St. Seraphim Chapel

St. Seraphim Chapel
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
File:StSeraphimChurch.jpg
Location	In Lower Kalskag, Lower Kalskag, Alaska
Coordinates
Area	less than one acre
Built	1843
MPS	Russian Orthodox Church Buildings and Sites TR
NRHP Reference #	80004586
Added to NRHP	June 6, 1980

The St. Seraphim Chapel, in Lower Kalskag, Alaska, United States, in Bethel Census Area, is a historic Russian Orthodox church that may include a portion built in 1843, or it may have all been built later. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The community has a 1975-built new church used for Russian Orthodox services; this is an old church that is either a later enlargement of an original church built probably in 1843 or it is wholly a later 1800s replacement. The old church reflects the influence of traditional three-part Russian Orthodox ecclesiastical architecture in America expressed in the style of a log cabin. Balanced in the center, it is divided into three parts: vestibule, nave, and altar chamber. Each section is built by squared logs with corner dovetailing and straight butt joints at points where the logs are shorter. A 1979 survey suggested that no other extant log church in Alaska (and perhaps nowhere else in all of North America) of its age possessed comparable construction.

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Bethel Census Area, Alaska