It is in the depths of the heart that one
decides who to become. Seeds of hope and love or fear and hatred
often find their way into the soil of a person’s heart and quickens their gait toward either
a vision of unending light or toward a deceptively poisonous darkness. A young seminarian with a pure and fertile
heart sat in a classroom in Smolensk Seminary in 1853 and listened to stories about
the Gospel of Christ being preached in far off China. These accounts inspired within him a dazzling
vision of his own future as a missionary -- an entrance into the luminous
darkness of the unknown, the unanticipated, the uncomfortable -- an Abrahamic
journey that would take him 6,000 miles eastward to Japan. Born Ivan Dmitrevich Kasatkin in 1836 in a
village near Smolensk, Russia, the future Nicholas, Saint and Enlightener of Japan,
showed much promise as a young seminarian and upon completion of his studies in Smolensk
he earned a scholarship to the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. He excelled there too and earned the respect
of the authorities of the Academy who thereafter
encouraged him to pursue a life of scholarship and teaching. But to the rector’s dismay, instead of heeding
this advice Ivan chose to follow his heart’s deepest yearning after he saw a posting for
a replacement priest at the Russian consulate in Japan:
“I have a strong resolution in my heart to preach Christianity and enlighten the foreign
people,” Ivan remarked. “Going to Japan is the best chance to accomplish
my desire.” Ivan took the name Nicholas (or Nikolai in
Russian) upon being tonsured a monk on June 22, 1860 and was ordained to the diaconate
and priesthood within the same year. While tonsuring him, Bishop Nektariy encouraged
him in his missionary calling: “It is not in a monastery that you will spend your
devotional life, but having left your Homeland you will have to serve our Lord in
a far-off and pagan land. You must take the
cross of a zealot, the staff of a pilgrim. You are called, not only to be a monk but
to be an apostle as well”. The bishop’s words were prophetic as Fr. Nikolai’s calling would not be limited to
the parochial duties of a diplomatic chaplain
but rather would overflow far beyond the monastery and consulate and into the hearts
and minds of the Japanese people. Fr. Nikolai traveled 6,000 miles by horse and
carriage, crossing the Urals eastward through Siberia to Irkutsk before crossing
the Baikal Lake by ferry where he was forced to winter in Nikolaeyevsk. His delay seemed to be the work of Providence
as it brought him face-to-face with one of the Orthodox Church’s most renowned missionaries,
St. Innocent of Alaska, who was also constrained in his travel by the poor
weather conditions. In St. Innocent, Fr. Nikolai found a kindred spirit whose heart
also burned with the desire to spread the Gospel beyond the horizon of his familiar
homeland. St. Innocent encouraged Fr. Nikolai and gave him advice from his forty
years of missionary experience. His first task,
said St. Innocent, was to learn the language of the people. St. Innocent also warned Fr. Nikolai the importance of enduring through
the darkness of loneliness and despair that often accompanies missionaries. He also outfitted him with a new clerical
cassock and cross in order to gain the respect and trust
of the Japanese people. Arriving to Hakodate like a frail and naked
seed on a sun-scorched summer day in 1861, St. Nicholas faced the fierce xenophobia of
the Tokugawa shogunate, the last feudal military government in Japan that saw any
foreign missionary presence as a threat to its
sovereignty and ancient heritage. Fr. Nikolai attempted to take his mentor’s advice
in cultivating the soil of his missionary field by learning the language of the people. But he found it nearly impossible to learn
Japanese and converse with the local people and soon he teetered on the brink of
abandoning his calling. He even began reverting back to his academic
interests. But just as an unexpected shower of rain brings
renewed hope of harvest to an arid land, so too did Fr. Nikolai’s second providential encounter
with St. Innocent of Alaska. The
blessed hierarch was re-routed through Japan en route to Kamchatka and thus had the
opportunity to see his beloved protege and breathe new life into his efforts. Through this
meeting, Fr. Nikolai received a renewed vigor and zeal,
launching him into seven years of intense study of the language, culture,
religion, and customs of the Japanese people. Fr. Nikolai even sat at the feet of the teachers
of Confucianism, Shintoism, and Buddhism and listened to the sermons of Buddhist
preachers and storytellers in his attempt to make the unknown familiar. After years of cultivation with seemingly
no fruit in sight, Fr. Nikolai one day was visited
at the consulate by what seemed to be a harbinger of pestilence and drought to the work
that had been done but was, in fact, the first fruits of his arduous labors. A samurai
shinto priest, and an aggressively xenophobic and hostile nationalist, Sawabe Takuma,
who frequented the consulate in order to give fencing lessons to an officer, confronted
Fr. Nikolai about his intentions in Japan. After a tense exchange, Sawabe was struck
by the humble priest’s calm demeanor and reasonable
responses to his accusations and questions. Slowly he began to open up to the missionary
and visited him more often. Eventually, this man who might very well have
come to kill the priest became his first convert to the faith and was ordained as an
Orthodox priest. Sawabe, given the
baptismal name Paul, risked his life numerous times to bring others to the Faith. Because missionary activities were banned
by the government and converts could be executed, the growth of the Orthodox Church
simultaneously brought a period of persecution. But Nikolai saw this as a further catalyst
to the flourishing of the Church in Japan: “These persecutions have served,”
he reflected, “with the help of God’s grace, to
make it so that those who had the faith only in their mind, now had it in their heart. The
enemies of Christ did not have the satisfaction of hearing even from women or children
a single word of weakness or fear in professing Christ”. Japan continued to persecute Christians until
1873, when it finally overturned its xenophobic edicts, and opened its doors to
the outside world. Throughout his missionary career, Fr. Nikolai focused on the formation of the local
leadership of the Church and on translating scriptural, liturgical, and theological texts
into Japanese. By 1878, more than 4,100 believers had joined
the Church, largely through the instruction and catechesis of
indigenous leaders. Fr. Nikolai requested that a bishop be sent from
Russia. After being summoned back to
the homeland by the Synod, he was consecrated Bishop on March 30, 1880, in response
to his own entreaty. The fruit from the flowering tree of Orthodoxy
in Japan, which began as a small seed of hope sown in the heart of a young, idealistic
seminarian at Smolensk Seminary almost fifty years earlier was now ripe for harvest. Yet the laborers were still few: “If the
number of preachers here correspond to the mission’s spiritual needs,” Nicholas
remarked in a letter to a friend, “there would be Orthodox Christians in all the cities
and villages of the provinces in Japan. All of Japan is ready to adopt Christianity
and only men are needed to gather the harvest in the
field of God”. The missionary’s plea for assistance to
the Holy Synod of Russia fell on deaf ears, as the
Russo-Japanese War broke out on February 10, 1904. Despite limited resources, Fr. Nikolai is remembered as a model Orthodox
missionary for fully immersing himself in the culture
of the people he wanted to convert and by allowing them to assist him in sharing the
faith with others. Within fifty years after his
first arrival, the Church of Japan numbered 266 communities with over 33,000
Orthodox Christians, one archbishop, one bishop, 35 priests, six deacons, 14 teachers of
singing, and 116 catechists. Fr. Nikolai reposed in peace on Feb. 3rd, 1912
and is still remembered fondly by the Japanese people. To this day the Holy Resurrection Cathedral,
built by St. Nikolai himself in the ancient byzantine style, stands
perched on a hill overlooking the city of Tokyo, like a tree providing shade and nourishment
to those around it. Passersby are
reminded that Nikolai-do (or Nikolai’s house as the locals call it) is awaiting them with
open arms. May a seed from this tree of Christ’s universal
love fall into our hearts and, through the prayers of our father among the saints Nikolai,
Enlightener of Japan, may we too cultivate a desire to preach the Good News
of Jesus Christ to anyone who has ears to hear.
