ABOUT THE MINISTRY OF THE ST. INNOCENT MONASTIC COMMUNITY

For 30 years, since 1988, (13 years prior to officially becoming a monastic), Sister Ioanna had been assisting Fr. Roman Star in the ministry of the St. Innocent of Irkutsk Parish, (including singing all the Divine Services, doing parish education, doing the weekly bulletin, creating and maintaining the parish website as webmaster, serving as Fr. Roman's 'executive assistant' and countless other things). Therefore, this ministry continued and was expanded as her monastic obediences (and thus the work of the Monastic Community) until May 6, 2018.

In addition, an important focus of the ministry of the St. Innocent Monastic Community from its inception, was the obedience of producing Orthodox educational materials, and distributing them through FIREBIRD Videos, Audios & Books. [This is a non-profit company that was originally started in February 1992 (as a subsidiary [D.B.A.] of Russian Treasures, Inc., established in 1988), and so has been producing and distributing Orthodox educational materials for 28 years (as of February of 2020). When the federal tax-exempt status (501(c)(3) was transferred from Russian Treasures to the St. Innocent Religious Community in 2007, Firebird Videos was also transferred as a DBA (Doing Business As) with the State of Michigan, as a legal subsidiary under the St. Innocent Religious/Monastic Community.] Unfortunately, due to the time involved doing so much work for St. Innocent Church and its priest, there was little time left to continue this educational aspect of the monastic work for the past some years.

Part of the Monastic Community's previous work was to create and maintain the St. Innocent Church's website (https://stinnocentchurch.com) After many months of work in creating this website, it was finally launched in May 2014, and was constantly being enhanced and developed until May 2018. (Note: Since late May 2018, others have been maintaining the website and it now has little resemblance to what it had been before.) In January 2015, work was able to be started on reconstructing the previous FIREBIRD VIDEOS website, which has unfortunately not yet been completed, because with all the work for the church, there hadn't been time. It is especially vital to construct the shopping cart component --- a functioning shopping cart will be an important element of the fully revised Firebird Videos website when completed. Since May 2018, we have been trying to work on finally refining and developing the Firebird website, including a shopping cart.  

And finally, the St. Innocent Monastic Community, of which the Firebird Videos, Audios & Books is a subsidiary and a vital educational ministry, established its own website, separate from the Firebird site. A significant portion of this separate Monastic Community website is dedicated to the written educational ministry aspect of the Monastic Community's work, by making available here the numerous articles about the Orthodox Faith and practice, by Sister Ioanna, (plus 2 additional essays by two other authors). These are available under our Articles, Saints' Lives, and seven other sections. There were over 70 entries in May 2018 when this site was first created. In November 2018, additional work on the site was done, and the 73 entries were divided up into separate secitions, that make the site much more user-friendly. Also, an additional 14 "Meditations" were added to Meditations 1, and a separate section, Meditations 2 was started. As of November 30th, 2018 there were 87 items in the now nine sections of Orthodox articles, prayers and meditations. With additional entries posted, as of February 15, 2020, there are 107 essays, articles, prayers, meditations and saints' lives, with the latest essay/article added.