Moscow, October 22, 2025
St. Innocent (left), St. Nikolai (right). Photo: prichod.ru
Two previously unnamed Russian islands in the Kuril chain have been officially named by the federal government, honoring two prominent Orthodox Christian missionaries—St. Innocent of Moscow, known as the Apostle of Siberia and America, and St. Nikolai, Equal-to-the-Apostles and Enlightener of Japan.
The corresponding decree was signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. The decision is part of an ongoing effort to commemorate outstanding figures of Russian spiritual and cultural history, reports prichod.ru.
Both saints made significant contributions to the spiritual education of the peoples of the Russian Far East and to the missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church within and beyond Russia.
Both hierarchs visited Sakhalin Island in 1861. In June of that year, the young Hieromonk Nikolai (Kasatkin) visited the area of the Kusunai post (now the village of Ilyinskoye), and in August, Archbishop Innocent, then serving as Archbishop of Kamchatka, the Kurils, and the Aleutians, traveled to northern Sakhalin. He was accompanied by the future first priest of Sakhalin, Simeon Kazansky.
The naming of the islands after the two missionary saints is described as a symbolic gesture reflecting the historical and spiritual connection of the Kuril Islands with the missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Far East. The Kuril Islands form part of the Yuzhno-Sakhalin and Kuril Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.
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