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St. [[Nicholas of Japan]] ([[baptism|baptized ]] as Ivan Dimitrievich Kasatkin) brought Orthodoxy to Japan in the 19th Century. In 1861 he was sent by the [[Church of Russia]] to Hakodate, Hokkaido , as a [[priest ]] to a chapel of the Russian consulate. Though the contemporary Shogun's government prohibited the Japanese conversion to Christianity, soon some neighbors who frequently visited the chapel converted—Nicholas's first three converts in Japan. While they were his first converts in Japan, they were not the first Japanese to do so—some Japanese who had settled in Russia had converted to Orthodoxy.

Apart from brief trips, Nicholas stayed in Japan, even during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), and spread Orthodoxy nationwide, being appointed as the first [[bishop ]] of Church of Japan. Nicholas founded the Cathedral of Tokyo in Kanda district and spent the majority of the last half of his life there, ; hence [[Holy Resurrection Cathedral (Tokyo, Japan)]] was nicknamed ''Nikolai-do'' by Kanda citizens.

The early mission to establish the Japanese Orthodox Church depended on the Russian Orthodox Church, especially in financial matters. The war between Russia and Japan created a politically difficult situation for the church. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Japanese government had new suspicions about the Japanese Orthodox Church, in particular, that it was used as a cover for communist Russian espionage. The second bishop of Japan, [[Metropolitan ]] [[Sergius (Tikhomirov) of Japan|Sergius (Tikhomirov)]], suffered severely from such governmental suspicion, and he was forced to resign his episcopacy and died under strange circumstances on [[August 10]], 1945, five days before the end of the war. The Russian Church similarly suffered from Stalinist policy and had no ability to help the young church in Japan.

During the Fifteen Years War (1930-1945), which from 1939 to 1945 was part of World War II, Christianity in Japan suffered under severe conditions, the Orthodox Church especially. After the Japanese surrender, the Allied occupation had a generous attitude to Christianity, given its predominantly American composition. As the majority of the Slavic- and Greek-Americans would attend local Orthodox parishes, Orthodoxy in Japan took a step forward. During the war, the Japanese Orthodox Church had almost no foreign contact. After the war, instead of the Russian Church, the precursors of the [[Orthodox Church in America]] (OCA) helped establish the Japanese Orthodox Church, and several youth who studied at the OCA's [[St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (Crestwood, New York)|St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary]] in New York are now the leaders of Japanese Orthodox Church.

Later, as the situation of the Russian Orthodox Church improved, the Japanese Orthodox Church came under their leadership again. In 1970 [[Nicholas of Japan|Nikolai Kasatkin]] was glorified by the Patriarch of Moscow and is recognized as St. Nikolai, [[Apostle ]] to Japan. His commemoration day is [[February 16]]. In 2000 the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Bishop [[Andronic (Nikolsky) of Kyoto|Andronic (Nikolsky)]] as a [[saint]] and [[martyr]]. He was appointed the first bishop of Kyoto and later martyred as the [[archbishop ]] of Permi during the Russian Revolution.

* [http://www.cnewa.org/ecc-bodypg.aspx?eccpageID=31&IndexView=toc Eastern Christian Churches: Orthodox Church of Japan] by Ronald Roberson, a [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] priest and scholar