[[Image:Innocent of Alaska.jpg|right|frame|St. Innocent of Alaska]]

Our father among the saints '''Innocent of Alaska''', [[Equal-to-the-Apostles]] and [[Enlightener]] of North America (1797-1879), was a Russian Orthodox [[priest]], [[bishop]], [[archbishop]], and [[Metropolitan]] of Moscow and all Russia. He is known for his missionary work, scholarship, and leadership in Alaska and the Russian Far East during the 1800s. He is known for his great zeal for his work as well as his great abilities as a scholar, linguist, and administrator. He was a missionary, later a bishop and archbishop in Alaska and the Russian Far East. He learned several native languages and was the author of many of the earliest scholarly works about the natives and their languages, as well as dictionaries and religious works in these languages. He also translated parts of the [[Bible]] into several native languages.

==Life==

St. Innocent, ''né'' '''Ivan (John) Evseyevich Popov-Veniaminov''', was born on [[August 26]], 1797, into the family of a church server in the village of Anginskoye, Verkholensk District, Irkutsk province, in Russia. His father died when John was six.