The life of St Nicholas of Japan
He studied at seminary and then at the theological academy in St. Petersburg, and there, drawn to missionary service, he was tonsured a monk shortly before his ordination and sent in 1861 to serve as chaplain to the Russian consulate in the Japanese port of Hakodate, at a time when Christianity was still outlawed in Japan and foreigners were regarded with deep suspicion. He spent years quietly learning the language and culture before making his first converts. One of these, a former samurai and Shinto priest named Sawabe who had originally come to his door intending to kill him, instead was won over in conversation and became one of the first Japanese Orthodox priests.
As the mission grew despite periods of persecution, Nicholas moved its center to Tokyo, built schools and a seminary, and was consecrated bishop in 1880. During the war between Russia and Japan he chose to remain with his flock rather than leave, though as a Russian subject he stepped back from leading public prayers for a Japanese victory, unwilling either to pray against his own homeland or to withdraw his care from the people he had come to serve. He was made archbishop in 1906 and died in Tokyo in 1912, having lived to see tens of thousands of Japanese Orthodox Christians in communities where none had existed before.
