Metropolitan Kirill to consecrate an Orthodox church in Tokyo

02 September 2008, 14:19

Moscow, September 2, Interfax – A new Russian Orthodox church of St. Alexander of Neva was built in the district of Meguro in Tokyo.

“The church has a new iconostasis and is being prepared for the consecration which is to take place on September 12 on the patronal festival,” the secretariat for inter-Orthodox relations of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations told Interfax-Religion.

The DECR chair Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad is to conduct a consecration.

The number of the Japanese who identify themselves with Orthodoxy equals to about 30,000 people.

The Japanese Autonomous Church was founded by St. Nikolay (Kasatkin) who came to Japan on 1861 on the decision of the Holy Synod. He founded and headed the Russian Orthodox mission in Japan in 1870. He translated the Holy Scripture and liturgical books into Japanese and built the Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized Archbishop Nikolay in 1970. The Moscow Patriarchate granted autonomy to the Japanese Orthodox Church the same year.

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