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Primate of Nippon Seikokai Visits U.S.

Diocesan Press Service. November 21, 1973 [73249]

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The Most Rev. John Naohiko Okubo, Bishop of North Kanto and Primate of the Nippon Seikokai (Holy Catholic Church in Japan), has just concluded an official visit to the American Episcopal Church. His stay in New York City included a visit with the Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Mrs. Okubo accompanied him on his trip.

Primate of the Nippon Seikokai since his election in April, 1971, Bishop Okubo is also diocesan in North Kanto (since 1947) and Chancellor of Rikkyo University. He divides his time equally among the three responsibilities.

Leaving New York City, Bishop and Mrs. Okubo made calls in the Dioceses of Washington (D.C.), Los Angeles, Spokane, and Olympia (Seattle), visiting various Japanese congregations in those dioceses.

Prior to coming to New York City, Bishop Okubo attended two services of thanksgiving in Toronto. The services, held at St. Andrew's Church which is a Japanese congregation, and at St. James Cathedral, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the arrival in Japan of the Ven. Alexander Croft Shaw, Canada's first Anglican missionary in that country. Thirty former missionaries to Japan came to Toronto from throughout Canada to share in the services, and were personally greeted by Bishop Okubo.

While in Toronto, Bishop Okubo was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by Trinity College in a special convocation.

In an interview, Bishop Okubo said that the Nippon Seikokai has "immeasurably strengthened " since World War II, so that each of the 11 dioceses is now independent, although the number of communicants has not markedly increased. But financially, he said, the Church, little by little, has been growing in strength in terms of its own self-support.

Last year, he said, when the Diocese of Okinawa returned from the American Episcopal Church to the Nippon Seikokai, the Church was in a position to be of some financial assistance to the new diocese.

Prior to World War II, the Japanese Church was assisted with missionary personnel and finances by Anglican churches in England, Canada and the United States. Missionary work, dating from 1859 when Bishop Channing Williams of the U.S. Church arrived in Japan, was suspended in 1941 because of the strong anti-foreign sentiment that developed in Japan. Under pressure from the government, the Japanese Church asked all foreign bishops and clergy to resign, and the Church was declared independent of financial aid from abroad. Thus, the Church became an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion.

From 1887, when the first General Synod was organized, until 1941, the Japanese Church operated with its own constitution and canons, though foreign bishops and clergy were supported from funds from England, Canada and the United States.

"The Japanese Church suffered severely during World War II," Bishop Okubo said, "so that in 1945 the Church was impoverished and in desperate straits. From then until now the Japanese Church has been in the process of recovering from that disastrous period. "

The Nippon Seikokai, composed of 11 dioceses, has 30,000 communicants and 60,000 baptized members. The entire Christian population of Japan is about one million, though from two to three million have been influenced by Christianity through schools, hospitals and community life.

Bishop Okubo said that the Japanese Church is now able to reach out beyond Japan. Japan is the great nation of Asia, he said, and, along with the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., is one of the great nations of the world. The churches of East Asia are beginning to look to Japan for leadership, he said.

Though not a member of the Council of the Church of Southeast Asia, the Nippon Seikokai is invited to send an observer to their meetings. Dioceses in Japan and in Korea have established companion diocese relationships with one another, he said.

Bishop Okubo said that there is great interest in Japan, as well as in the U.S., in the status of the Anglican Church in the People's Republic of China. Bishop Paul Juji Ogasawara of the Diocese of Mid-Japan visited mainland China as a member of a political group, he said, but he was not able to establish contact with any remnants of the Anglican Church.

On the question of the ordination of women to the priesthood, Bishop Okubo said that the issue "has become a big thing in Japanese churches" as it is in the U.S. He said that there is a special committee studying the question. The committee undertook a survey throughout the Church and found that two-thirds of those responding, both clergy and laity, favor the ordination of women to the priesthood. The one-third who opposed the ordination of women were women, "probably revealing the nature of the Japanese woman and her feelings," he said. Mrs. Okubo said that she opposes the ordination of women to the priesthood because "it is too soon. "

Bishop Okubo said that attracting and holding the youth of Japan by the Church is a difficult problem. " It's not that the students of Japan are against religion," he said, "but their problem is with the structure."

But he said that "if there is some kind of new movement, such as the ordination of women, the Japanese Church finds that there is great interest among the youth."

"The hope," he said, "is that there will be other ways in which the Church will be free enough to move outside the structure " to attract the young people.

He said that a movement from the Church in Korea has been very popular with the young people in Japan. One principle of this movement is that they go back to the Acts of the Apostles and the first generation Christian community. "Children of rich families and of poor families come together," he said, "and they take jobs and pool their resources and share. This has a very strong pulling power to the young people in Japan. "

"The old continuing worship services do not prove to be attractive to the young people," he said, "but if there is a folk mass with guitars and that sort of thing, a great many young people will come." Through these new forms, he said, they will learn the meaning of the Eucharist.

As chaplain and chancellor of Rikkyo University, he said, he finds that "many young people come to All Saints' Chapel, but if there isn't something new, they don't stay very long."

Bishop Okubo said that while the financial assistance which the American Episcopal Church provides the Nippon Seikokai will continue to be important, his hope is that the American Church might be able to help the Japanese Church in the field of theological education. "There are many young clergy in the Japanese Church," he said, "who need to go abroad for further study," and he hopes many of them can come to the U.S.

"However, " he said, " I hope for an exchange, a flow of people from the United States to Japan -- bishops, clergy, lay people -- but especially bishops. "

He hopes that those who may come to Japan will not only be sightseers but will get to know the Japanese Church. "Japan is a country that is changing so rapidly," he said, ' and our bishops and clergy are in the midst of this and they can't perceive always how fast it's changing and where it's moving. One of the assistances that could be rendered by people coming in from the outside and going around and seeing the Japanese Church would be to give an outsider's evaluation of what he sees. The Nippon Seikokai would greatly value the advice and the perspective of someone coming to visit them from the outside."