Tokyo, March 27, 2026
Photo: mospat.ru
The primate of the autonomous Japanese Orthodox Church marked his 75th birthday on March 23, with celebrations held the previous day at Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo during the Liturgy for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent.
His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim of Tokyo and All Japan was elected primate of the Japanese Orthodox Church in September 2023, following the repose of His Eminence Metropolitan Daniel, who had led the Church for 23 years.
Met. Seraphim was concelebrated by His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations. The service was celebrated in Japanese and Church Slavonic, the DECR reports.
During the Liturgy, a prayer was offered for the repose of His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia of Georgia.
Following the dismissal of the Divine Liturgy, Archpriest Marko Koike Yukiyuki, Chancellor of the local Diocesan Administration, addressed the faithful on behalf of the clergy and laity of the Japanese Orthodox Church and presented Met. Seraphim with a bouquet of flowers.
Photo: mospat.ru
Met. Anthony then read aloud a letter of congratulation from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, and presented Met. Seraphim with the Order of St. Nikolai of Japan, Equal-to-the-Apostles, 1st class, along with two episcopal Panagias and a pectoral cross.
In his letter, Pat. Kirill praised Met. Seraphim’s decades of devoted service in Christ’s vineyard and noted that, having come to know and love God in his mature years, the Metropolitan had dedicated his life to God. The Patriarch expressed his wish that Met. Seraphim’s strength in serving the Orthodox Christians of the land of the rising sun be renewed in blessing.
Met. Seraphim responded with words of gratitude and presented two fragments of the relics of St. Nikolai of Japan, encased in specially crafted lacquer boxes with gold-leaf crosses, one for Pat. Kirill and one for Met. Anthony.
The service concluded with three-fold singing of “Many Years” for the Metropolitan, after which he blessed the faithful.
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