Venerable Gyoro Nagase

Venerable Gyoro Nagase is a Japanese Buddhist monk of Nipponzan Myohoji, a peace-oriented Buddhist order founded by the Most Venerable Nichidatsu Fujii, known affectionately as Fujii Guruji. Following the path of Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, Nipponzan Myohoji monks and nuns chant, beat the hand drum, walk for peace, and build Peace Pagodas as sacred monuments dedicated to nonviolence and the unity of all people.

Rev. Nagase came to the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and participated in the construction of the first Peace Pagoda in the UK at Milton Keynes. He later moved to London and helped build the London Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park, which was completed in 1985. For more than four decades, he has served as its daily caretaker, praying, chanting, welcoming visitors, and preserving the pagoda as a spiritual place for peace in the heart of the city.

Rev. Nagase has dedicated his life to peace work, interfaith friendship, anti-nuclear activism, and the simple daily practice of prayer. He is also a prolific scholar and gifted artist, with deep studies of figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Henry David Thoreau, Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez, and St. Martin, whose writings, lives, and moral witness reflect the courage, simplicity, compassion, and nonviolence at the heart of his own practice.

Through his quiet presence at the London Peace Pagoda, Rev. Nagase has become a living witness to the teaching that peace is not only an idea, but a discipline practiced every day.

This page is dedicated to preserving and honoring his life, practice, scholarship, art, and contribution to the global history of Nipponzan Myohoji and global peace building.