Innocent of Alaska

Saint Innocent of Alaska (born Ivan Evseevich Popov-⁠Veniaminov) was a missionary in Alaska and the Russian Far East, the first Orthodox bishop of North America and of Kamchatka, and at the end of his life Metropolitan of Moscow. He was born in Siberia in 1797 and fell asleep in the Lord in 1879. The Church honours him as the apostle of Siberia and America for his labour in bringing the Gospel to the native peoples in their own languages.

Childhood and priesthood

He was born on 26 August 1797 in the village of Anga in the Irkutsk region, to the church sexton Evsevy Popov. His father died when the boy was six, and he was taken in by his uncle, Deacon Dimitry, who taught him to read from the Book of Hours and the Psalter. At seven he was already reading the Apostle in church. He entered the seminary at Irkutsk, where the rector gave him the surname Veniaminov in honour of the recently departed Bishop Veniamin of Irkutsk.

In 1817 he married a priest's daughter and was ordained deacon at the Annunciation church in Irkutsk. After finishing his studies he taught in a parish school, and on 18 May 1821 he was ordained priest.

Mission in Alaska

Bishop Michael of Irkutsk was looking for a priest for the island of Unalaska in the Aleutian archipelago. Father John volunteered, and on 7 May 1823 he set out with his mother, his brother Stephen, his wife and their infant son. After a hard year's journey by land and water, he reached Unalaska on 29 July 1824. The family lived first in an earthen hut. He began to learn the languages of the natives and with them built the Church of the Ascension, finished the following year.

His parish included Unalaska and the neighbouring island groups, whose people had been baptized earlier but kept many of their old beliefs. He crossed the stormy seas by canoe and in a short time mastered six dialects. He devised an alphabet of Cyrillic letters for the Aleut language and from 1828 translated parts of Scripture and service texts. In 1829 he preached the Gospel on the mainland coast of the Bering Sea. He baptized thousands, built churches with schools beside them, and organized smallpox vaccination, which halted the epidemics. In 1834 he was transferred to Novoarkhangelsk on Sitka to enlighten the Tlingit, whose language and customs he studied; scholarly works and a dictionary came from this labour. In 1836 he went as far as Fort Ross in California, where he celebrated the sacraments for Russians and natives. His sixteen years of observation produced the Notes on the Islands of the Unalaska District, printed in 1840.

Bishop and metropolitan

In 1838 he travelled to St Petersburg, then to Moscow and Kiev, to ask for the mission to be expanded. There he learned that his wife had died. On 29 November 1840 he was tonsured a monk with the name Innocent, after Saint Innocent of Irkutsk, and raised to archimandrite. On 15 December 1840 he was consecrated Bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurils and the Aleutians. His diocese stretched over Yakutia, the Okhotsk coast, Kamchatka, Chukotka, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. In 1850 he was raised to archbishop.

In 1858 he travelled the Amur with Governor Nikolai Muravyov for talks with Chinese envoys, and at Aigun a treaty was concluded that passed the Amur region to Russia. He moved his episcopal seat to Ust-⁠Zeya, soon renamed Blagoveshchensk, where he began the cathedral of the Annunciation, consecrated in 1864. Yakutia had been joined to his diocese in 1852, and he lived for a time in Yakutsk. At the end of 1867 he was elected Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, taking up the office in January 1868.

Repose and veneration

He departed to the Lord on 31 March 1879, aged eighty-⁠two, and was buried at the Trinity-⁠St Sergius Lavra. In October 1977 the Russian Church numbered him among the saints, acting also on behalf of the Orthodox Church in America, and in 1994 the Russian Church Outside of Russia glorified him as well. In 1994 excavations near the Holy Spirit church in the Lavra uncovered his relics, venerated by the faithful of both America and Russia. His feast is kept on 31 March.