In September, 1858, Iosif Antonovich Goshkevich (the first Russian consular representative) arrived in Hakodate with his staff. He had previously visited Japan in 1854–1855 as a Chinese–language interpreter for the Russian expeditions under Putiatin.
In July, 1860, Vasilii Makhov, chaplain of the consular chapel, returned to Russia due to ill health. Goshkevich had sent in 1859 through the Asiatic Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a letter requesting the Holy Synod in Russia to send to Hakodate a successor to the post of chaplain. In the letter he wrote that «the chaplain of our church will also be able to promote the propagation of Christianity in Japan». It is worthy of notice that Goshkevich saw the prospect of missionary work in Japan as early as this time, when Christianity was still strictly prohibited throughout Japan.
Goshkevich was the son of a village priest. He was educated at the seminary in Minsk, and graduated from the Theological Academy in St. Petersburg. He
worked in Peking as a member of the Russian Orthodox Mission for nearly 10 years. Upon his return to Russia, he became a member of the Asiatic Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry and (as previously noted) served as the Chinese interpreter for Putiatin during the Russian expeditions to Japan. In Goshkevich, we can find the genesis of Russian Orthodox missionary work in Japan. When he was appointed as the first Russian consular representative in Japan, Goshkevich must have expected that the prohibition of Christianity there would be removed in the near future.
When Vasilii Makhov was about to leave for Russia, Goshkevich must have sensed the opportunity to realize his long–cherished dream. He asked the Holy Synod to send not a chaplain who would merely handle church functions for the consular staff, but a highly–educated missionary who could preach the gospel to the Japanese people.
Goshkevich wrote in the letter to the Holy Synod that the next chaplain should be «one who had completed the course of the theological academy and will be competent not only in ecclesiastical functions, but in scholarly activities as well, and who will present an excellent example of our clergymen through his private life, both to the Japanese and foreigners living here». (RGIA, f. 796, ed. khr. 572, d. 1859).
In response to this request, there arrived in Hakodate from St. Petersburg the 25 year–old Hieromonk Nikolai. To the great good fortune for the Japanese, this young priest was equipped with all the abilities that Goshkevich had asked for, though this was not proved for certain until Nikolai began his work. It can be said that Goshkevich recognized that the Japanese people were fairly cultivated, and thus endeavored to bring to Japan the sort of excellent missionary who was qualified to teach them Christian doctrine.[4]
Goshkevich returned to Russia in 1865, worked in the Asiatic Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry and retired from public service in 1867. About that time, he informed the Orthodox Missionary Committee that Hieromonk Nikolai had secretly begun to engage in missionary activity in Hakodate, and arranged for Nikolai to receive financial assistance from the Committee. Moskovskie vedomosti (The Moscow Herald) of October 8 (20), 1867, reported that «the Board of the Orthodox Missionary Committee received very encouraging news of the work of Hieromonk Nikolai Kasatkin in Japan… Can we leave this respectable Hieromonk without help? In western countries everywhere these missionaries enjoy the general support of the people. We hope that our society will also respond to the appeal by the Committee for subscription. Only recently, on September 13, the Committee learned for the first time through Mr. Goshkevich of the activities of Hieromonk Nikolai and of the needs of our mission in Japan».
We do not know whether Goshkevich after his retirement had any opportunity to provide support to Nikolai. But E. V. Putiatin, the former Russian delegate to Japan (and under whom Goshkevich had worked as interpreter), succeeded Goshkevich and supported Nikolai’s missionary work in Japan. Putiatin had moved from the Navy to the political world, and was playing an active role there as a member of the National Congress.
There were many clergymen in Russia who were supporting Nikolai — for example, Isidor (Metropolitan of St. Petersburg), Fyodor Bystrov, Ioann Dyomkin. Among the lay believers supporting Nicholas, Putiatin was one of the most influential, and Nikolai made special mention of Putiatin’s support in his «Annual Report to the Executive Committee of the Orthodox Missionary Society» for 1878:
«Our Mission must express its deepest gratitude to Count Evfimii Vasilievich Putiatin. He is always providing for the Mission with love, and continues to perform good deeds for it not only by his own subscriptions, but also by explaining its needs and persuading others to contribute to it. The new stone building of the Mission, the foundation of which was made possible by the donations from the Grand Duke Aleksei Aleksandrovich when he visited Japan in 1872, would never have been completed if Count Evfimii Vasilievich had not undertaken to raise the funds for them».
Later, in 1879, when Nikolai was in St. Petersburg, he was able to meet Putiatin. Nikolai wrote in his diary for September 16: «When I was going out [from the Theological Academy — ed.], at the exit, I met Count Putiatin. It was just as though I met my true father. The Count dropped by my room. He promised to give me every support… He invited me to his house, to Gatchina. I promised to visit on Thursday».
We may know from Nikolai’s diaries in St. Petersburg that there was a very friendly relationship between Putiatin and Nikolai and that the former was like a patron of his missionary work in Japan.
Nikolai may have been introduced to Putiatin by Goshkevich during the time of his first return (1869 to 1870).
In October, 1883, Putiatin died in Paris. In October, 1884, his daughter Olga Evfimovna Putiatina arrived in Tokyo to serve in the Orthodox Mission as a deaconess, as if to succeed to her father’s dedication to thejapanese Mission.
Nikolai came to Japan in the twilight years of the Tokugawa shogunate and worked in the new Japan of the Meiji era. His way to Japan was prepared by Goshkevich and his missionary work was supported by Putiatin.
Hieromonk Nikolai, whose original name was Ivan Dmitrievich Kasatkin, was born on August 1, 1836, in the village of Beyroza in Smolensk prefecture. His father, Dmitrii Kasatkin, was the village deacon. Ivan’s mother, Kseniya, died when he was five years old. Ivan was the second son. There are many folksy expressions in Nikolai’s diary entries, which show him to be a man of common origins. After completing his courses at the theological school and the Smolensk Seminary with distinction, he entered the St. Petersburg Theological Academy on a scholarship.
While he was a seminarian at Smolensk, Ivan was already aspiring to join an Orthodox mission in a foreign country (specifically in China). However, during these years at the Theological Academy, he read Captain Golovnin’s famous Memoirs of a Captive in Japan, During the Years 1811, 1812, and 1813, and had a new dream — to go to Japan.
Some 44 years later, in 1904, Nikolai wrote from Tokyo to Archpriest N. V. Blagorazumov, his friend and classmate from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy:
«I wish to ask you a favor of you. Please send me a helper, that is, a good young missionary…. To tell you the truth, my friend Nikolai Vasilievich, our time was much better than now. You remember that as soon as an application appeared on the desk, it was filled up with names. Oh, what names! You and M. I. Gorchakov, the cream of the youth of the Academy, were included among them. And applying for what post? For the post of chaplain of a consular church». (Nikolai’s letter of April 8, 1904.)
4
On August 21, 1863 (O. S), Nikolai wrote from Hakodate to the chief procurator of the Holy Synod A. P. Akhmatov: «Upon arriving here in 1861,1 found a church already built and consecrated, with the name ’Resurrection of Christ’. Its architect and churchwarden was Iosif Goshkevich, the Consul at Hakodate. He gave that name to the church to commemorate the fact that Christianity, which had formerly existed in Japan but had been eradicated, had appeared again in this country». This letter indicates that Goshkevich expected the ’resurrection’ of Christianity in Japan.