Under very primitive conditions he and his monastic companions established the foundations of an Orthodox presence in North America.
Called to Irkutsk, he was consecrated the auxiliary Bishop of Kodiak, but did not survive a shipwreck on his return to Alaska.
Ivan Ilyich Bolotov (Russian Иоанн Ильич Болотов) was born on January 22, 1761, in the village of Strazhkov in the Kashin district of the province of Tver.
Deciding to enter a monastic life he joined the Tolga Monastery where he received his tonsure in 1786 and was given the name of Joasaph.
There, they found conditions not as represented to them by Grigorii Ivanovich Shelikhov, the promoter of the Alaskan enterprise.
Joasaph and his party of monks were very successful in evangelizing the natives and expanded their preaching and efforts to the mainland.
In reviewing the situation of the mission, in 1796, the Holy Synod created an auxiliary see in Alaska and elected Fr.
Thus was recorded the only known situation in the history of the Church of Russia where an episcopal consecration was conducted by a single bishop.
Joasaph and his companions, Hieromonk Makary and Hierodeacon Stephan, perished as their ship Phoenix met with a serious storm and sank near the Alaskan coast during May 21 to 24, 1799.