St. Innocent of Alaska
St. Innocent (John Veniaminov, 1797-1879) left Irkutsk in Siberia as a young married priest to serve the Aleuts of Unalaska and later the Tlingit of Sitka, mastering native languages, translating the Gospel into Aleut, and writing his beloved catechesis, Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven (1833).
Widowed, he was consecrated the first Orthodox bishop in the Americas and traveled tirelessly by kayak, dogsled, and ship across Alaska, Kamchatka, and Siberia. In 1868 he was elevated to Metropolitan of Moscow, where he founded the Orthodox Missionary Society, and he reposed on March 31, 1879; he was glorified in 1977 as Enlightener of the Aleuts and Apostle to the Americas.
There is only one way into the Kingdom of Heaven, and that is the very way that Jesus Christ went when He lived on earth.
People were not created merely to live here on earth like animals that disappear after their death, but to live with God and in God, and to live not for a hundred or a thousand years, but to live eternally.
The heart of man can be fully satisfied only by the love of God, and therefore God alone can fill the heart and soul of man.
But when the Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of a person, He shows him all his inner poverty and weakness, and the corruption of his heart and soul, and his separation from God.
Troparion
You evangelized the northern people of America and Asia, proclaiming the Gospel of Christ to the natives in their own tongues. O holy hierarch father Innocent, enlightener of Alaska and all America, whose ways were ordered by the Lord, pray to Him for the salvation of our souls in His Heavenly Kingdom!
Kontakion
A true celebration of the providence and grace of God is your life, O holy father Innocent, Apostle to our land. In hardships and dangers you toiled for the Gospel's sake and God delivered and preserved you unharmed. From obscurity He highly exalted you as an example that the Lord truly guides a man in the way he should go.
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