Editing Orthodox Church in America (section)

===Growth===
In 1868, the first Orthodox church in the [[contiguous United States]] was established in [[San Francisco, California]]. From the late 19th century until World War I, there was a wave of immigration to the U.S. Within this wave of new people, were immigrants from traditionally Orthodox Christian regions of the world. There were many immigrants from the [[Russian Empire|Russian]] and [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian]] Empires, who formed the backbone of the diocese. Numerous parishes were established across the country throughout the rest of the 19th century. Although these parishes were typically multi-ethnic, most received support from the missionary diocese. In 1872 the diocesan see was relocated from Alaska to the city of [[San Francisco, California]] in the United States. The mission itself was instituted as a separate Diocese of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands on June 10, 1870, subsequent to the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867.{{r|stokoe}}{{refn|name="popov"|{{Cite web |title=His Grace, Bishop Paul (Popov): Bishop of Novoarkhangelsk (Sitka), Auxiliary of the Kamchatka Diocese |url=https://www.oca.org/holy-synod/past-primates/paul-popov |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151023060229/https://www.oca.org/holy-synod/past-primates/paul-popov |archive-date=2015-10-23 |access-date=2022-04-19 |website=OCA |language=en-US}}}}  In November 1870, the first Eastern Orthodox church in [[New York City]] was consecrated.{{r|popov}}

[[Eastern Catholic Churches|Eastern Catholicism]] was viewed with suspicion by several [[Latin Church]] bishops in the United States; some, such as Archbishop [[John Ireland (bishop)|John Ireland]] of [[Saint Paul, Minnesota]], were actually hostile, especially concerning the matter of married clergy. In 1891, [[Alexis Toth]] brought a group of 361 Eastern Catholics into Eastern Orthodoxy. From then until his death in 1909, Toth brought approximately 20,000 Eastern Catholics from 65 independent communities to Eastern Orthodoxy. By 1917, 163 Eastern Catholic parishes consisting of more than 100,000 faithful had been converted. For his efforts, Toth was [[Glorification#Eastern Orthodox Church|glorified]] as a saint by the OCA in 1994.{{r|stokoe}}

[[Image:1st All-American Sobor.jpg|thumb|left|The first All-American Sobor was held March 5–7, 1907.]]
In recognition of the expansion of the church beyond Alaska, Bishop [[Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow|Tikhon (Belavin)]] petitioned the Holy Synod to change the diocese's title to the ''Diocese of the Aleutians and North America''. This was approved in February 1900.{{refn|name="tikhon"|{{Cite web |title=His Grace, Bishop Tikhon (Bellavin) of Moscow: Patriarch and Confessor of Moscow, Enlightener of North America |url=https://www.oca.org/holy-synod/past-primates/tikhon-bellavin |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220419023733/https://www.oca.org/holy-synod/past-primates/tikhon-bellavin |archive-date=2022-04-19 |access-date=2022-04-19 |website=OCA |language=en-US}}}}  He consecrated [[Innocent Pustynsky|Innocent (Pustynsky)]] as auxiliary bishop for Alaska in 1903, and in 1904 he consecrated [[Raphael of Brooklyn|Raphael Hawaweeny]] to administer to the Arab parishes. In 1905, Bishop Tikhon relocated the diocesan administration from San Francisco to New York City.{{r|stokoe}}

In a report to the Holy Synod that year, Bishop Tikhon proposed dramatic changes in the operation of the diocese. Recognizing the needs of the growing multi-ethnic Orthodox community, he recommended reforming the missionary diocese into a self-supporting American diocese, composed of numerous ethnic auxiliary dioceses. His plan called for Russian (New York), Arab (Brooklyn), Serbian (Chicago), and Greek dioceses. Additionally, he called for the formation of a governing council, composed of [[clergy]] and [[laity]], which would meet to discuss administrative and canonical issues. On 5 March 1907, the first All-American [[Synod#Orthodox|Sobor]] convened in [[Mayfield, Pennsylvania]]. Following Archbishop Tikhon's reassignment to Russia that year, however, few of his reforms were implemented.{{r|stokoe}}{{refn|name="sobor"|{{Cite web |last=Liberovsky |first=Alexis |title=The 1st All-American Sobor: How to Expand the Mission |url=https://www.oca.org/history-archives/aacs/the-1st-all-american-sobor |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220306203057/https://www.oca.org/history-archives/aacs/the-1st-all-american-sobor |archive-date=2022-03-06 |access-date=2022-04-19 |website=OCA |language=en-US}}}}

During this period, education and charity was a focus of the diocese. In 1905, Archbishop Tikhon oversaw the creation of an Eastern Orthodox [[seminary]] in [[Minneapolis, Minnesota]]. St. Platon's Seminary moved from Minneapolis to [[Tenafly, New Jersey]], in 1912 and enrolled 78 students from then until 1923. In 1916, an [[School accreditation#Unaccredited institutions|unaccredited]] Russian women's college was established in Brooklyn. An immigrant society and orphanage also were established, as well as the first Orthodox monasteries in the United States ([[Saint Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary|Saint Tikhon's Monastery]] for men in 1905 and Holy Virgin Protection for women in 1915).{{r|stokoe}}

By 1917, the American diocese was the largest in the Russian Orthodox Church. It had grown from ten parishes in 1890 to more than 350. Most of the funding for the diocese was provided by Russian Church, via the Imperial Missionary Society. The connections between the American diocese and the Russian Church would be severely compromised by the events of that year.{{r|stokoe}}