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==Early Years==
When Archimandrite Nicholas moved the center of his mission from Hakodate to Tokyo in 1872, his initial efforts were to establish a school for catechists and the Russian language as he had recognized the need to establish a ‘native’ 'native' base for evangelizing Orthodox Christianity. His early converts, [[Paul Sawabe]], John Sakai, and others had been very successful in reaching out to the Japanese population. As money was raised, this move was followed a year later by a new building to support the schools. Additionally he started a school for women. After teaching music himself for two years, Nicholas began looking for a professor of Church Music. Hieromonk [[Anatoly TikhayTikhai]], who had succeeded to Nicholas’ Nicholas' Hakodate position, recommended his brother [[Yakov Tikhai]] who was graduating from a seminary in Moldavia. Jakov accepted the position and arrived in Japan in late 1874 and quickly began learning the Japanese language.
Nicholas established the seminary in 1880 by combining the mission schools and the language school.
In time the Theological Seminary became the center of Orthodox Christian religious education in Japan as other institutions were added to the language, catechists, and women’s schools. These included adding a women’s college, an orphanage, an iconography studio, and choral schools, as well as a printing facility.
The system of teaching as developed by Bp. Nicholas relied upon former graduates to teach the lower classes while Bp. Nicholas or various visiting clergy would teach the upper classes. Gradually Japanese teachers and professors replaced the Russian faculty and more and more of the class work was done in Japanese. By 1912, the Japanese language had replaced Russian as the language of instruction in the seminary.
==Studies==