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Curzon
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Curzon

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June 12th, 2005

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Middle Eastern Religions in the Far East, Part 2: St. Nicholai Cathedral

The same day I visited the Tokyo Mosque, I also visited St. Nicholai Orthodox Cathedral in Ochanomizu. It was 20 minutes by subway from the mosque.

The first Orthodox chrisitians were baptized in Japan in 1868. St. Nicholai’s was built shortly after with funds from the last Czar. The cathedral was damaged by the 1923 earthquake that destroyed much of Tokyo, and with the Bolsheviks ruling Russia, no funds were available from the motherland to rebuild the church. But caring locals came through. Lead by notable architect Shinichitaro Okada (who also built the notable Kabukiza in Ginza), the collapsed dome was rebuilt and the building reopened in 1928. The site was declared a national heritage site in 1983.

Click here for a collage photo of the front of the church.

For more information, see the Japanese Wikipedia entry for St. Nicholai’s or this page, in English.

Comments to this entry

Shoko
June 12, 2005
6:27 pm
Did you see one of the priests at the church, Mr. Takahashi?
He was my prof. for Orthodox Christianity class in College.
He is a very cool guy. You should meet him.
Kenneth
June 13, 2005
3:19 am
Speaking of religion, all the arguments for the existence of God have been "refuted":http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/unmovedmover.html. Creationism has been similarly "discredited":http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html. Alas, if only the world's population would learn.
Curzon
June 13, 2005
3:45 am
As a practicing Christian, you could show me irrefutable proof that God did not exist (which your above link does not do) and it would not change my theological practices by one iota. Although yes, creationism is a pile of bunk.

Shoko: I DID see a Japanese orthodox Christian priest walking around! I didn't get a chance to talk to him tho, he was busy with a pregnant Belarussian woman and her Japanese husband.
Joe
June 13, 2005
8:42 am
I would also add that creationism and intelligent design can easily coexist with the prevailing scientific theories about how the universe and life have evolved over time. Some people choose to argue that the two can't coexist, but I won't refute that because, as a great international relations professor once taught us, it never pays to argue with an idiot.

That aside, the rebuilding of Nikolai-do proves that people can appreciate the value of religion even if it isn't their own, and that's a lesson that many people these days could use.
Curzon
June 13, 2005
10:27 am
Amen to Joe's last comment. And as for intelligent design et al., evolution is reality. Theological pondering outside of that is fine, but those who wish to interfere with the teaching of evolution on religious ground should be shouted off the public stage.

Joe, how about posting your photos of the church on nichinichi?
Joe
June 13, 2005
12:23 pm
They're "up on Flickr.":http://www.flickr.com/photos/redjoe/tags/nikolai/
Kenneth
June 13, 2005
5:29 pm
Curzon: You're merely "shifting the burden of proof":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_the_burden_of_proof. It is you who must prove that god exists, not I who must disprove it. Your practice is logically congruent with believing in an all-controlling alien conspiracy simply because nobody has shown it to be wrong. We do not suppose that things exist simply because they are outside the realm of falsification. I might state, for instance, that a pink hippo made the universe, and then, by your logic, be correct simply because you could not prove me wrong.
tak
June 14, 2005
1:04 am
Thanks for the great photos of the church. Whether god exists or not, the architecture is simply amazing.
Curzon
June 14, 2005
3:28 am
Kenneth: If we're debating prayer in school or teaching creationism, we're on the same side. But logical arguments and pink hippos aside, God is the least important thing in any religion. Churches, mosques, and temples are important because they preserve local culture and traditions; allow individuals and families to maintain social contact with the community; allow for personal spirituality in a group setting; allows community support to be organized for families when loved ones pass away; etc. All religions across the globe, monotheistic or otherwise, provide those functions.

If I grew up in Yemen, I would go to a mosque. If I grew up in Bombay, I would go to the local Hindi temple. As it happens, I was born and raised in northeastern states of the US by Episcopalian parents. At my own volition I chose to attend church regularly once I became an adult. In Japan I attend an Episcopalian/Anglican church where services are conducted in Japanese and where I am the only non-Japanese congregation member. Nonetheless, I also go to shrines and temples regularly because I enjoy the atmosphere, the architecture, and the history. As I said in a previous comment, you could "prove" to me that god does not exist and nothing would change for me.

Without "wanting to invoke a varient of Godwin's Law,":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law I am curious as to why you're so dedicated to disproving God. Why would an athiest care what I think? Perhaps you like the argument? Perhaps you have a personal mission to change my personal spirituality? Are the above beliefs alarming or distressing to you? In Soviet Civilization, Paris-based Russian disident Andrei Sinyavsky wrote about the unusual vehemence of the athiest Bolshevik regime to religion. Would not an athiest care less about the church? he argued. Why the drive to "disprove" it? It's worth noting that the only states that have tried to replace religion with athiesm -- the USSR, Communist China, and a few other examples such as Pol Pot's Cambodia -- replaced it with nothing less than pure evil. Their motivations for dismantling it were not logical arguments but because they wanted to abolish what I was just talking about: communities and families that operated independently from the state, which they saw as a challenge to their authority. Indeed, religion is one of many checks on state power anywhere in the world.

Tak: the architecture was indeed stunning. I showed the photo to a Japanese friend and asked them where they thought it was taken. First guess: France. "Actually, it's in Ochanomizu, about 8 blocks from the Imperial Palace..."

More pictures of another interesting religious structure to come shortly...
Kenneth
June 14, 2005
3:57 am
A prime example of _post hoc_ reasoning. I hate communism and collectivism vitriolically, for I am a libertarian. The communists were brutal not because they were atheistic but because they were motivated by a quasi-religious dogma of "dictatorship of the proletariat". Indeed, it was the "pro-American":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer#Hoffer_and_.22Intellectuals.22 psychoanalyst Eric Hoffer who first described communism as the psychological equivalent of religion. No, I don't suffer from an inner absence of confidence in atheism: I just see religion as the most morally bankrupt thing ever dreamt up by man. Why? Because it is coercion masked in the divine: be good and you'll go to heaven, but toe the line and burn in hell. As a libertarian, I don't adher to a policy of state atheism, or state- anything for that matter, but I would like to see religion simply vanish. The ancient Greek civilization is a case study in what happens when religion doesn't have an iron grip on society's workings: the Greeks flourished, producing a prototype of the modern republic, many scientific and mathematical advances, and a high level of culture. The Greeks, while religious, were only mildly so, with no central religious authority to issue destructive edicts from on high (unlike modern Islamic societies, which are scientifically stagnant, and to a growing extent the United States). _That_ is my reply to your invocation of communism to dismiss atheism. I would also like to point out that being strongly opposed to something doesn't stem from an inner lack of confidence; I don't worry at night, for instance, that neo-nazis might be correct in their worldview, yet I oppose them strongly.
Curzon
June 14, 2005
4:43 am
"I just see religion as the most morally bankrupt thing ever dreamt up by man"
Then we totally disagree. Religion will exist as long as humans do -- you might as well be a vegetarian (i.e. human kind will always eat meat). And ancient Greek civilization was polytheistic.
Joe
June 14, 2005
5:20 am
Curzon, I believe you're violating the aforementioned professor's advice.
Curzon
June 14, 2005
5:32 am
I said "without wanting to..."
Kenneth
June 17, 2005
12:47 am
_And Greek civilization was polytheistic._

They were still a very secular lot for their time period, and there was no systematic elimination of intellectual dissent that stemmed from religion. Completely unlike the totalitarian fundamentalist theocracy the republicrats want to create.

_Religion will exist as long as humans do..._

And that makes it a good thing?

Let's see: you missed the point about Greek Civilization: I said that religion didn't have an iron grip on daily affairs, not that it didn't exist, and that was one of the major factors that enabled them to flourish. Contrast ancient Greece with today's backward Islamic countries. You also topped it off with a distraction when you declined to address my point about religion's general moral bankruptcy.