Resurrection of Christ Cathedral. Orthodox churches in Tokyo - bibliognost_ru Church - an oasis in the middle of a metropolis

Orthodox churches in Tokyo November 25th, 2011

Japanese Orthodoxy for foreigners, and for the Japanese themselves, is strongly associated with the majestic Tokyo Cathedral of the Resurrection, better known as Nikorai-do. Few people, however, know that there are five Orthodox churches in the city, namely, three Japanese: the mentioned cathedral, its chapel and the church in Yamate, and two belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate: the churches in Honkomagome and Meguro. While information about Nikorai-do can be easily found on the Internet, information about other temples is fragmentary and poorly illustrated. We will try to show what they look like.

1. Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Tokyo ("Nikorai-do")[place ]

A large cruciform temple in the Byzantine style was built in 1884-1891. on an elevated place according to the project of architect. M. A. Shchurupova (1815-1901). The work was supervised by the English architect. J. Conder (1852-1920), consecration took place on March 8, 1891. The building was severely damaged in 1923 during the Great Kanto Earthquake, after which restoration work continued until 1929. Since 1962, it has the status of an important cultural monument of the Japanese state . Currently, due to the difficult financial situation of the JOC, non-Orthodox Japanese can view the cathedral only by paying 300 yen for admission.

View of the Resurrection Cathedral from the north.

View of the Resurrection Cathedral from the east.

Dome of the Resurrection Cathedral.

View of the Resurrection Cathedral from the northwest.

2. Chapel of Nicholas, Archbishop of Japan, in Tokyo[place ]

A cubic single-domed chapel under a hipped roof, with a small apse. It stands on the right hand of the entrance to the Resurrection Cathedral. Built in memory of the canonization of St. Nicholas, consecrated on March 19, 1978. At normal times it is locked.

Western portal of the chapel.

3. Church of the Nativity in Yamate[place ]

The history of this oldest parish in Tokyo dates back to the turn of the 1870-1880s. It could have been interrupted in 1945, when the temple building was destroyed and believers began to attend services in Nikorai-do, but in 1954 they managed to purchase a private house, which was rebuilt into a church, and in 1970-1971. The existing two-story building was built. On the ground floor there is a meeting hall, and on the second floor there is the actual prayer room.

Gate of the church fence.

Lock on the gate. Typical, but also interesting.

The interior of the temple on the second floor of the building.

Let us now turn to the churches of the Moscow Patriarchate.

4. Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on Honkomagome[place ]

A house church located on the first floor of the two-story building of the Compound of the Russian Orthodox Church MP in Tokyo. Consecrated in 1994 by Metropolitan Theodosius Nagashima. It has no external attributes of a temple.

View of the courtyard building from the courtyard.

The entrance to the temple is on the right, on the left there is a staircase to the second floor to the priest's chambers.

Interior of St. Nicholas Church.

"The Last Supper" over the Royal Doors.

The throne of St. Nicholas Church.

5. Alexander Nevsky Church in Meguro[place ]

The site for the construction of the temple was bequeathed to the Compound of the Russian Orthodox Church MP by parishioner S. I. Kravtsova. Although this happened in 1977, due to various obstacles, it was only in 2006, after a trial, that the Church took possession of the inheritance. Preparatory work on the site began in January 2008, and on September 12 of the same year the temple was consecrated. Construction was carried out by a Japanese company, elements of interior decoration were brought from Russia.

Imitation of an altar apse.

Interior view of the Alexander Nevsky Church.

A panic attack.

The middle part of the iconostasis.

Altar of the Alexander Nevsky Church.

Nikolai-do (lit. "Nicholas Temple") - the Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, is one of the most famous attractions of Tokyo.

Not a single local guide will fail to draw the attention of his companions to the greenish dome, which differs from the usual examples of traditional Japanese architecture, but nevertheless fits perfectly into the urban landscape of the Japanese capital.

Link to St. Nikolai is understandable. After all, both the very idea of ​​​​building this Orthodox church in Tokyo and the concerns of putting it into practice are connected with St. Nicholas (in the world Ivan Dmitrievich Kasatkin), who headed at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Russian spiritual mission in Japan.

Father Nikolai looked around, and then, having collected the necessary amount, bought a plot of land on the top of the Suruga-dai hill in the Kanda region. There, during the Middle Ages, there was a fire tower, which also served as a kind of lighthouse for ships entering the port of Edo. It was decided to build an Orthodox cathedral on this hill.

The initial sketch of the future temple was developed by the famous St. Petersburg architect, professor A. Shchurupov (1815–1900). It was his idea to build a building resembling a Greek cross in plan, but with domes in the Byzantine style.

However, it was up to someone else to translate the idea into stone and metal. Construction was entrusted to the English architect Joshua Conder (1852–1920), who erected more than 50 buildings in Tokyo between 1878 and 1907. Thus, he was the author of the construction of the Tokyo Imperial Museum (1881), the Rokumeikan Palace (1883), and the building of the Maritime Ministry (1895). And in 1891, Conder presented Archbishop Nicholas with the keys to the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ.

Brick walls surrounded the interior space of the temple of 805 square meters. m. The dome was lined with copper sheets, which over time, having oxidized, lost their original shine and acquired a greenish tint.

Alas, the St. Nicholas Cathedral has not been preserved in its original form. In 1923, the building was seriously damaged by a devastating earthquake. By 1929, the temple was restored by the Japanese builder Shinichiro Okada, who could not resist and made some adjustments to the original appearance of the cathedral. Changes affected the dome, bell tower and part of the interior, but in general the temple retained much of A. Shchurupov’s original ideas.

The Church of the Resurrection of Christ is the cathedral of the autonomous Japanese Orthodox Church, part of the Moscow Patriarchate. The temple has the official status of an important cultural monument of the Japanese state

Now Nikolai-do is somewhat lost among the tall buildings built in recent years in the center of Tokyo. But the place successfully chosen by St. Nicholas allows him to still majestically flaunt over the surrounding area, attracting the views of passers-by and the hearts of believers.

“The most important thing now is to give the victims hope that everything will be fine,” said Nikita Smirnov, consular officer of the consular department of the Russian Embassy in Japan, in a conversation with a correspondent of the Diakonia.ru website. “The hardest thing is that the victims lost their homes and personal belongings, and the disaster is not over yet, and a number of factors are aggravating the situation.”

According to the diplomat, the victims now need support, “because what is happening here cannot be described in words.”

N. Smirnov was one of the consulate employees sent to the area most affected by the disaster - Miyagi Prefecture - to find out the fate of Russian citizens. As of March 15, only one Russian citizen was injured as a result of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. This is a member of the crew of a fishing boat that ran aground in the port of Ofunato. “Everything is fine with him, he has already undergone a medical examination and was taken to Vladivostok,” the vice-consul said.

The northeastern part of Japan suffered the most as a result of the earthquake. A number of churches in the Sendai diocese of the Japanese Autonomous Orthodox Church suffered significant damage. The Orthodox Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Yamada (Iwate Prefecture) was destroyed. N. Smirnov said that he contacted the rector of the temple by telephone. In response to the offer of humanitarian aid, the rector said that the parishioners were provided with everything they needed. As for the Russian community of the village, everyone who wished to evacuate left the village using the transport corridor organized by the embassy. In general, the village, according to the consulate employee, is a disaster zone: there are rubbles everywhere, there are interruptions in the supply of food, and there is no electricity supply.

The consulate staff does not have accurate information about the situation in the city of Ishinomaki, where the wooden church in the name of John the Evangelist could have been damaged. Due to communication problems, it took more than four days just to search for Russian citizens in this city.

According to the rector of the metochion of the Russian Orthodox Church in Tokyo, Archpriest Nikolai Katsuban, churches in the Japanese capital were not damaged. He also noted that the fate of one parish of the Japanese Autonomous Orthodox Church in the Sendai diocese, and one priest, the rector of the temple in Ishinomaki, Priest Vasily Taguchi, remains unknown, with whom it is not yet possible to establish contact. There is no exact information yet about lay casualties.

Bishop Seraphim of Sendai said in a letter to His Holiness Patriarch Kirill yesterday that he also does not have accurate information about the casualties among parishioners. “Despite the fact that aid is being sent to the victims from all over the country, the full picture of what happened is still unclear due to the fact that roads and telecommunication networks have been destroyed,” Bishop Seraphim noted.

The distance from Sendai to Tokyo is about 300 kilometers. On the first day, according to Father Nikolai Katsuban, transport in Tokyo was also paralyzed and there was no electricity. “The city has provided schools for overnight accommodation for those who come to work from other cities. Now everything is more or less getting better, but there is still no gasoline at gas stations, and the electricity goes out for 3-4 hours every day. Today, background radiation in Tokyo is 8-10 times higher than normal. In this regard, citizens were asked not to leave their homes and to do wet cleaning at home. If anyone goes outside, they wear hats and protective masks. When entering the house, shoes and outerwear are left outside,” said Father Nikolai Katsuban.

He added that on March 16, the Patriarchal Compound in Japan opens its accounts to raise funds to provide assistance to the victims. All money collected will be transferred to an account specially opened by the Japanese government to collect aid. Father Nikolai was contacted from the Vladivostok diocese, where, on behalf of the ruling bishop, a certain amount has already been collected to help the victims.

When asked what kind of help the victims need, Father Nikolai replied that local television is distributing information about collecting funds, and it is noted that clothes and other things are not required.

The Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service is collecting funds and has opened accounts to transfer donations for victims in Japan.

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' sent condolences to the leadership of Japan and the Hierarchy of the Japanese Orthodox Church, who also expressed hope that “Russia’s participation in providing assistance to Japan” could contribute to the reconciliation of our peoples.

An earthquake of magnitude 9.1, the epicenter of which was 373 kilometers northeast of Tokyo. occurred on March 11, which caused a tsunami with a wave height of about ten meters. On March 15, several more powerful earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.0 occurred in the same area. The total number of dead and missing exceeded 10 thousand people, more than 2 thousand were injured. After the earthquake, due to the failure of cooling systems, an emergency regime was introduced at the Fukushima-1 and Fukushima-2 nuclear power plants located in the affected area. Since Saturday, explosions have occurred at several power units at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. The population within a radius of 20 km from the nuclear power plant was evacuated.

Japanese Orthodox Church and Russian Orthodox Church in Japan.

If you inquire about the Orthodox Church in Tokyo, the first thing they will tell you about is the Church of St. Nicholas (or Nikorai-do, as it is called). This temple of Russian-Byzantine architecture of the late 19th century is located on Surugadai Hill at Ochanomizu Station, and stands out sharply from the rest of the buildings, although it cannot be said that it contradicts the surrounding landscape, and one might even say that it blends harmoniously into it. It is impossible not to find it; the signs will lead you straight from the station. Officially called the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, the temple is the cathedral of the Tokyo diocese, and its primate is the Archbishop of Tokyo, Metropolitan of All Japan Daniel (Ikuo Nushiro). Built at the end of the 19th century by Nicholas of Japan, the first missionary of Orthodoxy to Japan, the temple was destroyed during the Kanto earthquake of 1923 and restored, and now it can be called the main temple of the Japanese Autonomous Orthodox Church. In total, there are 70 Orthodox churches and about 36 thousand Orthodox believers in Japan. Services in the Church of St. Nicholas are held strictly according to schedule and in accordance with Orthodox customs. However, anyone can attend the liturgy, regardless of nationality and religion.

How is the service conducted in the Japanese Orthodox Church and is it very different from the service in the Russian one? Let's try to describe this using the example of the Church of St. Nicholas in Tokyo.

It should be noted that the difference is evident immediately upon entering the temple. And not just in the eyes. The interior decoration of a huge temple with white walls with a relatively small number of icons (which is already unusual) dazzles with the brilliance of golden frames, grandeur and splendor, the chairs arranged in rows involuntarily remind of the Catholic Church, the candles seem not quite the “right” size and also smell something “ wrong". In a word, the atmosphere in the temple is different. If we can talk about an “Orthodox atmosphere,” then it is quite Orthodox (except for the fact that half of the parishioners do not cover their heads, and some come in trousers), but it is different. This is the specific atmosphere of the Japanese Orthodox Church. The congregation is mostly Japanese. Among the attendants, only one Russian face could be seen. In addition to Japanese and Russian parishioners, believers from Africa and Arab countries also attend the service.

The large choir consists of Japanese and stands, as expected, in the right front part of the church, in front of a huge music stand and under the direction of a conductor. He sings harmoniously and harmoniously, which is further emphasized by the excellent acoustics of the temple. The singing of the church ministers from the altar, as if in response to the choir, also sounds amazingly beautiful.

The service follows the established order, with reading of the Bible in Japanese (which, by the way, is distributed in Russian), with joint prayers and a sermon at the end. With the exception of small inserts, everything happens in Japanese, which became possible thanks to Nicholas of Japan, who translated most of the texts into Japanese, which is as correlated with modern as modern Russian is with Old Church Slavonic. Despite the fact that there are chairs in the church, no one sits on them during the service. Before the service begins, Archbishop Daniel is vested in the central part of the church while the choir sings.

The service leaves a bright and joyful feeling, as it should be, but does not leave a feeling of some alienation. Maybe because the service is in Japanese, maybe the slightly different environment influences this. Be that as it may, there is no need to be upset, because in Tokyo there is also a Russian Orthodox Church, preserved without any changes. It is called the Compound of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Japan and is located in the northern part of central Tokyo in a quiet side street. The church does not have its own premises, and it huddles in a building provided by the Russian Embassy in Japan.
In this church you can meet mainly Russian parishioners, because this is a Russian Orthodox Church, only in Japan, and its rector is also Russian - Archpriest Nikolai Katsuban, who maintains active cooperation with the Japanese Orthodox Church. The main activity of the Compound is aimed at our compatriots - Orthodox believers, temporarily or permanently residing in Japan. The church carries out educational activities only within its own borders, and as a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Japan, the Compound carries out information intermediation between the Russian Orthodox Church and other Churches, religious communities, public organizations in Japan, as well as organizing pilgrimages of Japanese believers to Russia. The metochion originated from Japanese parishes administered by the Moscow Patriarchate during the formation of the Orthodox Church in Japan.

At first glance, it is difficult to make out that this is a church: a small house, a very ordinary gate, no domes in sight. But then you notice that there is a cross above the entrance, that compatriots are crowding around, a women’s choir is quietly practicing chants, and when you go inside, you immediately understand: here it is, that same atmosphere, and the candles are the right size, and that smell, and the icons seem to be more familiar. The atmosphere in this small church can be said to be homely: the priest knows all the parishioners by name, and the parishioners know each other, actively participate in the life of the church and sing in the choir, headed by two Japanese women, who, however, speak and sing in Russian . The service is held in Russian with small Japanese inserts. The clergy are both Russian and Japanese, while the Japanese priest freely reads sermons in Russian. The metochion collects money for the construction of the temple: after all, a church should be a church not only inside, but also outside, even if it is on foreign soil.

So the Japanese Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church in Japan are two different institutions, which, however, cooperate and participate in joint events. God willing, our church will soon build a worthy church and unite even more Russian Orthodox believers who are cut off from home.

The first seeds of faith on Japanese soil were sown by the hieromonk (later archbishop) Nikolai(Kasatkin), who came to Japan in 1861 as rector of the church at the Russian Consulate in Hakodate.

For more than 50 years, Saint Nicholas worked in Japan in the field of Christ, enlightening the Japanese with the light of Truth. His services as the founder and first Primate of the Japanese Orthodox Church are widely known not only in Japan and Russia, but throughout the world.

The blessed death of Archbishop Nicholas followed February 16, 1912, A in 1970 he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church with the title “equal to the apostles.”

The Metropolitan became the successor of Archbishop Nicholas Sergius(Tikhomirov), who was sent to Japan by the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1908. The fate of Metropolitan Sergius was filled with sorrows: in 1940, in connection with the entry into force of the “Law on Religious Organizations”, according to which foreigners could not stand at the head of a religious organization, he was removed from the post of Primate of the Japanese Orthodox Church, and a few months before his death, which followed August 10, 1945, Metropolitan Sergius was accused of espionage by the Japanese authorities without any reason and spent about a month in prison.

In November 1946 The Moscow Patriarchate sent two bishops to Japan, but the headquarters of the occupation forces under the command of General MacArthur did not want to let them into Japan and invited a bishop from the American Metropolis.

A group of clergy and laity who disagreed with this separated from the Nikolai group and created a separate “True Orthodox Church”, headed by a bishop Nikolai Ono and archpriest Anthony Takai.

There were very few believers in this small Church, but its pride was that it still considered the Russian Orthodox Church to be its Mother Church and kept the Rules of the Church and Sacred Tradition intact.

September 30, 1957 The Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church at its meeting officially recognized this Church as the true Japanese Orthodox Church. It was also decided that it is the successor to the Japanese Orthodox Church, founded by Archbishop Nicholas.

At first, the prayer room of this Church was located on the territory of Nikolai-do (the former Russian school was converted into it), and later it was moved to a separate building in the Shinjuku area. The head of the Church was the protopresbyter Anthony Takai. In 1965 he died at an old age and was succeeded by the archbishop (at that time a priest) Nikolai Sayama, which December 10, 1967 in Leningrad he was ordained Bishop of Tokyo and Japan and declared the third Primate of the Japanese Orthodox Church.

In April 1970 The Nikolai-do group returned to the jurisdiction of the Russian Mother Church and began its existence as the Holy Autonomous Japanese Orthodox Church. Bishop Vladimir was appointed Bishop of Tokyo and Japan. Thus, complete reconciliation took place between the two Churches.

In this regard, by the decision of the Holy Synod since April 1970 for the Japanese Orthodox Church, led by Bishop Nicholas Sayama, a new stage of activity began, now as Compounds Russian Orthodox Church. Bishop Nikolai Sayama was relieved of his duties as Primate of the Japanese Orthodox Church and Head of the Japanese Mission and appointed rector of the Compound.

May 22, 1979, on the day of the Transfer of the Relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the Compound was registered as a religious legal entity with the name changed from "Japanese Orthodox Church" to "Metochion of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Japan".

Since July 1991, the rector of the Compound is Archpriest Nikolai Katsuban.