Updated at 12:57 p.m., Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Jodo Mission elects 1st non-Japanese bishop
Advertiser Staff
|
Wansa of Kurtistown and Hakalau Jodo Mission was chosen during the 36th Hawaii Council of Jodo Mission's Convention.
Outgoing Bishop Ryokan Nakamura will remain at Honolulu Betsuin as a researcher for the Jodo Missions of Hawaii Research Center.
Wansa was born in Sri Lanka in 1950 and became a novice Buddhist monk at age 13. His wife, Aruni, recently graduated from the college of business at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo; son Evan is in seventh grade.
Wansa went to Japan and lived at Amidaji Temple in Kobe, where he studied the chants and scriptures of Jodo-shu Buddhism from the Rev. Shunjo Tosa. He graduated from Bukkyo University in Kyoto. After being ordained a Jodo-shu Buddhist priest at the Chion-in Temple, the headquarter temple of Jodo-shu in Japan, he came to Hawai'i as a minister at Jodo Mission of Hawaii in 1978.
In 1979, he was assigned to Kurtistown Jodo Mission and has also been serving as minister for Hakalau Jodo Mission since 2000.
