Father Anatoly Tikhai was a hieromonk who went to Japan in the early 1870s to assist Fr. Nicholas in his missionary work in Japan. Initially, the future St. Nicholas of Japan assigned Fr. Anatoly to his original church in Hakodate on Hokkaido island in northern Japan. During his years in Japan before he returned to Russia due to illness, Archimandrite Anatoly organized and taught schools in Hakodate and Osaka as well as serving as dean of the language school and organizing the in Tokyo.