Practitioner of religion, bishop of the Orthodox Church. Born in Kochi, the son of a samurai of the Kochi Clan. He studied at the private school managed by Hanpeita Takechi with his cousin Ryoma Sakamoto and others, and moved up to Edo in 1851. Later he went over to Hakodate and married into the family of Koji Sawabe, Shinto priest of Shinmeisha. After holding a dialogue with Bishop Nicolai of the Russian consulate concerning heresy, he was baptized by Nicolai in 1868. As the first Japanese adherent of the Orthodox Church, he engaged in the propagation of the church and became its senior bishop.