ST. NICHOLAS OF JAPAN, AN ENLIGHTENER OF THE FAR EAST (FEB. 3RD)
St. Nicholas of Japan in a Contemporary Byzantine-Japanese Icon, Now Streaming Myrrh in Romania Edited by Bp. Joseph ( Ancient Church of the West ) In the history of the Christian Church, there are those who, like the Apostles themselves, bear the Gospel to lands untouched by the light of Christ, breaking through walls of hostility and ignorance with the sword of the Spirit and the word of truth. Among these is counted St. Nicholas of Japan, a man who, by patience, wisdom, and love, turned a nation once closed to the Gospel into fertile ground for the Orthodox Christian Faith. Born in AD 1836 in the Smolensk region of Russia, Ivan Dmitrievich Kasatkin entered the monastic life as Nicholas and soon felt the divine call to missionary labor. In AD 1861, at the age of twenty-five, he was sent as a chaplain to the Russian Consulate in Hakodate, Japan, at a time when the land was still shrouded in the darkness of enforced isolation. For more than two centuries, Japan had outlawed ...
