As is well-known, Native Americans, North and South, were massacred and maltreated by European invaders and settlers. Nearly all of the Native Americans were animists, and like their forebears in Siberia believed in shamanism, pantheism and nature-worship. However, some in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands were Orthodox Christians.
75 years late a small Orthodox group in North America known as ‘The Orthodox Church in America’ (OCA), responsible for Orthodox in Alaska, has decided to commemorate the nearly 100 mainly Russian Orthodox Aleuts who died as a result of US mistreatment during the Second World War and the nearly 800 survivors. Their Orthodox church and homes were burned down by the US authorities. This is very much to be welcomed. What is regrettable is that it has taken so long. One suspects that this OCA group may be ethnically biased towards the US Establishment. A non-phyletistic, politically free group would surely have acted long ago. See: