Sainted Innokentii, Bishop of Irkutsk
Commemorated on November 26 and February 9
Sainted Innokentii, Bishop of Irkutsk, in the world Ioann (John), was descended from the Kul'chitsky line of court nobility. His parents in the mid-XVII Century resettled from Volynia to the Chernigov region. The saint was born in about the year 1680, and educated at the Kiev Spiritual Academy. He accepted monastic tonsure in 1710 and was appointed an instructor at the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy as prefect and professor of theology. In 1719 Saint Innokentii transferred to the Sankt-Peterburg Alexandro-Nevsky Lavra with the appointment of arch-priestmonk of the Fleet. In 1720 he bore the obedience of vice-regent of the Alexandro-Nevsky Lavra. On 14 February 1721, PriestMonk Innokentii was ordained to the dignity of Bishop of Pereyaslavl' and appointed to the Peking Spiritual Mission in China. But the Chinese government on the visa gave refusal "for a spiritual personage, a great lord", as the Senate Commission on External Affairs had indiscretely characterised him. The saint was compelled to spend three years at Selingin on the Chinese border, undergoing much deprivation because of the uncertainty of his position, and grief from the disarray of civil governance in Siberia. Diplomatic blunders of the Russian Mission in China by Graf Raguzinsky, and intrigues by the Irkutsk archimandrite Antonii Platkovsky led to this – that in China was appointed archimandrite Antonii, and by decree of the Most Holy Synod Saint Innokentii was named in 1727 to be Bishop of Irkutsk and Nerchinsk. And so he entered into the governance of the newly-formed dioceses.
The proximity of the
Chinese border, the expanse and sparsely-settled dioceses, the great number of
diverse nationalities (Buryat, Mongol, and others), mostly unenlightened by the
Christian faith, the lack of roads and the poverty – all this made Saint Innokentii's
pastoral work burdensome and his life full of deprivation. Through a strange
oversight of the Senate , he did not receive money up until the time of his
very death and he endured extreme insufficiency of means. In these difficult
condition of scant funds the Irkutsk Ascension monastery still maintained two
schools opened under him – one Mongol and the other Russian. The constant
concern of the saint was directed towards their functioning – the selection of
worthy teachers, and providing for students the necessary books, clothing and
other provisions.
The saint toiled
tirelessly at the organising of the diocese, strengthening its spiritual life,
to which witness his many sermons, pastoral letters and directives. In his work
and deprivations Saint Innokentii found spiritual strength, humility, and
perspicacity.
In the Spring of 1728
the Baikal region began to suffer a drought. Famine from poor grain-harvest had
threatened the diocese already back in 1727. With the blessing of the
sainted-hierarch, in May within the churches of Irkutsk and the Irkutsk region
for each Liturgy they began to include a molieben for the cessation of the
drought; on Saturdays they sang an akathist to the Mother of God, and on
Sundays they served a collective molieben. "The supplications, – said the
saint, – should finish on the day of Saint Elias". And indeed on that
very day appointed, 20 July, at Irkutsk there raged a storm with such strong
rains, that in the streets of the city water stood up to their knees, – and
thus ended the drought.
Through the efforts
of Saint Innokentii, construction was started on a stone church to replace the
wooden one at the Ascension monastery, and the boundaries of the diocese were
expanded to include not only Selingin, but also the Yakutsk and Ilimsk
surroundings.
The saint, never
noted for robust health, and under the influence of the severe climate and his
afflictions, rather young expired to the Lord. He reposed on the morning of 27
November 1731.
In the year 1764 the
body of the saint was discovered incorrupt during a time of restoration work on
the monastery's Tikhvinsk church. Many miracles occurred not only at Irkutsk,
but also in remote places of Siberia – for those recoursing with prayer to the
saint. This impelled the Most Holy Synod to display the relics and glorify the
saint in the year 1800. And in the year 1804 there was established a feastday
in his memory throughout all Russia on 26 November, since on the actual day of
his repose is made celebration of the Znamenie-Sign Icon of the Mother of God.
A second day in memory of Saint Innokentii is 9 February.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.