Temple
19 February 2022
The Tokyo Japan Temple (formerly the Tokyo Temple) (東京神殿, Tōkyō Shinden) is the 20th constructed and 18th operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, it was the first temple built in Asia. It has a compact style that was a precursor for later buildings in urban areas, such as the Hong Kong China and Manhattan New York temples.
The intention to construct a temple in Tokyo was announced by the LDS Church on August 9, 1975. The temple was built on less than half an acre, on the site of the former mission home in downtown Tokyo. The mission home had to be demolished for the temple construction to proceed. The temple is very compact, with a parking garage in the basement and an apartment on one of the upper floors for the temple president. It has two ordinance rooms, five sealing rooms, and a total floor area of 52,590 square feet (4,886 m2). The exterior of the temple is reinforced concrete covered with 289 pre-made panels of stone, which look like light gray granite.
An open house was held September 15 through October 18, 1980, to allow the public to see the interior of the new temple. Church president Spencer W. Kimball dedicated the Tokyo Japan Temple October 27, 1980. On December 10, 2004, a ceremony was held in which an angel Moroni statue was added to the spire of the temple.
In June 2000, the Fukuoka Japan Temple was dedicated in Fukuoka. Ground was broken for the Sapporo Japan Temple on October 22, 2011.
On April 10, 2017 the LDS Church announced that the temple would close in October 2017 for renovations that are anticipated to be completed in 2020.
The temple served as a mausoleum for several emperors. Their tombs are grouped together in what are today known as the "Seven Imperial Tombs" at Ryōan-ji. The burial places of these emperors—Uda, Kazan, Ichijō, Go-Suzaku, Go-Reizei, Go-Sanjō, and Horikawa—would have been comparatively humble in the period after their deaths. These tombs reached their present state as a result of the 19th century restoration of imperial sepulchers (misasagi) which were ordered by Emperor Meiji.
The conclusive history, though, based on documentary sources, is as follows: Hosokawa Katsumoto (1430–1473), deputy to the shōgun, founded in 1450 the Ryōan-ji temple, but the complex was burnt down during the Ōnin War. It is not clear whether any garden was constructed at that time facing the main hall. It is described as a composition of nine big stones laid out to represent Tiger Cubs Crossing the Water. As the garden has fifteen stones at present, it was clearly different from the garden that we see today. A great fire destroyed the buildings in 1779, and rubble of the burnt buildings was dumped in the garden.
Garden writer and specialist Akisato Rito (died c. 1830) redid the garden completely on top of the rubble at the end of the eighteenth century and published a picture of his garden in his Celebrated Gardens and Sights of Kyoto (Miyako rinsen meisho zue) of 1799, showing the garden as it looks today. One big stone at the back was buried partly; it has two first names carved in it, probably names of untouchable stone workers, so called kawaramono.