Moscow, September 6, 2024
Starting today, the precious head of St. Innocent of Alaska and Moscow will be carried throughout the far eastern dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church over the course of the next five years.
The procession, entitled “The Second Missionary Journey of St. Innocent of Moscow,” will cover many of the places where the Holy Hierarch served during his lifetime, and will be accompanied by missionary events, reports the Russian Church’s Missionary Department.
The procession, beginning today with a moleben before his precious head in Moscow, is timed to the 200th anniversary of the beginning of St. Innocent’s missionary ministry. It is scheduled to be completed on October 6, 2029, at the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, when the Church will celebrate the 150th anniversary of his repose.
Last month, the Alaska Diocese of the Orthodox Church in America also celebrated the 200th anniversary of the arrival of St. Innocent to Alaska.
The journey with his skull will cover 38 dioceses of Siberia and the Far East. Following the moleben in Moscow today, the relic will be flown to Irkutsk, where St. Innocent received his spiritual education, was ordained, and from where he set off on his first missionary journey.
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