Russia Names Islands After St. Innocent of Alaska and St. Nikolai of Japan

Russian PM Mishustin. Source: China Daily

OCTOBER 23, 2025 — The Russian government has officially named two previously unnamed islands in the Kuril chain after St. Innocent of Moscow and St. Nikolai, Equal-to-the-Apostles, honoring their contributions as Orthodox Christian missionaries.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed the decree, part of an initiative to commemorate figures significant to Russian spiritual and cultural history, according to Orthodox Christianity.

St. Innocent, known as the Apostle of Siberia and America, and St. Nikolai, the Enlightener of Japan, played pivotal roles in spreading Orthodox Christianity in the Russian Far East and beyond. In 1861, both visited Sakhalin Island—Hieromonk Nikolai at Kusunai (now Ilyinskoye) and Archbishop Innocent, then serving the Kamchatka, Kuril, and Aleutian regions, in northern Sakhalin, accompanied by Simeon Kazansky, Sakhalin’s first priest.

The naming reflects the deep historical and spiritual ties between the Kuril Islands and the Russian Orthodox Church’s missionary efforts. The islands are part of the Yuzhno-Sakhalin and Kuril Diocese, symbolizing the enduring legacy of these saints’ work in the region.

Previously, the UOJ reported that 70,000 Russians joined a procession for St. Alexander Nevsky in the city of St. Petersburg.

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