Hierarchs, clerics and parishioners of the Orthodox Church in America and the Moscow Patriarchate, including the Russian Church Abroad, gathered in Fort Ross in October 2025 to mark the 100th anniversary of the annual pilgrimage tradition to this historic site. The celebrations were led by His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon of All America and Canada.
The celebration began on October 3 with a conference held in Santa Rosa at the St. Seraphim's Cathedral of the Orthodox Church in America. The conference was dedicated to the history of Orthodoxy in California.
Reports on the Russian fortress and chapel on the territory of Fort Ross, the history of the restoration of this historical monument after the earthquake and the origin of the tradition of making annual pilgrimages there were announced at the meeting. There was a speech dedicated to the life of the locally venerated holy Martyr Peter of Aleut, who was killed by the Spaniards for refusing to renounce the Orthodox faith, as well as the exploits of saints whose lives and ministry are connected with Fort Ross, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. In addition, everyone could get acquainted with the main shrines of these territories.
The participants of the celebrations were presented with stories about the modern life of Fort Ross, among which the stories of Archimandrite Innocent (Veniaminov), the great-great-grandson of St. Innocent of Moscow, and the guardian of Fort Ross, Robin Joy Wellmann (Innokenty), who was baptized in 2021 with a name in honor of St. Innocent of Moscow in his small homeland in the Russian village of Anga, stood out.
There was also an online report by the director of the N.N. Muravyov-Amursky Museum in Irkutsk, S.G. Stupin, on the Cultural and Educational Center in the name of St. Innocent of Moscow in Irkutsk. In addition, the participants heard memories of Russia from a group of Americans who visited Anga, and saw a documentary about Orthodoxy in America.
Addressing the audience, Metropolitan Maximilian of Irkutsk and Angara, using the example of the life of St. Innocent (Veniaminov), emphasized the undoubted effect of God's Providence in human life and recalled the beginning of the saint's life in the Siberian land.
On the same evening, an all-night vigil was served at the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Santa Rosa.
On October 4, the pilgrims gathered at Fort Ross. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated near the chapel in the open air. This year's pilgrimage also coincided with the centenary of the repose of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, enlightener of North America.
Among those present at the celebrations was the retired Archbishop Benjamin, who previously headed the San Francisco Diocese of the Orthodox Church in America. 400 pilgrims who came from different states of the USA prayed at the divine service. Prayer services were performed in English and Church Slavonic. 
Russian Russian Orthodox Church After the Divine Liturgy, a procession began along the coast to the historic Russian cemetery, on the territory of which a liturgy was served for the repose of all the deceased Orthodox Christians, the founders of Fort Ross and the deceased ancestors of Russian Americans. At the end of the celebration, all those present were united by a fraternal open-air meal. The archpastors addressed the participants of the celebration with words of congratulations and edification.
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The Ross Colony was founded in 1812 by a Russian-American company based in Alaska. The first Orthodox chapel in North America outside of Alaska was built in Fort Ross. The chapel, known as Troitsko-Nikolskaya, was built in 1822. In 1836, Father John (Veniaminov), the future Saint Innocent of Moscow, traveled 1,100 miles from Alaska to Fort Ross as part of his pastoral duties and became one of the first Orthodox priests in North America to celebrate the Divine Liturgy outside Alaska.
After the sale of Fort Ross in 1841, no divine services were held in the chapel until the visit of the Serbian Church Saint Sebastian (Dabovich) to Fort Ross in 1897, and then, in 1905, by St. Tikhon (later Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia), when the Russian Orthodox Church organized a pilgrimage to Fort Ross.
The 1906 earthquake in San Francisco destroyed the chapel. After several years of fundraising for the restoration, a pilgrimage to her took place on July 4, 1925, marking the beginning of an annual tradition. Services in the chapel have been held annually since 1925, with the exception of the period when it was destroyed by fire in 1970. During the reconstruction, completed in 1972, pilgrims performed services outside the chapel.