Owa Hutterite Colony


Ōwa Hutterite Colony is a Hutterite colony of the Dariusleut branch in Japan. It is located near Ōwa village in Nasu District, Tochigi. The members of the colony are ethnic Japanese.

History

have a long tradition of communal living and there are several Buddhist communities in Japan. Therefore, the idea of communal living was not totally uncommon for Japanese Christians. The founders of Owa Community wanted to establish communal living modeled after the Buddhist Ittōen commune, but based on Christian principles.
In the 1950s a group led by Isomi Izeki began communal living in Koryama City. Because they lacked a model for the practical organization they studied Kibbutzim in Israel, but later they found out about the Hutterites. The Ōwa Hutterite Colony was then created in 1972 under the leadership of Izeki Isomia and with assistance from the Wilson Siding Hutterite Colony near Lethbridge, Alberta.

Population

In 1971 the group that would form Owa Community had 19 members. In 1981, at its peak, there were about 30 members. In 1989 there were 24 and since then the number of members has steadily declined. Children born in the Owa Community did not join. In 2010 there were 9 members, mostly elderly people.

Literature