Ioakim Korsunianin was the first bishop of Novgorod the Great (r. ca. 989-1030). As his surname suggests, he probably came from the Byzantine town of Cherson (Korsun) on the Crimean Peninsula and was sent to Kievan Rus' about 989 (sources differ on the precise year of his arrival in Kiev or later in Novgorod). Upon his arrival in Novgorod, he cast the idol of the god Perun into the Volkhov River and built the Perunskii Monastery on the site where it once stood. He also built the first, wooden, Cathedral of Holy Wisdom on the site of a pagan cemetery (although this was not discovered until archaeological excavations in the 20th century). He also built the Church of Joachim and Anne, named for his patron saints, which stood near the present site of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom. He was buried