Notes on Quakerism in Japan

A photocopy of a brochure printed in 1944 had been floating around the Friends Center in Tokyo.  Almost a year after the launch of the unofficial web site of the Tokyo Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), I was given a photocopy which I have scanned and posted at this site.

The brochure leaves the reader at a nadir of Quakerism in Japan, as Japanese Quakers temporarily disband - and begs for the second half century of the sect's history be properly recorded in English and shared with the rest of the world.  Should the reader wonder, during the post-World War II Occupation, the Japanese Friends movement was rejuvinated and had its post-war hey day during the 1960's when the anti-war sentiment was the strongest among young people.

Today there remain two active groups - the Tokyo group that meets at the original Hijirizaka location described in this brochure from which this web site is based; and the Mito group that is still quite active in Ibaraki Prefecture.

-- Tom Coyner
Tokyo
April 1999