Hierarch Saint Innocent (Borisov), Archbishop of Kherson

Saint Innocent (born Ivan Alekseevich Borisov) was born on December 15, 1800, in the town of Yelets, Orel province, into a priest's family. He graduated with distinction from the Orel seminary and then the Kiev Theological Academy (1823), where he was tonsured a monk. He served as a lecturer and inspector at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, becoming its rector in 1830.

In 1836 he was consecrated Bishop of Chigirin. He successively held the sees of Vologda (1841), Kharkov (1842–1848), and finally Kherson and Tauria (from 1848, elevated to archbishop in 1845). In southern Russia he worked to revive the ancient Crimean shrines of Chersonesos and Inkerman.

He became renowned as an outstanding preacher and theologian, earning contemporaries' nickname "the Russian Chrysostom." He left a substantial theological legacy. He reposed on May 26, 1857. He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1997.