St. Michael's Cathedral stands at 240 Lincoln Street in downtown Sitka, on Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska. Father Innocent Veniaminov, later Bishop Innocent, founded it and designed the original cathedral. The Russian-American Company funded the project. The foundation stone was laid in 1844, and it was completed on November 20, 1848. It was the earliest Orthodox cathedral in the New World. The style is Russian ecclesiastical architecture, described as neither Byzantine nor Gothic.
It has a Greek cross frontage with a central bell tower and two domes, one an onion dome. A fire destroyed the cathedral on the night of January 2, 1966. It was rebuilt from 1961 Historic American Buildings Survey drawings and reconsecrated in 1978.
It became a National Historic Landmark in 1962.
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