Metropolitan Sergius (Tikhomirov) of Japan

Metropolitan Sergius (secular name Georgiy Alexeyevich Tikhomirov, Russian: Георгий Алексеевич Тихомиров; June 16, 1871 – August 10, 1945) was a bishop of the Orthodox Eastern Church. He first served in Russia, but spent most of his episcopate in Japan (1908 - 1945) in the Russian Orthodox Christian mission and in the Japanese Orthodox Church.

He was born on June 16, 1871 as Alexiy in a village of Guzi near Novgorod, Russia, in the family of a rural priest Tikhomirov. He studied well, entered in the St. Petersburg Theological Academy and graduated in 1896. In 1895 Alexiy took the monastic vows with the name Sergius.

Later he taught theology at the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary, and in 1899 became the prefect of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, in the rank of archimandrite.

In 1905 he was raised to episcopacy and was consecrated Bishop of Jamburg, vicar to the Archbishop of St. Petersburg, at the age of 35 years. Throughout his tenure at the Academy he was a prolific preacher as well as an author of a number of works on the Church history of his native Novgorod region.

In 1908 bishop Sergius was sent to Japan, to become a successor to archbishop Nicolas (Kasatkin). Having acquainted himself with Japan and quickly mastered the language, Sergius showed himself a committed spokesmen for the Orthodox Christian faithful of Japan's recent acquisitions in Southern Sakhalin (Japan had acquired Southern Sakhalin, or Karafuto in Japanese, as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905); and he secured the return of confiscated Church property to the faithful. In 1912 archbishop Nicolas reposed, and Sergius took over as ruling bishop of the Japanese Orthodox mission. Some five years later he had to face the difficulties caused to the mission by the Russian Revolution of 1917: having no aid from an established church in Russia meant the loss of almost the entire budget of the mission, which had to cut back its activities but survived.

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