Rev. Hozen Seki was the founder of the New York Buddhist Church. Rev. Seki was born in Kagoshima, Japan, and followed his father into the Buddhist ministry when he was ordained a minister of the Nishi Hongwanji branch of the Jodo Shinshu sect, the largest in Japanese Buddhism. He graduated from Ryukoku University in Kyoto and pursued graduate studies at Ryukoku and Columbia University.

Rev. Seki came to the United States in 1930 to serve as minister of the Los Angeles Buddhist Church. In 1933, he founded the Arizona Buddhist Church. Three years later, he moved from the West Coast to New York and founded the New York Buddhist Church in 1937, the first Buddhist religious institution chartered in New York State.

During World War II, he was arrested on Elis Island in December 1942, then sent to Fort George Meade and imprisoned in WRA camps. He was released in January 1946.

In 1948, he founded the American Buddhist Academy, on 105th Street and adjacent to the church on Riverside Drive, in New York to provide a central resource for the study not only of Japanese Buddhism but of the religion throughout the world.