Saint Innocent of Alaska, Metropolitan of Moscow
Apostle to America and Siberia, Metropolitan of Moscow
- Feast day
- March 31
- Lived
- 1797–1879
- Patronage
- Missionaries, translators, Alaska and Siberia
Saint Innocent, born John Popov-Veniaminov, built churches with his own hands in the Aleutians, created a written Aleut language, and ended his life as Metropolitan of Moscow.
Life
A married priest from Irkutsk, he volunteered for Unalaska in 1824, sailing with his family to a treeless island in the Bering Sea. He learned Aleut, devised an alphabet for it, translated the Gospel of Matthew and the catechism, and taught the islanders carpentry, clockmaking and vaccination.
Widowed, he was tonsured and consecrated as the first bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurils and the Aleutians, travelling constantly by kayak and dog sled across a diocese the size of a continent.
Metropolitan of Moscow
In 1868, nearly blind, he was elected Metropolitan of Moscow, and used the office to found the Russian Orthodox Missionary Society. He insisted throughout his life that the Gospel must be preached to every people in its own language — the principle that has shaped Orthodox mission ever since. He was glorified in 1977.