Kyoki Roberts

Rev. Kyōki Roberts (OPW) (December 17, 1951 – December 19, 2023), born Christine Munroe Roberts, was an American Sōtō Zen priest from Pennsylvania. She was founder and head priest of the Zen Center of Pittsburgh.

Early life and education Christine Roberts was from Sewickley, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Joseph Loughrey Roberts Jr. and Helen Shaw Roberts. She was raised on her family's farm; her father also owned a jewelry store. She graduated from Sewickley Academy in 1969, and earned a degree in agriculture from Colorado State University in 1973.

Career Roberts ran an organic farm near Yutan, Nebraska, with her husband in the 1980s, and worked as a professional mediator, helping other farmers negotiate with creditors. "We were literally telling people to check their guns at the door," she later recalled of that work. She was ordained as a Zen priest in 1993, and chose the name Kyōki Einin Roberts at that time. She published a cookbook, Stone Soup, in 2002.

Chowaney represented the Order of the Prairie Wind when he returned to the Zen Center to assist Roberts in performing an ordination in 2005. In 2008, Roberts helped welcome a handmade erhu to Pittsburgh. In 2011, she founded An Olive Branch, a project to address the aftermath of sexual misconduct scandals in religious communities.