Hierarch Saint Innocent (Kulchitsky), Bishop of Irkutsk

Saint Innocent (born John Kulchitsky) was born around 1680–1682 into a Cossack family of the Chernigov regiment. He studied at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy and took monastic vows. Around 1706–1710 he was summoned to Moscow to teach and serve as prefect of the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy, later serving as a naval hieromonk at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St. Petersburg.

On February 14, 1721, he was consecrated Bishop of Pereyaslavl and appointed head of the spiritual mission to Peking, but Chinese authorities refused him entry. He spent several difficult years at the border in Selenginsk awaiting permission. In 1727 the Synod established an independent Irkutsk diocese and appointed Innocent its first bishop.

As ruling bishop of the vast Irkutsk-Nerchinsk diocese, he carried out missionary work among the Buryats, Mongols, and other peoples of Eastern Siberia. He reposed on November 27, 1731, in Irkutsk. His incorrupt relics were uncovered in 1764; he was glorified in 1804 as the first Siberian saint canonized for the whole Russian Church.