Buddhist Churches of America
Buddhist Churches of America ( BCA ) is an American Buddhist organization that belongs to the Nishi Hongan-ji Buddhist school .
BCA's headquarters are located at 1710 Octavia Street in San Francisco near Japantown .
It is the oldest Buddhist organization in America. The origins of BCA began with the arrival of Japanese immigrants to mainland America in the late 19th century. The first Jōdo Shinshū preachers arrived in San Francisco in 1893, and the first American temple was built in San Francisco in 1899. In the following decades, up to the Second World War, more Buddhist temples were built in the US states on the Pacific coast. A separate branch of Buddhists was also established in the Hawaiian Islands at that time. While before the Second World War the Buddhist life of the BCA was mainly limited to immigrant Japanese and their families in the United States, after the Second World War more and more interested Americans joined the BCA. In 2006, Gordon Bermant of the Ekoji Buddhist Temple became President of the Buddhist Churches of America, the first non-Japanese-American to hold the position.
Web links
- Official website of Buddhist Churches of America
- Official website of BerkelyBuddhisttemple.org
- Official website of BuddhistChurchofSanFrancisco.org
- Official website of the San Fernando Valley Hongwanji Buddhist Temple
- Official website of Seattle Betsuin Temple