Sep 28, 2020 (Nikkei) - The new coronavirus has people everywhere avoiding crowded spaces, and in Japan that includes temples. The number of services for the traditional Buddhist holidays of Bon and Higan has fallen, putting some temples under financial strain.
Temples were already facing a falling number of parishioners because of Japan's shrinking population, and the pandemic has exacerbated the issue. "If the situation continues, it could lead some temples to close," said one expert. "Each denomination should consider some kind of organizational support."
"The number of visits I made to parishioners fell sharply this summer," said the 44-year-old chief priest of a temple in the Osaka Prefecture city of Sakai. About 270 households attend services at his temple. "If the coronavirus drags on, I'm not sure I can maintain my relationship with them."
In a normal year, the temple offers a Bon service called Tanagyo, which involves the priest going to temple members' homes and reciting sutras as part of a memorial service for their ancestors. Offerings during the Bon season often exceed 1.5 million yen ($14,200), and they are used to pay for temple maintenance and to cover the monks' salaries.
In previous years the priest would visit almost every household, but this year the situation changed completely. From July, one household after another declined his Tanagyo visits. The priest is thorough in trying to prevent any spread of the infection, checking his temperature every morning. But many households have older family members who are at risk of developing serious cases of the disease, and others have children who were not able to return home for the holiday. As a result, they put off holding the ceremony. The amount of donations this year was less than half that of previous years.
Temples were in a difficult situation even before the pandemic. Their main source of revenue was donations that came in from memorial services, including those during Bon in late summer and Higan around the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Worshippers had supported the temples' operations, but the declining birthrate and shrinking population meant less income for temples.
More than 40% of temples reported an annual income of less than 3 million yen in a 2015 survey by the Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha Research Institute. About one in four priests said they "could not get by at all" on their temple income. It is not uncommon for priests to have second jobs or pick up part-time work, and 20% of temples were considering closing or merging with another temple in the future.
