Today, the Christian world is divided into three major denominations.

These are the Eastern Orthodox Church (Orthodox), the Western Church (Roman Catholic), and the Protestant Church, which arose as a result of the Reformation. The Eastern Orthodox and Western Churches can also be divided into two groups: the "Old Church" and the Protestant Church, which can be divided into two groups called the "New Church. Culturally, the Western Church (Roman Catholicism) is the church of the Latin culture, while the Eastern Orthodox Church was nurtured in the Greek culture.

​

The reason why the "Eastern Orthodox Church" is called the "Greek Orthodox Church" is that it is a church that was propagated in the Greek cultural sphere, not that it is a "church in the country of Greece. Of course, Greek Orthodoxy is the state religion in Greece, but St. Cyrus and St. Methodius, who were Greeks, created the Slavic alphabet as a written language based on the Greek alphabet to educate the Slavs, who had not used letters until then.

​

The Orthodox Church became the center of missionary activity in Russia after the Byzantine Empire, and many Mongolians and Northern Finns converted to Christianity following the Slavs. Eventually, the Orthodox Church indigenous to Russia became the state religion of Russia, becoming the "Russian Orthodox Church," a "Russified Greek Orthodox Church.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

The Japanese Orthodox Church was a church propagated by Nikolai from Russia. The traditions and rituals within the church, as well as the dress of the clergy, were based on Byzantine traditions and Russianized versions were passed down to Japan.

​

Orthodoxy" is called "orthodox" in Greek and "orthodox" in English. This word means "right" (orthos) and "prayer" (doxa), and it clearly expresses the characteristics of the Orthodox Church. We attach great importance to prayer. We believe that the loving communion between God and man is found only in prayer. We express our love for God, our gratitude to God, and our petitions to God in the form of prayer. The Orthodox Church has inherited this essence of prayer since the time of the apostles. That is why we call ourselves "Orthodox.

​

The Orthodox Church in Japan has been officially an autonomous church (financially independent and independently run on a day-to-day basis) for more than 50 years since 1970 and historically even before that, maintaining the church according to the will of the Japanese congregation, not the will of Russia.