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Who We Are
St. Alban's parish community is international and culturally diverse. It includes a large number of Japanese people who enjoy the English-language service and contact with people from all over the world. Many members are leaders in their respective fields. A number are sent to Japan by a diplomatic corps or multinational company, and stay with their families here on 2-3 year assignments. Others come on their own as students, teachers or workers in other sectors of the economy. We also have a small core of long-term foreign residents of Tokyo who have continued faithful service at St. Alban's.

Many people come to St. Alban's initially seeking a temporary church home, often continuing pledges to their home churches. In addition, there is a small but steady inflow of returning business or embassy people, who already have a spiritual connection with St. Alban's. What people find at St. Alban's is a support base and a warm "extended family" while they are in a place where they often feel isolated and disconnected. St. Alban's attracts people from many different church backgrounds, as well as many people who are exploring Christianity, often for the first time.

Our current church directory lists over 400 people (including children), although given the high turnover rate at St. Alban's (about 30% each year), it is almost impossible to take an exact "head count." The majority of the congregation is composed of native English speakers from the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia. We also have a number of members from Africa and the Middle East. - and, as already mentioned, an increasing number of Japanese.

Church History
St. Alban's is the only English-speaking congregation among the 35 churches and seven chapels in the Diocese of Tokyo, and its members come from many nations -- currently 15 -- as well as Japan. The diocese is one of 11 in the Nippon Seikokai (NSKK = the Anglican Church in Japan). The 11 dioceses comprise 291 parishes and 37 chapels throughout the country.

The congregation of St. Alban's first gathered on December 7, 1954. The building, designed by Antonin Raymond, a well-known Czech-American architect who lived in Japan for many years, was consecrated on March 17, 1956, by the Right Reverend Timothy Makita, Bishop of Tokyo at the time.

St. Alban's history is intricately tied up in the histories of Japan and our home countries. The direct predecessor of St. Alban's, called St. Andrew's, was built in 1878 as a mission church and place of worship for a Japanese congregation. The mission grounds also harbored the Cathedral for South Tokyo and later all of Tokyo.

Fr. Alexander Croft Shaw, a missionary priest, celebrated the first service on the site on June 4, 1879. From the beginning, the mission church served as a place of worship for an English congregation as well, primarily from the British Embassy in Tokyo. English-language services in the Anglican tradition have been conducted on the site almost continuously since that time.

While St. Andrew's was associated with the Church of England, missionaries from the American Episcopal Church operated from their own church in Tokyo. For decades before World War II, the two groups talked about merging, but were never able to realize this goal. With the advent of the War, as many expatriates fled the country, it became expedient for the foreign-administered churches to give over control of their properties to the NSKK, to avoid their being seized by the government. Only after the war was the dream of a unified British-American parish fulfilled, with the establishment of St. Alban's on the campus. Meanwhile, St. Andrew's Cathedral remained the house of worship for the Japanese congregation. The Tokyo Diocesan offices were also built on the campus.

The St. Alban's and St. Andrew's churches, like our histories, are intertwined. At St. Alban's, we use a translation of the Japanese liturgy. Our church and Rectory are on the cathedral grounds, owned by the NSKK. We are the only church in Tokyo to have the opportunity of a "twinned" relationship with a Japanese church.

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