Background
Ioann Evgenevich Popov-Veniaminov was born on August 26, 1797 near Irkutsk, Siberia, in the village of Anginskoe, Russia, where his father, Evsev Popov, was sexton of the Church of St. Elias the Prophet.
( These twelve journals comprise formal reports by Ioann ...)
These twelve journals comprise formal reports by Ioann (Ivan) Veniaminov to his diocesan office at Irkustsk, written while he was assigned to the Unalaska and Novo-Arkhangel'sk (Sitka) parishes. The journal entries locate villages, provide insights into village leadership, describe travel routes, conditions, and modes of transportation. They also contain accounts of the Nushagak region Yupiit, as well as a description of Fort Ross and the newly independent Republic of California. Veniaminov's range of interests was broad and he pursued them with boundless energy. While performing the normal duties of an Orthodox parish priest, he found time for carpentry and raising a family. He not only learned to read and write Aleut, but also compiled a grammar and a dictionary. His interests extended to the protection of threatened species and caring for the natural environment.
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Ioann Evgenevich Popov-Veniaminov was born on August 26, 1797 near Irkutsk, Siberia, in the village of Anginskoe, Russia, where his father, Evsev Popov, was sexton of the Church of St. Elias the Prophet.
In 1814, while Ioann was a student at the Irkutsk ecclesiastical seminary, the rector was obliged to change the surnames of many of his pupils to avoid confusion on the register, and Ioann Popov was given the surname Veniaminov.
In 1823 Veniaminov went as priest to Unalaska, the first Russian missionary to enter the dominions of the Russian-American Company since the death at sea in 1799 of bishop Ïoasaf. His parish included all the Fox and Pribilof islands and St. Michael's Redoubt. While visiting about the islands in a skin boat, he became acquainted with the language and the life of his parishioners and with the natural phenomena of the surrounding regions.
In 1834 he settled in Novo-Arkhangel'sk (the present Sitka), and there, among the learned men who at various times accompanied the Russian expeditions to Alaska, met F. Lütke, the famous geographer (who printed Venïaminov's meteorological bulletins from Unalaska), and Baron F. Wrangel, the director in Alaska of the Russian-American Company. With their encouragement, he sent to the Imperial Academy of Science his works: "Notes on the islands of the Unalaska district" - (1840) and "Essays toward a grammar and dictionary of the Aleutian-Fox language" (1846).
Going in 1838 to St. Petersburg to plead in person with the Russian Holy Synod for an extension of missionary work in Alaska, he there published stories of far-off Alaska and the Aleutian people which opened for him not only the social and literary circles of the capital, but even the Czar's palace. At this time also were printed under his personal direction his translations into the Aleutian-Fox language of a catechism, a volume of sermons, and the Gospel according to St. Matthew.
After the death in 1839 of his wife, he became a monk and returned to Alaska in 1841 as Innokentïï, bishop of Kamchatka and the Kurile and Aleutian islands. Not long afterward he began making "apostolic" tours through his extensive diocese, in the course of which he visited all the churches of Kamchatka and the Okhotsk coast. Whereas upon its opening in 1841, there were only sixteen churches in his diocese, there were twenty-four in 1850, when Innokentïï became archbishop. His responsibilities were now increased by the addition of more vast territory.
For greater convenience in his work, he settled in Yakutsk in 1853. At this time there was a great movement of Russians to the Far East, especially to the region of the Amur River. Here Innokentïï built churches and established schools. In 1859 he succeeded in getting an assistant bishop for Alaska, and another was granted him for Yakutsk in 1860. He moved in 1862 to Blagovyeshchensk, on the Amur River, and from there in 1868 he was called to Moscow, to receive an appointment as metropolitan.
Innokentïï was one of the first Cristian archbishops of Russia, known also as Saint Innocent Metropolitan of Moscow, who established in Novo-Arkhangel'sk an administration of clerical affairs and an ecclesiastical school, which was reorganized in 1845 into a seminary. Besides, he built churches and established schools in the region of the Amur River. Innocent is widely venerated as Equal-to-apostles as the Orthodox apostle of America. On the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA), Innocent is honored with a feast day on March 30.
( These twelve journals comprise formal reports by Ioann ...)
By his exceptional energy and love for his work Innokentïï had risen from the lowest hierarchical rank to the highest at that time in the Russian church.
His wife was Ekaterina Ivanovna, née Sharina. She died in 1839.
