In 1861, a new priest arrived at the recently established church at the Russian consulate in Hakodate, Hokkaido. For his work and missionary activities, he was glorified as Equal-to-the-Apostles Nicholas of Japan.

Ivan Dmitrievich Kasatkin was born in 1836 into a family of clergymen near Smolensk. While studying at the Saint Petersburg seminary, he read a book by Captain Golovnin, describing his time in Japanese captivity. This book inspired him to preach Christianity on distant islands. In his final year of study, he learned about a vacancy for the rector position at the church in Hokkaido and persistently sought this position.

In the summer of 1860, he was ordained as a hieromonk with the name Nicholas, and a year later, he went to Japan. In the early years, he studied the language, culture, and customs of the local population. Japan was just beginning to open up to the world after a long isolation, and the preaching of Christianity was prohibited. The first convert to Orthodoxy was the ronin Takume Sawabe, who later became a priest under the name Paul.

Japan became a second homeland for Father Nicholas. Until his death in 1912, he left the country only twice for a short time. He translated the Holy Scriptures into Japanese and founded the Tokyo Resurrection Cathedral, known as 'Nikolai-do.'

By 1912, there were about 33,000 Orthodox parishioners in Japan across 266 communities. The authority and piety of Father Nicholas were so great that Emperor Meiji allowed him to be buried in Tokyo's city cemetery, which was an exception for that time.

Bishop Nicholas (Ivan Kasatkin) was canonized on April 10, 1970.