Archimandrite
Saint Innocent (Beda) was born in 1881 in the village of Moisentsy, Poltava province. He received his education at home and then entered a monastery. In 1908, he was tonsured into monasticism and ordained as a hierodeacon, and later as a hieromonk. With the onset of World War I, he moved to Tver, where he became a cell attendant to Bishop Peter (Zverev) of Staritsa. After the arrest of Bishop Peter in 1923, he returned to his homeland. Following Bishop Peter's return from exile to Moscow, Innocent followed him to Voronezh, where he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite.
He was arrested on December 17, 1926, by the Voronezh OGPU and sentenced to three years in a concentration camp on Solovki. While in captivity, he wrote about the spiritual peace he found in the church. In October 1927, he fell seriously ill, and in December he passed away. He died on January 6, 1928, on the eve of the Nativity of Christ, without uttering a single word of complaint, and was buried in the monastery cemetery near the church of Saint Onuphrius the Great.
