Orthodox Churches in North Dakota

A state-by-state survey of first Orthodox churches lists a Russian-affiliated parish at Wilton, about 1913 to 1918, for North Dakota. The parish grew from a group of Ukrainians who emigrated from Galicia in 1897 to homestead and work in nearby lignite mines. They worshiped at first in private homes and in 1913 built Holy Trinity Church, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Like the state's two other historic Ukrainian Greek Orthodox churches, it no longer holds regular services.

Orthodoxy came to Minot with Greek immigrants: 250 men from Greece arrived in 1912 to work on the Great Northern Railway, and the first liturgy at St. Mary's Greek Orthodox Church was celebrated in 1934. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese could no longer provide a priest, and St. Mary's services closed in 1976; the parish later joined the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) as St. Peter the Aleut, an English-language congregation that includes converts. Its patron, a Kodiak Island native, worked at the Russian outpost of Fort Ross, California.

At Pembina, an Icelandic Lutheran church built in 1885 was sold in 1937 to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of St. John. By 1987 only five members remained, and the building passed to the Fort Pembina Historical Society, which keeps it as a church museum and still hosts occasional services. Fargo has parishes of the OCA (Holy Resurrection) and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (All Saints).