Sakakibara, Gan (1988-1994)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1994 Dec 15 p. 10

Birth date: 1988

text of obituary:

Japanese Anabaptist Historian Dies

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Gan Sakakibara, a leading Japanese Anabaptist historian and socio-economist, died Nov. 30 at his daughter's home. He was 96.

He was a professor emeritus in economics at Aoyama Gakuin University and the author of 13 books on Anabaptism.

Sakakibara was born into an ardent Japanese Buddhist family, but at the age of 20 he was baptized in a Presbyterian church. In 1931 he wrote a pamphlet in which he insisted that Christian faith should include deeds.

Sakakibara had an interest in intentional Christian communities but thought all had died out in the 19th century. In 1959 Paul Peachey, a Mennonite Central Committee worker in Japan, introduced him to the Hutterian Society of Brothers in New York and Koinonia Farms in Georgia. Sakakibara visited those places, as well as a Hutterite colony in South Dakota and Reba Place in Chicago, during a six-month trip of Europe and the United States with his wife, Chiyo.

Sakakibara and his wife, who preceded him in death, were members of Honan-cho Mennonite Church in Tokyo. He moved to Corvallis in 1990 to be near his daughter. A memorial service was scheduled to be held in Japan.

He is survived by daughters Ryo Torliatt of Santa Rosa, Calif., Ritz Oikawa of Corvallis and Kay Weidig of San Francisco; a son, Lanny Bennett of Lake Oswego, Ore.; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.