When The Rt. Rev. Channing Moore Williams was buried on a hillside in 1910 in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery, no one could have imagined what would transpire there 115 years later.
Along the narrow cemetery road earlier this spring, a charter bus squeezed as far as it could before dropping off 48 secondary students and teachers from Tokyo. Hauling musical instruments up the hill, they marked a nearly 7,000-mile pilgrimage to honor Williams—the founder of a small Bible school that is now a major private educational complex: their Rikkyo Ikebukuro Junior and Senior High School and Rikkyo University (enrollment: 20,000 students).
“Almighty and everlasting God, you brought Bishop Channing Moore Williams to Japan for the establishment of the bases of the Episcopal Church and to let the light of the Gospel shine in that country,” they prayed in a March 23 service conducted mostly in Japanese, with a printed program translated into English. “Give us, who remember and give thanks for him, a grace to follow his example of proclaiming only the Gospel, not the self.”
Transformed Between Reality and Beliefs
Behind a large purple banner with their school’s name, the students performed, “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me,” using Williams’ Japanese translation. (Williams also translated parts of the Prayer Book into Japanese.) Next to his traditional gravestone is a weathered memorial partly in Japanese.
His legacy endures through a selflessness that reflected authentic faith, as described by Michael Sangnin Lee, the Rikkyo priest who gave the homily.
“Our act of remembering the dead is not mere nostalgia,” Lee said. “The Holy Spirit testifies that remembering the dead leads us toward a truer life, one that is not lost between reality and ideas but instead transformed by them.”
This month—May—is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage (AAPI) Month, which highlights the first Japanese arrivals to the United States in 1843. In that same era, Williams went to Japan for a calling that would last a half-century.
Williams (1829-1910) grew up rooted in Richmond’s Episcopal community. He was named for the second Bishop of Virginia (Richard Channing Moore, also buried at Hollywood Cemetery); his father headed the vestry and Sunday school at Monumental Church.
While attending Virginia Theological Seminary, Williams became interested in missions. In 1859, he arrived in Japan as it was transforming from a feudal society that restricted the teaching of Christianity. In 1874, he founded St. Paul’s School, which became Rikkyo University.
“In a period when Christianity was severely oppressed, I am sure it must have been an immense hardship to establish a private school to teach Bible studies and English,” Rikkyo University President Renta Nishihara noted. “However, Bishop Williams was convinced that teaching was his mission and chose the path of education even though the demand was so little.”
In 1873, Williams became the Bishop of Edo (Tokyo). He brought together various missions to form the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, the Anglican-Episcopal Church of Japan, in 1887. Today it spans nearly 300 churches in 11 dioceses, about 22,000 members, and more than 180 active clergy.
Rikkyo historical materials describe Williams as “a studious, sincere, humble man, who led a life of hard work, faith, and sincerity. To express the way he lived and taught, his students honored him with the phrase: ‘Teach the way, not the self,’ meaning that he saw the selfless pursuit of truth as the goal of free academic inquiry.”
That attitude toward life and knowledge “has not been lost,” Nishahara wrote. Rikkyo graduates “search for universal truth and work for a better world.”
A Dynamic Legacy
On the Rikkyo main campus, a statue of Williams marks the entrance of All Saints Chapel. “The Middle Road,” a new, short film inspired by Williams’ work in Japan, is free to watch online.
Through the Bishop Channing Moore Williams Course, graduate students can acquire a master’s degree in one year. This opportunity is aimed at people working on the front lines of Christian missions such as priests, pastors, and chaplains; Bible and religious department teaching faculty; organists and choir directors; and staff members of Christian nongovernmental organizations or nonprofits.
The Bishop Williams Memorial Fund of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai reflects the “continuing need to exert every effort to carry out the mission entrusted to us by Bishop Williams: to undergird the education and research conducted at our educational institutions with the precepts of Christianity and the spirit of Christian faith.”
A Rikkyo group makes the pilgrimage to Richmond every decade or so, and this group marked their university’s 150th birthday. They were led by their English teacher Jon Forber, and received critical logistical and historical help from Nathan Madison, historiographer of The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, who also spoke at the graveside service. As part of the trip, the orchestra members also performed a concert at St. James’s Episcopal Church, and its interim rector, The Rev. Penny A. Nash, offered readings and prayers at the memorial service.
Diocese of Virginia Bishop E. Mark Stevenson honored the Japanese pilgrimage with a proclamation read in Japanese at the graveside service:
“Let their visit be a testament to the historic, unbreakable ties between the Nippon Sei Ko Kai and the Diocese of Virginia. We give thanks for the ministry and zeal of Channing Moore Williams, Bishop in your Church and lover of souls across the globe. And we give thanks for the relationship his ministry created between the Nippon Sei Ko Kai and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. May these blessings continue to inspire generations of Christians to fall more deeply in love with Jesus, and to know his love in return.”