Nikolsky Andronic (アンドロニク・ニコリスキイ)
Andronic NIKOLSKY (August 1, 1870 - July 7 (or June 20 under the Julian calendar), 1918) was a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Japanese Orthodox Church. He was raised to sainthood.
As he was assigned as the first bishop of Kyoto in the Japanese Orthodox Church, he was also called 'the first bishop of Kyoto' with the title of 'Hieromartyr Andronik, Archbishop of Perm.'
He is famous for having been martyred during the Russian Revolution: first he was buried alive, and then he was shot to death.
Biography
He was born on August 1, 1870, in Myshkin village, part of Yaroslavl diocese (his secular name was Vladimir NIKOLSKY). His father was a deacon.
In 1891 he graduated from Yaroslavl Seminary and then entered Moscow Theological Academy. He became a monk on August 1, 1893 while still at school, receiving the Christian name "Andronic." On July 22, 1895, he was ordained as a priest. Thereafter, he was assigned to the Kutaisi Theological Seminary. In 1898, he was sent to Japan as a priest in the Japanese Orthodox Church, staying there for less than a year. In 1900, he was promoted to Archimandrite.
As a bishop of Kyoto
In November of 1906, the Most Holy Governing Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church appointed Andronic--who had experience living in Japan--a bishop and sent him to assist Nikolai KASATKIN; Archimandrite Andronic was then ordained as the bishop of Kyoto. The ordination was held at the cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
On March 8, 1907, he arrived at the port of Tsuruga, where the priest Simeon Michiro MITSUI of the Kyoto Orthodox Church was waiting to welcome him. He performed the annunciation on April 7, 1907, at the Kyoto Orthodox Church (Kyoto Annunciation Cathedral).
In late April of 1907, while staying in Tokyo, he was assigned to the city of Osaka, and this despite his title "Bishop of Kyoto." (It is not uncommon for the Eastern Orthodox Church to assign priests to areas that are at variance with their titles.)
He performed Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Easter, Bright Week, and Saint Thomas Sunday at the Osaka Orthodox Church. But his health soon declined, so he went back to Russia at the end of June after a stay of just three months.
Martyrdom in the Russian Revolution
For ten years after returning to Russia, Andronic had a leadership role in the Russian Orthodox Church, along with Sergius STRAGORODSKY, who was also part of the 1898 mission to Japan that Andronic had joined. But the Russian Orthodox Church suffered terrible oppression once the Bolsheviks--who advocated atheism and instituted a campaign of religious persecution--came to power following the Russian Revolution.
Archbishop Andronic (he had been promoted to Archbishop in April 1918) was martyred on June 22, 1918; first he was buried alive in a grave in the Perm Forest which he had been forced to dig himself, and then was shot to death by the Bolshevik secret police. He was forty-seven years old.
Canonization
The Russian Orthodox Church canonized Andronic as a New Martyr in August 2000. Daniel (Ikuo) NUSHIRO, the Metropolitan Bishop of All Japan, and Seraphim Noboru TSUJIE, Bishop of Eastern Japan, attended the canonization ceremony as representatives of the Japanese Orthodox Church. In February 2004, an icon of St. Andronik, which the Kyoto Orthodox Church had asked to draw, was sent from Moscow.