Episcopal Press and News

JAPAN: Anglican church to celebrate 150th anniversary

Episcopal News Service. September 9, 2009 [090909-03]

Matthew Davies

When two Episcopal Church missionaries landed at Nagasaki in southwestern Japan in 1859, it marked the beginning of Anglicanism in Japan.

One hundred and fifty years later, the Anglican Church in Japan, known locally as the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (NSKK), will celebrate its sesquicentennial anniversary with a series of events planned for September 22-23.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will be among the many international guests expected to participate in the celebrations.

"We have been planning this event for some time, and there is growing excitement among the Anglican community in Japan. We anticipate that many people will gather from around the country to celebrate this milestone together," said a September 8 news release from the NSKK. "We are also inviting representatives from our sister churches throughout Asia, as well as from those provinces and organizations which have been instrumental in building up the Anglican presence in this country."

The theme of the celebration will be "Set Out into the Deep," taken from Luke 5:4.

The anniversary celebrations will kick off with various events and presentations on September 22, including a photo display of the history of NSKK, a symposium for peace in East Asia, a lunchtime concert given by the Anglican Church of Korea choir, and a fellowship party to which all are invited. Jefferts Schori will preach at Evening Prayer on September 22.

As many as 2,000 people, including ecumenical and international guests, are expected to join a celebration of Holy Eucharist at 1:30 p.m. on September 23. The Most Rev. Nathaniel Makoto Uematsu, NSKK primate, will celebrate and Williams will preach.

The Archbishop of Canterbury also will meet with the church's youth and receive an honorary degree from Rikkyo University on September 21. Williams will stay in Japan for one week, during which time he will visit Anglican schools in Tokyo and Osaka and travel to Nagasaki in Kyushu Island, where the first Anglican mission was established. (Nagasaki is also one of two places where the United States dropped an atomic bomb during the Second World War.)

The NSKK traces its formal origins to June 1859 when the Rev. Channing Moore Williams, missionary priest and later missionary bishop of the U.S.-based Episcopal Church, landed at Nagasaki in southwestern Japan and joined the Rev. John Liggins, who had docked one month earlier. Some years later, other missionaries from England, the U.S. and Canada arrived and began working in Japan.

"The common vision of the missionaries was always the formation of an independent Japanese church supported by Japanese Anglicans," the 11 NSKK bishops said in a recent pastoral letter.

The first General Synod of NSKK was held in Osaka in 1887 and the first Japanese bishops were consecrated in 1923.

"In addition to planting churches, the NSKK was active in the fields of preschool child-care, secondary education, medicine, and social welfare. This work continues to this day, thanks to the efforts of the overseas missionaries as well as countless Japanese clergy and lay people. We express our heartfelt gratitude for their dedication," the bishops said in their letter.

Referring to the 150th anniversary, the NSKK release said: "We pray that this will be a time to look back and give thanks and celebrate together, and also to look forward with renewed hope to the ongoing mission of the church in Japan."