Icon of SS. Herman and Innocent of Alaska & Moscow
This icon of St. Innocent is from the iconostasis of the Optina Elders Chapel in Holy Trinity Monastery. St. Innocent (a.d. 1797-1879) was a gifted student at his church boarding school. He married at the age of 20 and had six children. After serving as a deacon in Siberian Irkutsk, he was sent as a missionary to Alaska in 1824, where he worked among the native tribes, especially the Aleut Indians. When he was called back to Russia to become the Metropolitan of Moscow. he still worked for the American mission, asking all clergy to be fluent in English, and encouraged everyone to make the Orthodox Faith their own. Herman of Alaska was a Russian Orthodox monk from Valaam Monastery in Russia who traveled with eight other monks in 1793 to bring the Gospel to the native Aleuts and Eskimos in the Aleutian Islands. As part of the Russian colonization of the Americas, Russians had been exploring and trading there since at least 1740. Thus, he marks the first arrival of Orthodox Christian missionaries in North America. He built a school for the Aleutians, and he often defended them from the injustices and exploitation of the Russian traders.
Icon of SS. Herman and Innocent of Alaska & Moscow
This icon of St. Innocent is from the iconostasis of the Optina Elders Chapel in Holy Trinity Monastery. St. Innocent (a.d. 1797-1879) was a gifted student at his church boarding school. He married at the age of 20 and had six children. After serving as a deacon in Siberian Irkutsk, he was sent as a missionary to Alaska in 1824, where he worked among the native tribes, especially the Aleut Indians. When he was called back to Russia to become the Metropolitan of Moscow. he still worked for the American mission, asking all clergy to be fluent in English, and encouraged everyone to make the Orthodox Faith their own. Herman of Alaska was a Russian Orthodox monk from Valaam Monastery in Russia who traveled with eight other monks in 1793 to bring the Gospel to the native Aleuts and Eskimos in the Aleutian Islands. As part of the Russian colonization of the Americas, Russians had been exploring and trading there since at least 1740. Thus, he marks the first arrival of Orthodox Christian missionaries in North America. He built a school for the Aleutians, and he often defended them from the injustices and exploitation of the Russian traders.