Saint Innocent of Alaska was a Russian Orthodox priest, bishop, archbishop and Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia. He is known for his missionary work, scholarship and leadership in Alaska and the Russian Far East during the 1800s. He is known for his great zeal for his work as well as his great abilities as a scholar, linguist and administrator. He was a missionary and later a bishop and archbishop in Alaska and the Russian Far East. He learned several native languages and was the author of many of the earliest scholarly works about the natives and their languages, as well as dictionaries and religious works in the languages. He also translated parts of the Bible into several native languages. The Russian Orthodox Church (Русская Православная церковь) is that body of Christians who are united under the Patriarch of Moscow, who in turn is in communion with the other patriarchs of the Eastern Orthodox Church. ... Roman Catholic priest LCDR Allen R. Kuss (USN) aboard USS Enterprise A priest or priestess is a holy man or woman who takes an officiating role in worship of any religion, with the distinguishing characteristic of offering sacrifices. ... A bishop is an ordained member of the Christian clergy who, in certain Christian churches, holds a position of authority. ... In Christianity, an archbishop is an elevated bishop heading a diocese of particular importance due to either its size, history, or both, called an archdiocese. ... The following is a list of Russian Orthodox metropolitans and patriarchs of Moscow along with when they served: Metropolitans Maximus (1283-1305) Peter (1308-1326) Theognostus (1328-1353) Alexius (1354-1378) Cyprian (1381-1382), (1390-1406) Pimen (1382-1384) Dionysius I (1384-1385) Photius (1408-1431) Isidore the Apostate (1437... State nickname: The Last Frontier, The Land of the Midnight Sun Other U.S. States Capital Juneau Largest city Anchorage Governor Frank Murkowski (R) Official languages English Area 1,717,854 km² (1st)  - Land 1,481,347 km²  - Water 236,507 km² (13. ... Parts of this article contradict each other. ...

Saint Innocent, Ivan Evseyevich Popov-Veniaminov, was born on August 26, 1797 into the family of a church server in the village of Anginskoye, Verkholensk District, Irkutsk province, in Russia. His father died when John was six. August 26 is the 238th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (239th in leap years). ... 1797 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The Irkutsk Oblast, Russia is located in south-eastern Siberia in the basins of Angara, Lena and Nizhnyaya Tunguska rivers, and occupies an area of 767,900 km² (4. ...

In 1807 John entered the Irkutsk Theological Seminary. In 1817 he married, and on May 18, 1817 he was ordained deacon of the Church of the Annunciation in Irkutsk. He completed his studies in 1818. He was appointed a teacher in a parish school, and on May 18, 1821 he was ordained priest to serve in the Church of the Annunciation. 1807 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1817 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... May 18 is the 138th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (139th in leap years). ... Deacon is a role in the Christian Church which is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. ... A traditional house in Irkutsk The Yenisei watershed, Lake Baikal, and the cities of Dikson, Dudinka, Turukhansk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk Irkutsk (Ирку́тск), the chief town of the Irkutsk Oblast, is one of the most important places in Siberia, being not only the principal commercial depot north of Tashkent, but also a fortified... 1818 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... 1821 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

At the beginning of 1823, Bishop Michael of Irkutsk received instructions to send a priest to the island of Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Father John Veniaminov volunteered to go and on May 7, 1823 he departed from Irkutsk, accompanied by his aging mother, his wife, his infant son Innocent, and his brother Stefan. After a difficult one-year journey, they arrived at Unalaska on July 29, 1824. 1823 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Unalaska is an island in the Fox Islands group in the middle of the Aleutian Islands southwest of Alaska, at 53°54 North 166°32 West. ... Looking down the Aleutians from an airplane. ... May 7 is the 127th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (128th in leap years). ... July 29 is the 210th day (211th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 155 days remaining. ... 1824 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

After John and his family built and moved into an earthen hut, he undertook the construction of a church on the island and set about studying the local languages and dialects. He trained some of his parishioners in construction techniques and with them undertook the construction of a church, which was finished the following July.

Father John's parish included the island of Unalaska and the neighboring Fox Islands and Pribilof Islands, whose inhabitants had been converted to Christianity before his arrival, but retained many of their pagan ways and customs. Father John often traveled between the islands in a canoe, battling the stormy ocean of the Gulf of Alaska. The Fox Islands are a group of islands, in the eastern Aleutian Islands off the southwest tip of Alaska. ... The Pribilof Islands (often called the Fur Seal Islands, Russian: Kotovi) are a group of four volcanic islands, part of Alaska, lying in the Bering Sea, about 200 miles north of Unalaska and 200 miles south of Cape Newenham, the nearest point on the North American mainland. ... Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament writings of his early followers. ... The Gulf of Alaska is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east, where Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage are to be found. ...

His travels over the islands greatly enhanced Father John Veniaminov's familiarity with the local dialects. In a short time he mastered six of the dialects. He devised an alphabet of Cyrillic letters for the most widespread dialect, the Unagan dialect of Aleut and, in 1828, translated portions of the Bible and other church material into that dialect. In 1829 he journeyed to the Bering Sea coast of the Alaskan mainland and preached to the people there. The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first letters) is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... Aleut is a language of the Eskimo-Aleut language phylum. ... 1829 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... The Bering Sea or Imarpik Sea is a body of water in the far northern Pacific Ocean covering over two million square kilometres. ...

In 1834, Father John was transferred to Sitka Island, to the town of Novoarkhangelsk, later called Sitka. He devoted himself the Tlingit people and studied their language and customs. His studies there produced the scholarly works Notes on the Kolushchan and Kodiak Tongues and Other Dialects of the Russo-American Territories, with a Russian-Kolushchan Glossary. 1834 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Baranof Island, also sometimes called Baranov Island or Sitka Island, is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle, in Alaska. ... Sitka City and Borough is a borough located on the west side of Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean, in the state of Alaska. ... A Tlingit totem pole in Ketchikan ca. ...

In 1838, Father John journeyed to St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia and Kiev, Ukraine, to report on his activities and request an expansion of the Church's activities in Russian America. While he was there, he received notice that his wife had died. He requested permission to return to Sitka. Instead, it was suggested that he take vows as a monk. Father John at first ignored these suggestions, but, on November 29, 1840 made his vows. He chose the name Innocent in honor of Bishop Innocent of Irkutsk. 1838 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland... Saint Basils Cathedral and Spasskaya Tower of Moscow Kremlin at Red Square. ... Motto: Oblast Municipality Municipal government City council (Київська Міська рада) Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko Area 800 km² Population  - city  - urban  - density 2,642,486 100% 3,299/km² Founded City rights around 5th century 1487 Latitude Longitude 50°27′ N 30°30′ E Area code +380 44 Car plates  ? Twin towns Athens, Brussels, Budapest... After the discovery of northern Alaska by Ivan Fedorov in 1732, and the Aleutian Islands, southern Alaska, and north-western shores of North America in 1741 during the Russian exploration conducted by Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov, it took fifty years until the founding of the first Russian colony in... November 29 is the 333rd (in leap years the 334th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

On December 15, 1840, Archimandrite Innocent Veniaminov was consecrated Bishop of Kamchatka and Kuril Islands in Russia and the Aleutian Islands in Russian America. His see was located in Novoarkhangelsk, which he returned to in September 1841. He spent the next nine years in the administration of his see as well as on several long missionary journeys to its remote areas. On April 21, 1850, Bishop lnnocent was elevated to Archbishop. In 1852 the Yakut area was admitted to the Kamchatka Diocese, and in September 1853 Archbishop Innocent took up permanent residence in the town of Yakutsk. Innocent took frequent trips throughout his enlarged diocese. He devoted much energy to the translation of the scriptures and service books into the Yakut (Sakha) language. December 15 is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Kamchatka Oblast, an oblast in Russia. ... The Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands (Russian: Кури́льские острова́, Kurilskie ostrova), also known as Kurile Islands, stretch northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. ... 1841 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... April 21 is the 111th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (112th in leap years). ... 1850 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... 1852 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... The tower of ostrog, a XVII century Russian fort in Yakutsk Yakutsk (Russian: ; Yakut: Дьокуускай) (pop. ... The Yakut language, or Sakha, is a Turkic language with around 363,000 speakers that is spoken in the Sakha Republic in the Russian Federation. ...

In April 1865 Archbishop Innocent was appointed a member of the Holy Governing Synod of the Church. 1865 is a common year starting on Sunday. ...

On November 19, 1867, he was appointed the Metropolitan of Moscow, replacing his friend and mentor, Filaret, who had died. While there, he undertook revisions of many Church texts that contained errors, raised funds to improve the living conditions of priests and established a retirement home for priests. November 19 is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1867 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... The following is a list of Russian Orthodox metropolitans and patriarchs of Moscow along with when they served: Metropolitans Maximus (1283-1305) Peter (1308-1326) Theognostus (1328-1353) Alexius (1354-1378) Cyprian (1381-1382), (1390-1406) Pimen (1382-1384) Dionysius I (1384-1385) Photius (1408-1431) Isidore the Apostate (1437...

Innocent died on March 31, 1879. He was buried on April 5, 1879 at Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra. March 31 is the 90th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (91st in Leap years), with 275 days remaining, as the final day of March. ... 1879 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... April 5 is the 95th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (96th in leap years). ... Troitse-Sergieva Lavra (Троице-Сергиева Лавра) is a famous Russian monastery and is the historical monumental symbol of Orthodoxy (at one period in time it was the center of the Russian Orthodox Church). ...

On October 6, 1977, the Russian Orthodox Church, acting on the official request of the Orthodox Church in America, made Innocent a saint. His feast day is celebrated twice a year -- on October 6 and March 31. He is widely venerated as Equal-to-apostles. October 6 is the 279th day of the year (280th in Leap years). ... 1977 was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1977 calendar). ... Saint Basils Cathedral, a well-known Russian Orthodox church situated in Moscow The Russian Orthodox Church (Русская Православная церковь) is that body of Christians who are united under the Patriarch of Moscow, who in turn is in communion with the other patriarchs and primates of the Eastern Orthodox Church. ... The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, led by Metropolitan Herman. ... In general, the term Saint refers to someone who is exceptionally virtuous and holy. ... The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organising a liturgical year on the level of days by associating each day with a saint, and referring to the day as the saints day of that saint. ... An equal-to-the-apostles is a special title given to some canonized Saints in Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Rite churches as an outstanding recognition of their service in spreading and assertion of Christianity comparable to that of the original apostles. ...

See also

• Russian colonization of the Americas

After the discovery of northern Alaska by Ivan Fedorov in 1732, and the Aleutian Islands, southern Alaska, and north-western shores of North America in 1741 during the Russian exploration conducted by Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov, it took fifty years until the founding of the first Russian colony in...

External links

• Innocent's Life
• Alaskan Orthodox texts (Aleut, Tlingit)
  • Indication of the Pathway into the Kingdom of Heaven (Eastern Aleut), 1833, by St. Innocent (Rev. Priest John Veniaminov)
  • Holy Gospel According to St. John (Eastern Aleut), 1902
  • Acts of the Holy Apostles (Eastern Aleut), 1902
  • Indication of the Pathway into the Kingdom of Heaven: Part 1 (Tlingit), 1901, by St. Innocent (Veniaminov), translated into Tlingit by S.I. Kostromitinov