Nicholas of Japan

Nikolai of Japan (* 1 Augustjul / August 13 1836greg in Smolensk as Ivan Dmitrievich Kassatkin, .. .. † 3 Februarjul / February 16 1912greg in Tokyo ) was a Russian monk of the Orthodox Church. He introduced the orthodox church in Japan and became the first Orthodox Archbishop of Tokyo and Japan.

Life

Nikolai studied theology from 1857 in Saint Petersburg. In 1860, he became a monk and in the same year also priests. Already during his studies he had responded to a call out in the for the chapel of the Russian Consulate, a priest was sought for the Russians stationed in Hakodate. In 1861 he traveled to Japan, but began in Hakodate - against the wishes of the Consul - single-handedly with the missionary work of the native Japanese. After that he went to Tokyo where the first diocese of the Orthodox Church was founded in Japan.

He thereafter remained continuously in Japan. Also, during the Russo -Japanese War (1904-1905) his loyalty lay more with the Japanese Christians as the Russian state.

At his death, the Orthodox Church in Japan had about 30,000 members, today it is about the same size.

In 1970 he was canonized as St. Nicholas, Enlightener of Japan by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Works

Nikolai of Japan translated the data read in the liturgy parts of the Old Testament, the New Testament and other texts of the Orthodox liturgy into Japanese. His translations are written in a classical literary Japanese and are considered relatively sophisticated reading. The sound shape of biblical proper names he followed the Slavic- Greek tradition, this therefore often differ with him strongly on Japanese Bibles the Western tradition. (Eg: for Jesus he wrote Iisusu while other churches Iyesu use ).