A Brief History of Fort Ross

(Note: The celebration of the 200th anniversary of Fort Ross will take place on Saturday, August 25, 2012.)

by Father Konstantin Gavrilkin

In our celebration of the Fort Ross bicentennial, we might overlook the importance of a rather sobering fact: in its 200-year history (1), this Russian military outpost in California performed its original function only for 30 years (1812-1841), was a private property for over 60 years (1841-1903) (2), and has been an historical landmark or a museum for more than 100 years (1903 – current) (3). All three of these periods have been subject to studies from a variety of perspectives (4). It is important to remember that, as an intricate part of both Russian and American history, Fort Ross was a place where Russians interacted with Americans, Spaniards, and Indians, where people of different cultures coexisted, struggled to survive, and cooperated, and already for this reason alone it continues to inspire narratives shaped by diverse interests, agendas, and identities. Out of the three Eastern Orthodox Churches, presented in this collection of essays and related to Fort Ross historically and ecclesiastically, the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is both the fruits and the continuation of the mission, initiated by the Russian Orthodox Church in the late 18th century in Alaska and later spreading through California to the rest of the United States (5).

In paying our tribute to Fort Ross on occasion of its bicentennial, we also would like to highlight the ultimate importance of the chapel (6) and its continuous recovery from all kinds of misfortunes in the course of the settlement’s 200-year history. Despite the desecration at the hands of its private owners, the earthquake damage in 1906, and the fire destruction of 1970, the chapel was repeatedly brought back to life through the efforts of many people: the state authorities, conservationists, and numerous enthusiasts, both Russian and American, for whom Fort Ross has been a place of inspiration and powerful symbolism.

What is also noteworthy, the chapel is the only edifice in Fort Ross Historic Park which continues to serve its original function as a place of worship, albeit, at the moment, on rare occasions. Beginning in 1925 (7), the Orthodox clergy and faithful from San Francisco and other parishes of the Russian Orthodox Metropolia (the OCA since 1970 ) have been conducting services at the Fort on July 4, the Independence Day, and continue to do so under the leadership of the Diocese of the West. A few years later, a tradition of serving at Fort Ross on Memorial Day (Last Monday of May) was initiated by the clergy and faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), and it’s carried on to this day. Recently, the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate have also begun to celebrate memorial services at the Fort Ross Historic Park. It is remarkable that the Fort Ross chapel has become the focal point of the first united celebration by the hierarchs, clergy, and lay people of the three Churches of the Russian origin who came to honor the 200-year anniversary of the settlement’s foundation.

Established by the Russian-American Company (RAC) (8), Fort Ross was a short-lived but energetic and memorable attempt to advance Russian interests south of Alaska. As L. Kalani and S. Sweedler put it, “The legacy left by the Russians is vast. Russian colonists built the first windmills and ships in California. Explorers, scientists, and artists from Imperial Russia visited California and recorded their findings; their pioneering work in the region contributed information that is valuable to the present day." (9)

While the political, economic, and social life of the Fort Ross settlement has received considerable attention and is well documented (10), quite little is known of its religious life, except that the chapel was built around 1825, the prayer services had been conducted there by the colonists (11), and that on extremely rare occasions Orthodox priests from Sitka (12) visited Fort Ross and conducted sacraments and rites for the living and the dead. (13) According to S. Kenton Osborn, “The Orthodox priest Alexei Sokolov and subdeacon Nikolai Chechenev visited Ross in 1832” and that, according to the RAC correspondence, “this was the first visit by a priest to perform church rites at Ross,” (14) that is, twenty years after the foundation of the settlement! Another rare occasion when a priest visited Fort Ross is described in the diary of Father Ioann Veniaminov (1797-1879), who a few years later, after losing his wife and a son, became a monk with the name Innokentii (Innocent), was consecrated the first Bishop to the Russian-American colony, and in 1867 became Metropolitan of Moscow. (15) Father Ioann Veniaminov visited California and Fort Ross in July-October 1836 and, while at the settlement, spent five weeks conducting services and sacraments in the chapel, and instructing the residents in the Orthodox faith. (16)

Fort Ross was sold in 1841, that is, years before the agreement between Russia and the United States on the sale of Alaska in 1867, which included a special provision regarding the Orthodox churches (17). Since the chapel was not a free standing and consecrated ecclesiastical building, on the one hand, and no Russian settlers stayed in the area after the sale to John A. Sutter, on the other hand, the chapel was treated by its private owners with no regard for its religious significance. As we know from Nikolai (Ziorov), Bishop of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska in 1891-1898, who visited Fort Ross in March 1897 (18), both the chapel and the cemetery were in bad shape. He especially lamented the desecration of the chapel, used for feeding the animals (19). He reproached George W. Call, the owner of the Fort at the time, for the condition of the chapel and the cemetery and proposed to transfer them, together with the neighboring house, to his care in order to restore and maintain them properly. Call agreed to discuss it the next day but didn’t say anything at all when they met again before the Bishop’s departure. (20)

Although Bishop Nikolai claimed that “the stubborn and greedy Yankee didn’t want to understand” how painful it was for the Russian Orthodox visitors to see this “Russian holy place” desecrated, it might well be that this encounter played a role in George W. Call’s decision to sell the Fort Ross compound in 1903 to the California Historical Landmarks League. After the sale the condition of at least the chapel was dramatically different already in February 1905, when Tikhon (Belavin), Bishop of the Aleutians and North America (1898-1907) and the future Patriarch of Moscow (1917-1925), visited Fort Ross with a group of clergy and laymen, one of whom published a report soon after the trip (21). They were “pleasantly surprised by the order and cleanness” of the chapel and attributed it to the State of California’s supervision.

Nevertheless, the author of the report ended his story on an ominous note:

Years will pass, even decades, but the visits to Fort Ross of the Orthodox Hierarchs will remain in its history as memories of the days of light in the unattractive future that Fort Ross is almost certainly facing. (22)

Ironically, in only a decade this gloomy prediction would become more applicable not to Fort Ross but to Russia itself. The Revolution of 1917 destroyed the Russian Empire, left the Russian Orthodox Church in ruins, and forced millions of people to seek refuge outside of Soviet Russia. For many of those who came to the United States and California in particular, Fort Ross gradually acquired a new importance and meaning, becoming a powerful symbol of the lost great empire and its political, economic, and spiritual power, once spreading from the western borders of Poland to Alaska and the California frontier.