Citing the Nichiren Shoshu’s lack of will to reform, Takudo Hosoi, the son of late High Priest Nittatsu, has seceded from Nichiren Shoshu. As reported in the Nov. 2 World Tribune, Mr. Hosoi, chief priest of Jisshu-ji temple in Adachi Ward, Tokyo, issued a letter of remonstration titled “Exhortation for the Reformation of the Priesthood” on Oct. 18 in which he urged priests throughout Japan to unite behind a movement for reform within the priesthood.

On Nov. 2, Mr. Hosoi announced that he had sent a letter to High Priest Nikken stating his decision to secede from Nichiren Shoshu because he felt that efforts for change could be more effectively pursued outside Nichiren Shoshu.

According to sources within the priesthood, Mr. Hosoi’s Oct. 18 letter sent a shock wave through the Nichiren Shoshu, prompting at least 50 priests to express their solidarity with him. Nichiren Shoshu’s response—General Administrator Fujimoto’s call for an emergency conference to stop Hosoi, and Nikken’s wife Masako’s attempts to contain him by manipulating his relatives—was to no avail. On Oct. 28, Mr. Hosoi issued a second Nichiren Shoshu internal memorandum once again calling for change.

Equally jarring to Nichiren Shoshu was that the executive board of Mr. Hosoi’s temple, composed entirely of Hokkeko leaders, also decided to break away. A schism splitting the priesthood has begun to divide an organization whose allegiance Nikken has come to take for granted.

Translated from the Nov. 5, 1992 Seikyo Shimbun