The public viewing of a Buddhist statue at Zenkoji temple in Nagano, which is held once every six years and was initially planned to be held next spring, will be postponed by one year due to the spread of the coronavirus.
A service association for the public viewing comprising the temple and local business groups announced the decision on Wednesday.
The next public viewing, the event known in Japanese as gokaicho, will be held over a period of 57 days from April 3 to May 29 in 2022.
Postponement of the public viewing is unprecedented, the temple said.
The statue to be placed on display for public viewing is Maedachi Honzon, standing Amitabha statue, which is a replica of the temple's principle image.
During the event, a 10-meter-high wooden pillar, called Eko-bashira, is installed in front of the temple's main hall for worshipers to touch in prayer. In the previous gokaicho event in 2015, there were 7.07 million visitors.
Crowds are expected during the event.
"We will take our time to prepare for a safe gokaicho," Zenkoji official Takanori Wakaomi said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Since the main hall of the temple was rebuilt in 1707, gokaicho was canceled in 1847, when there was an earthquake in the area, and again in 1942 during World War II, according to the temple.
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