Homily on the Feast of St. Innocent of Moscow, Enlightener of the Aleuts and Apostle to America

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

When we come into the church on Sundays or feasts like today, when the local bishop presides over the celebration of the liturgy, we are often inspired and energized by the beauty and solemnity of the hierarchical or pontifical service in our Eastern Orthodox tradition.  The candles, the incense, beautiful songs, orderly movements of deacons and subdeacons all contribute to the awe-inspiring character of the solemn service.  The bishop as presider of this eucharistic assembly is also treated with more respect and reverence than a regular priest: he stands on eagle rugs, he is incensed nine times, and so frequently addressed during the service with the title of a “high priest”, archiereus, indicating his position above the priests in the church’s hierarchy: “your high priesthood may the Lord God remember in his kingdom.”

But the epistle reading today reminds us that according to the teaching of Christianity, we have the one and only high priest over the house, over the temple of God – our Lord Jesus. The order of priesthood and sacrifices given by God to Moses has been changed and transformed in the New Covenant.  The Old law in Leviticus prescribed for the appointed high priest on the solemn day of atonement to bring the blood of the sacrifice into the holy of holies for the expiation of the sins of God’s people committed in the past year.  Here, in the Church of the new covenant, as the letter to the Hebrews tells us now, we have one eternal high priest, according to the order of Melchisedec, our Lord Jesus Christ, the light, the truth, and the way, the eternal Son of God, who offered himself, his own body and blood that he assumed willingly, for the forgiveness of sins of all men and women, to redeem all creation ravaged by sin and death, and by his death to conquer death, and to give the new and true life to mankind.  Our Lord Jesus, the immortal Word, the Son of God, becomes both the eternal high priest and the ever-lasting and final sacrifice, our Paschal lamb. He gives himself up for the life of the world, as a fragrant sacrifice, as the final word of the love of God spoken to the broken and confused world.  Christ our high priest and our Pascha, the light of God, gives us, his Church, the light of the knowledge of God that is full and true, so that we may share this light, these good tidings with all people who are called to his table in his kingdom.  

So, to be the priest of God, the true high priest in the church of God, does not just equal to be vested in beautiful garments and to preside over a solemn celebration of the mysteries.  To be a high priest of God on earth means to be the icon of the true high priest, Jesus Christ, the true shepherd.  The life of the saint that we celebrate today, holy hierarch Innocent of Alaska and Moscow, fascinates us precisely because throughout his whole life and ministry as a priest and then bishop, St Innocent followed the call of God to bring the good news of salvation to the people who have not heard it, to bring the light of Orthodoxy to the lands that did not  know it, to seek and to find the sheep of Christ’s flock far away from home.  Before his blessed repose in 1879, St Innocent, then – Metropolitan of Moscow, one of the highest-ranking offices in the Russian Church, requested that a homily at his burial service would be based on the words of the Psalm: “the steps of a man are rightly ordered by God” (Ps 36) – for his own steps, his own path was always ordered and directed by the calling that he heard and received from the Lord.  In 1823, Fr John Veniaminov from the Irkutsk diocese in Siberia, a young married priest (with 7 children), a guy from a poor family whose talents already earned him recognition among his peers, abandons his life in his home diocese, and responds to the call of the church to serve as a missionary in Alaska.  It took him more than a year to reach the place of his service – he left Irkutsk in May 1823, and arrived on the Unalashka Island in July 1824.  For more than 40 years after this, first as a married priest, and then after his wife’s repose, as a monk and a bishop, he zealously and tirelessly served the people that he found in these new lands.  His remarkable linguistic talent, inspired by his overwhelming missionary zeal, led him to compose grammars and dictionaries for the languages of the Alaskan people, so that the Scriptures, liturgy, and spiritual writings may be translated into those languages, and that the people may be enlightened with the word of truth.  He insisted that the native people need education and improvement of their lives, which however must come with the upbringing in Christian moral life and the Orthodox teaching – hence, his most famous work, Indication of the Way to the Kingdom of Heaven, was based on his catechetical talks which he conducted with the native people.  He baptized thousands of people, built churches and schools, incessantly preached and taught his flock oppressed by the difficult conditions of their lives.  In 1836 Fr John visited California, the settlement of Fort Ross, where he took care of and celebrated sacraments for the Russian and Alaskan people who were spiritually neglected.  When he became the bishop of the large diocese, comprising Eastern Siberia and Alaska, and even later when he became Metropolitan of Moscow and the member of the Synod, he never forgot the American lands and the Orthodox people therein, but always cared for the church’s mission to those outside the church, outside the Russian lands, but likewise he was seriously concerned that the Orthodox Church in its own internal life would be guided by the principles of conciliarity and freedom.  

In his words at his own nomination to the see of Kamchatka and Aleutian Islands, St Innocent spoke with these prayerful words: “Lord, my desire is before you and from you; do your will in me and through me.”  His missionary desire and zeal was not based on the need to spread education or to promote the interests of the empire: his high priesthood was fulfilled through his desire for Christ, his love for the word of God, and his understanding that this love of God, the gospel is calling him to do the will of God.  In our own lives, not all of us are called to be bishops and priests, not all of us are gifted as St Innocent was, but we in our own ways are called to be missionaries – again, we won’t travel thousands of miles and baptize thousands of people, but we gather here today in the place where Christ is mystically present in the sacraments, where he gives himself to us, and we will go out into the world, to our jobs, our homes, our streets, and our mission would be to bring the light of Christ where we find ourselves, to the people around us – so that the kingdom of God, joy, peace, and reconciliation of God will shine through us and in us, and the word of God will be spoken in this broken world.

Amen.