Zapolsky, Nikita

Born in the family of a clerk . He was brought up in the Sapozhkovsky Theological College and the Ryazan Theological Seminary , which he graduated in 1840 with a student’s degree ^[1] .

In 1841, Nikita Zapolsky was ordained a priest at the Trinity Cathedral in Yakutsk, and at the same time was identified as a teacher at a local theological school (now the Yakutsk Theological Seminary ) ^[1] .

Moved in 1844 as a missionary to the marching Nikolaev Church, Nikita Zapolsky was then appointed dean of the village churches lying on the northeast side of the Lena River , and at the same time acted as a member of the Yakut spiritual council; when transferring the Novo-Arkhangelsk Seminary from Sitka to Yakutsk, he was its teacher ^[1] .

As a missionary, Zapolsky was extremely energetic. Almost every year he took the farthest and most difficult journeys, accompanied by great hardships. There is probably no place in the Yakutsk region where he would not penetrate several times with the preaching of the Word of God . From the shores of the Arctic Ocean to the tributaries of the Amur, one can see traces of his missionary activity. His twenty years of work in this area resulted in the conversion to Orthodoxy of several hundred pagans , the opening of several parishes in the polar countries, and much more ^[1] .

He made his last winter trip along the Aldan River and the spurs of the Yablonov Ridge in 1862 on behalf of Bishop Innocent to find out which of the Tunguses that live between the Amur and the Yakutsk Region should be assigned to the Amur Mission and which Yakut missionaries will remain in charge of. This trip cost him his life: Nikita Zapolsky caught a cold and died on August 23, 1863 ^[1] .

• Irkutsk Diocesan Vedomosti, 1871, No. 34, pp. 660–661.