Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Anchorage–Juneau

Father John Althoff, a young Dutch priest of the Canadian Diocese of Vancouver Island, established the first permanent Catholic presence in the U. S. territory of Alaska when he founded Saint Rose of Lima Church in Wrangell on 3 May 1879. Having been assigned responsibility for missions in Alaska, Bishop Charles J. Seghers of the Diocese of Vancouver Island sent him to serve Wrangell, the Cassiar mining district on the Stikine River, and the former Russian capital of Sitka, where he would celebrate Mass in an old Russian carriage barn. Fr. Althoff subsequently moved to Juneau following the discovery of gold in the vicinity and celebrated the first mass and baptism in an interdenominational "Log Cabin Church" on 17 July 1882.[1]

The missions continued to expand as more missionaries arrived in the region. On 27 July 1894, Pope Leo XIII erected the Prefecture Apostolic of Alaska, taking the entire territory of Alaska from two Canadian dioceses - the Diocese of Vancouver Island and the Diocese of New Westminster, with its see in Juneau.[2]

On 22 December 1916, Pope Benedict XV elevated this jurisdiction to an vicariate apostolic.[3] He subsequently appointed Joseph Raphael John Crimont, S.J., until then the Prefect Apostolic of Alaska, as the first Vicar Apostolic of Alaska on 15 February 1917 and as titular Titular Bishop of Ammaedara on 22 March 1917. The jurisdiction actually got its first bishop when he received episcopal ordination on 25 July 1917.

Coat of Arms of the former Diocese of Juneau

Pope Pius XII erected the Diocese of Juneau, taking the territory of the present Archdiocese of Anchorage–Juneau from the former Vicariate Apostolic of Alaska, on June 23, 1951.[4] designating the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Juneau as its cathedral church. The pope concurrently changed the title of the vicariate apostolic to Vicariate Apostolic of Northern Alaska and transferred its see from Juneau to Fairbanks. On October 3, 1951, Father Dermot O'Flanagan of Holy Family Church in Anchorage was installed as the first Bishop of Juneau. He served until 1968, attending the Second Vatican Council while in office.

Coat of Arms of the former Archdiocese of Anchorage

The population of the Diocese of Juneau grew to the northwest, with the city of Anchorage rising in prominence as the state's primary center of commerce and population, even though Juneau remained the state's capital. On 22 January 1966, Pope Paul VI erected the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Anchorage, taking the territory "lying west of Mount Saint Elias and Icy Bay"[5] from the Diocese of Juneau,[6][7] designating the Church of the Holy Family as its cathedral church.[8] This action reduced the Diocese of Juneau to about twenty parishes and missions, plus the Shrine of St. Thérèse of Lisieux located in the midst of the Tsongas National Forest about 25 miles north of Juneau, in Alaska's Inside Passage.[9] The pope designated the Diocese of Fairbanks, which Pope John XIII had erected in the remaining territory of the former Vicariate Apostolic of Northern Alaska on 8 August 1962, and the Diocese of Juneau became suffragan sees of the new archdiocese.

The Archdiocese of Anchorage hosted visits from Pope John Paul II multiple times. In 1981 he celebrated Mass on the Anchorage Park Strip before 50,000 people.

The population of the Archdiocese of Anchorage continued to grow into the third millennium, rendering the Cathedral of the Holy Family too small for major diocesan services. In consideration of the limitations of its downtown location, Archbishop Roger Schwietz petitioned the Holy See in 2013 to have Our Lady of Guadalupe Church named a co-cathedral and Holy Family maintained as the historic cathedral. The Vatican granted approval in October 2014 and Archbishop Schweitz elevated the parish church to a cathedral on its titular feast, December 12, 2014.[10]

On 1 October 2016, Bishop Edward J. Burns of Juneau announced that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and its Committee on Divine Worship had designated the Shrine of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux as a National Shrine.[11]

On 19 May 2020, Pope Francis announced his intent to reunite the Archdiocese of Anchorage and the Diocese of Juneau into the Archdiocese of Anchorage–Juneau.[12] The merger, canonically suppressing both the Diocese of Juneau and the Archdiocese of Anchorage and erecting a new metropolitan archdiocese with their combined territory[13] (that is, the original territory of the Diocese of Juneau) and the Diocese of Fairbanks as its only suffragan, took effect at the Mass of Installation of Andrew E. Bellisario, until then Bishop of Juneau and Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Anchorage, as the first metropolitan archbishop of the new circumscription on September 17, 2020.[14] The decree of erection simultaneously incardinated all clergy of both former jurisdictions into the new archdiocese. It also designated the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Anchorage as the primary cathedral and the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary as the Co-Cathedral of the new jurisdiction, making no mention of the (apparently former) Cathedral of the Holy Family, which, in any case, retains its dignity as the Proto-Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Anchorage.

1. Robert Dermot O'Flanagan (1951-1968)
2. Francis Thomas Hurley (1971-1976), appointed Archbishop of Anchorage
3. Michael Hughes Kenny (1979-1995)
4. Michael William Warfel (1996-2007), appointed Bishop of Great Falls-Billings
5. Edward James Burns (2009-2017), appointed Bishop of Dallas
6. Andrew Eugene Bellisario (2017–2020), appointed Archbishop of Anchorage–Juneau

1. John Joseph Thomas Ryan (1966–1975), appointed Coadjutor Archbishop for the Military Services and subsequently succeeded to see
2. Francis Thomas Hurley (1976–2001)
3. Roger Lawrence Schwietz (2001–2016)[16]
4. Paul Dennis Etienne (2016–2019), appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Seattle[17] and subsequently succeeded to that see

1. Andrew E. Bellisario (2020–present)[18]

• Michael William Warfel, appointed Bishop of Juneau in 1996