FATHER Nicholas looked this sword-wielding warrior in the eyes. How strange it was, he said softly, that one could kill a man for his beliefs without knowing what they were! Takuma was so taken aback that he found his fever of hatred had left him, and the two men fell into discussion.

Next morning, Nicholas sat down with Takuma and began going through the Old Testament, patiently answering his objections and queries until they began to die away.

Now it was Nicholas’s turn to wonder. Takuma absorbed every name and notion, and in due course even brought along two friends. Christianity was still distrusted by the authorities, and conversion to it was forbidden, but Takuma and his two companions were all baptised in April 1868, with Takuma taking the name of Paul.

In 1871, Paul was ordained as Japan’s first native-born Orthodox priest, and thereafter fought the good fight for Japan’s rapidly growing Christian communities alongside Nicholas Kasatkin, the man he went to kill.