With an estimated 80 million members worldwide, the Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Nippon Sei Ko Kai has approximately 32,000 members organised into eleven dioceses and found in local church congregations throughout Japan.[1]
The Japan Mission of the American Church; Church Work in the Dioceses of Tokyo and 15
Anglican church mission work in Japan started with the British Loochoo Naval Mission on the outlying Ryukyu Islands in May 1846.[2] George Jones, a United States Navy chaplain traveling with the Expedition of Commodore Perry, led the first recorded Anglican burial service on Japanese soil at Yokohama on 9 March 1854.[3][4] More permanent mission priests of the Episcopal Church, John Liggins and Channing Moore Williams, arrived in the treaty port of Nagasaki in May and June 1859.[5][6] After the opening of the port of Yokohama in June 1859, Anglicans in the foreign community gathered for worship services in the British consul's residence. A British consular chaplain, Michael Buckworth Bailey, arrived in August 1862 and after a successful fundraising campaign Christ Church, Yokohama, was dedicated on 18 October 1863.[7]
By 1879, through cooperative work between the various Anglican missions, the largest part of the Book of Common Prayer had been translated and published in Japanese. A full version of the text being completed by 1882.[16] On Palm Sunday 1883, Nobori Kanai and Masakazu Tai, graduates of the Tokyo theological school were ordained by Bishop Williams as the first Japanese deacons in the church.[17] In 1888, the Anglican Church of Canada also began missionary work in Japan, later mainly focusing on Nagoya and Central Japan.[18]
In addition to the work of ordained church ministers, much of the positive public profile enjoyed by Anglican Church in Japan during this early mission period was due to the work of lay missionaries working to establish schools, universities and medical facilities. Significant among this group were missionary women such as Ellen G. Eddy at St. Agnes' School in Osaka, Alice Hoar at St. Hilda's School and Florence Pitman at St. Margaret's School, both located in Tokyo. Hannah Riddell who established the Kaishun Hospital for leprosy sufferers in Kumamoto and Mary Cornwall-Legh who ran a similar facility in Kusatsu, Gunma, were both honored by the Japanese Government for their work.[19]
The first synod of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai met in Osaka in February 1887. At this meeting, instigated by Bishop Edward Bickersteth and presided over by Bishop Williams, it was agreed to unite the various Anglican missionary efforts in Japan into one autonomous national church; the Nippon Sei Ko Kai. The 17 European and American participants at the first Synod were outnumbered by 14 other clergy and 50 Japanese lay delegates.[20]
By 1906 the Nippon Sei Ko Kai was reported to have grown to 13,000 members, of whom 6,880 were communicants with a Japanese led ordained ministry of 42 priests and 22 deacons.[26] Henry St. George Tucker, President of St. Paul's College and in 1913 appointed Bishop of Kyoto, was one of the foremost missionary leaders of the period who advocated that an independent, Japanese-led and self-supporting church was the only way in which Christianity could be carried to the wider population of Japan. Initiatives were put in place to help grow the financial self-sufficiency of church congregations and the first Japanese bishops, John Yasutaro Naide, Bishop of Osaka and Joseph Sakunoshin Motoda, Bishop of Tokyo, were consecrated in 1923.[27]
During the 1930s, as overseas funding and the number of foreign Anglican missionaries in Japan declined, new challenges arose for Nippon Sei Ko Kai church leadership and laity from the increasing focus on Shinto as a state prescribed religion and the growing influence of militarism in domestic and foreign policy. Christianity was portrayed by many nationalist politicians at the time as incompatible with the loyalty of Japanese subjects. In response the Nippon Sei Ko Kai issued periodic statements in support of the Imperial Army.[28] And the first half of the 20th century saw NSKK's overseas expansion. Taiwan Sheng Kung Hui was established, several Japanese-language churches, such as Dalian Sheng Kung Hui Church, were built in Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui's Northern China Diocese in Manchuria, and the Anglican Church of Korea was absorbed by the NSKK.
The church, at both a national and local level, works to support disadvantaged, marginalized, or discriminated against communities in Japan,[41][42] as well as communities in Tohoku impacted by the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, tsunami and subsequent crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear generating plant.[43]
Eight of the NSKK's dioceses ordain women to the diaconate and priesthood. The NSKK has ordained women to the priesthood since 1998.[44] Women have been ordained to the diaconate since 1978, and the first woman to be ordained a deacon and, later, as a priest was Margaret Shibukawa Ryoko.[45] In 2021, the Diocese of Hokkaido elected Grace Trazu Sasamori as bishop, making her the first woman to be elected bishop in the church.[46]
There are currently eleven dioceses in the Nippon Sei Ko Kai and over three hundred church and chapel congregations spread across the country. Notable churches in each diocese from north to south include:
The school was then transferred again to Osaka and placed under the care of Kimura San, Miss Mailes 'a faithful helper. [34/35] In 1898 she wrote: "There are five students in the house. They are all very earnest and study well. Since coming to Osaka they have been helping the work in the churches. Bishop Williams lives next door to the home, and so is able to oversee all that goes on in it. He holds prayers every day at St. Timothy's at 7:30 A. M. Please do not be anxious about the work here, for it is going on very happily." Besides the regular Bible lessons, training in teaching the Bible to unbelievers, and organ lessons, were given.
The course of instruction covers three years, and after graduation the students are expected to work for two years in the Church. The curriculum covers the Old and the New Testament, the Prayer Book, Christian Evidences and Christian Doctrine, Church History, psychology, child study, normal classes in Sunday-school methods, English, church music and ecclesiastical sewing including the care of altar linen. For practical work the students teach in Holy Trinity Sunday-school and visit the homes of their pupils. The school year is from Michaelmas to St. Peter's Day. Two months of the summer are devoted by the students to work in the various country stations under the direction of the minister-in-charge.
The work of the school is much hampered by its inadequate quarters, but when a church and parish house, for which the sum of $3,500 has been asked, are erected at Fukui, and the school is able to open its doors to a greater number of students, we can look for even more successful and progressive work than has been accomplished in the past.
Nara is an important educational centre and likewise a stronghold of Buddhism. One of the first and most influential mission stations established by the American Church was at Nara. The first church there was built in 1887, and the congregation placed under the care of Mr. Dooman, who went to Nara to live. He opened the mission Middle School. From a secular point of view this school always did well. It held a Government license, and ranked [39/40] very high among the middle schools of the country. In 1896 money was raised to erect new buildings. The school was partly self-supporting, and was helped generously by the native Christians. But the systematic teaching of Christianity to the students was never encouraged, and the influence of the teachers was not strongly Christian in its character. Accordingly Bishop Partridge, shortly after reaching Japan, thought it best to close the school.
The Hakuaisha or Widely Loving Society Orphanage is an institution in one of the suburbs of Osaka devoted to the Christian training and education of orphans and destitute children. Although not under Church control, it is managed by devoted churchmen and churchwomen, and receives the support and approval of the Bishop in its work. It is governed by a Board of directors who are mostly members of the Church. The present head of the institution is Mr. Kobashi, who with Mrs. Kobashi and Miss Hayashi runs the orphanage. The chaplain is Mr. Naide, rector of Christ Church, Osaka.
Kawagoe is the oldest of the out-stations in the northern district. Mr. Tai and Mr. Kanai began work there in the early eighties, and the church was built in 1889. The present kindergarten was started by Deaconess Ranson and Miss Heywood in 1907 in a rented house. Mr. Tai had already [65/66] had a small kindergarten, but it had dwindled to almost nothing, and the three or four children who remained met informally in the house of the former teacher. In May, 1908, the Bishop bought a foreign style house in a different part of the city, and the two kindergartens were united as the Hatsukari or "Wild Goose" (the former name of Kawagoe) Kindergarten. In Japan, the parents of the children leave the matter of their attendance at kindergarten to their own choice. At first many little ones, curious to see what this new thing was, crowded to Miss Heywood and the Deaconess, but they soon tired of the novelty, and left again. Upon this the Bishop decided that it would be better to move the kindergarten and supplied money with which to buy some land in a different part of the city. At the time of this change, certain necessary alterations were made in the house, and now, although the building is not ideal, the essentials at least are secured.
St. John's Kindergarten was begun in 1910 by Miss Bacon, who had been appointed that year for the special purpose of starting work of this kind in Kyoto. St. John's was Bishop Williams's parish while he ministered in Kyoto, and the church was the last one built by him before leaving Japan. The kindergarten is held in two well-lighted and well-ventilated rooms on the ground floor of the church. There is a good-sized yard, around the sides of which are twenty small gardens in which both vegetables and flowers are planted and tended by the children. 2ff7e9595c
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