St. Innocent of Alaska

A married priest from Irkutsk who volunteered for the Aleutians, sailed with his family to Unalaska in 1824, and stayed in America for most of forty years. He built his own church and his own furniture, learned Unangan, made an alphabet for it, translated the Gospel of Matthew and wrote in it an Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven that is still in print. He became bishop of Kamchatka and the Aleutians after his wife died, and ended as Metropolitan of Moscow. The Orthodox mission in America is his work as much as anyone’s. Glorified in 1977. Feast: March 31.