocese of the Aleutians and Alaska in 1896. It served as the primary vehicle for informing the diocesan clergy and faithful on events in the life of the diocese and official documents from the chancery and was also closely monitored by hierarchs, clergy, synodal and government officials in pre-revolutionary Russia to obtain news of the Church’s missionary diocese in America.
While the journal was primarily in Russian, it was during its early decades published bilingually at some points or key articles and documents appeared in English in later issues. From 1902 to 1910, a separate English language supplement to the Messenger, whose content was geared to presenting Orthodoxy to those of other faiths, differed completely from the Russian language Vestnik.
The first two editors of the Messenger were particularly notable. The first from 1896 was Father (now Saint) Alexander Hotovitzky, who remained as the editor of the Messenger and dean of Saint Nicholas Cathedral in New York until he left America in 1914. In 1937, he was martyred for the Faith in the Soviet Union. His successor as editor from 1914 to 1930 was Father Leonid Turkevich (who would later become Metropolitan Leonty). Both of these priests were highly educated, prolific writers, who were leaders of the diocese involved in every aspect of its life and able to eloquently convey the spirit and vision of the Church’s life in writing, even in poetry. Other notable authors whose writings appeared on the pages of the journal in its early years included St. Tikhon, Enlightener of North America; St. Raphael, Bishop of Brooklyn; St. Alexis Toth, Confessor & Defender of Orthodoxy in America; St. John Kochurov as well as many others. Throughout its history, the Messenger chronicled important Church events and significant issues in the life of the Church. Thus, for example, the history of the All-American Sobors is extensively documented in the pages of the Messenger. It also contained much information on individual parishes and clergy.
The Messenger was published from 1896 until 1973, with two significant hiatuses, from 1919 to 1921 and from 1931 to 1935. Both interruptions were due to the Church’s dire financial straits. The first break resulted from the administrative and economic turmoil caused by the aftermath of the Revolution in Russia and the second from the Great Depression. With the inauguration of THE ORTHODOX CHURCH newspaper in 1965 as the official English-language periodical of the Orthodox Church in America, and the need for a Russian language publication significantly decreased, production of the Messenger was discontinued in 1973.
Research in the issues of the Messenger of its first quarter of a century is facilitated by an index of contents in the last issue of any given year. Another research tool pertaining specifically to Alaskan material in the Messenger is the sizable volume titled “Alaska names and places in the Russian Orthodox American Messenger (1896-1973): an index and annotated bibliography” compiled by noted Alaskan historian Barbara S. Smith and published in the 1980s.
This new project to make the Messenger widely accessible in digital form was a joint effort of the Orthodox Church in America and St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Patriarchal Cathedral in New York in collaboration with the New York Public Library. Online access is provided by HathiTrust, which is dedicated to preserving in digitized format the largest compendium of knowledge allowable by copyright law.
This nearly complete digital version of the Messenger is a watershed for anyone researching the history of Orthodoxy in North America. Efforts will be undertaken to complete digitization of the few missing years using the printed Messenger collections in the OCA Archives and the libraries of the OCA Seminaries.
This project honors upcoming significant historical anniversaries in 2025 – the centennial of the repose of Saint Patriarch Tikhon, Enlightener of North America, the 55th anniversary of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in America and the 60th anniversary of the repose of Metropolitan Leonty. St. Tikhon’s archpastoral tenure in America and the granting of OCA autocephaly were major topics documented on the pages of the Messenger at the beginning and end of its history, while Metropolitan Leonty’s nearly six-decade ministry in America that included years as editor of the Messenger spanned nearly the entire life of the Messenger.
