ST. NICHOLAS OF JAPAN AND HIS APPROACH TO STATE-CHURCH RELATIONS AND THE STATUS OF THE JAPANESE ORTHODOX CHURCH

This article examines the views of St. Nicholas of Japan on church-state relations and the status oft he Japanese Orthodox Church. These two issues are inextricably linked as while working on creating and developing the Japanese Orthodox Church, St. Nicholas sought to build its relations with the Japanese state, Russian Orthodox Church and Russian state in agreement with his own understanding of Orthodox ideals. His views, therefore, had a direct impact on his activities as well as the status of the Japanese Orthodox Church. The topic has rarely been addressed in scholarly literature devoted to St. Nicholas's work. The existing research mostly analyses it from a simplistic perspective arguing that from the very beginning St. Nicholas promoted the idea of creating a church as independent of the Russian Orthodox as possible. According to the authors, this view relies on individual comments taken out of context. The issue itself bears a particular significance for establishing how far indigenisation of Orthodoxy can reach; it is also important to discuss the views of St. Nicholas on this issue. The article concludes that it would be a gross oversimplification to assume that St. Nicholas of Japan was a supporter of the independent Japanese Orthodox Church from his early days in Japan. Instead, he advocated for its closer ties with the Russian Orthodox Church as the latter would be a guarantor of the Japanese Church's commitment to true Orthodoxy. Furthermore, St. Nicholas actively resisted those Japanese who supported the premature independence of their Church. While it is true that for pragmatic reasons he occasionally publicly expressed opinions promoting independence, this only took place during a period of growth of anti-Russian sentiments in Japan and St. Nicholas was only doing so to protect the Church from being attacked by its adversaries.