One of the most important relationships for Oomoto’s interfaith work has been the bond with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Both the Cathedral and Oomoto were founded in the same year, 1892, and thus share over a century of history.
The relationship began when Oomoto performed a Shinto ceremony at the Cathedral to open the Oomoto Art Exhibition in New York on March 12, 1975. In February 1977 Dean Morton of the Cathedral traveled to Japan to perform an Episcopal ceremony, the “Kiss of Peace” at the Oomoto Headquarters in Ayabe.
From these beginnings, Oomoto and the Cathedral have participated in numerous joint worship services, from prayers for peace at Mt. Sinai (1979 and 1984), to the gala celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations, held at the Cathedral in October 1995.
In addition to joint worship, the Cathedral and Oomoto established an exchange program, whereby Cathedral people attended the Oomoto School of Traditional Japanese Arts, and Oomoto people lived at the Cathedral for a few months.
The New Age
Says Dean Morton of the prayer services with Oomoto:
- The Exhibition came and they asked me if they could have their ritual in the Cathedral because it was a church, and they wanted to thank God for being there. What happened was truly earth-shattering because there was this Shinto ceremony in the Cathedral. I felt very grateful, but it didn’t hit me on the head until the year later when Kyotaro Deguchi asked me if I would go to Japan and reciprocate.
- Then the point was driven home to me what this had meant to him. He saw it as the New Age. I saw it as the New Age when he asked me to do my thing at his house, and that was the moment of truth. He was saying “Worship God your way in my house,” which means, “We’ll be worshipping God together.”
