History of Roman Catholicism in Japan

Christian missionaries arrived with Francis Xavier

Francis Xavier

Francis Xavier, born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary born in the Kingdom of Navarre and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a student of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits, dedicated at Montmartre in 1534...

and the Jesuits in the 1540s and briefly flourished, with over 100,000 converts, including many daimyo in Kyoshu. Suddenly in 1587 Christianity was repressed as a threat to national unity and ceased to exist publicly. Many Catholics went underground, becoming , while others lost their lives. Only after the Meiji Restoration

Meiji Restoration

The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...

was Christianity re-established in Japan.

Background

Portuguese shipping arrived in Japan in 1543, and Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

missionary activities in Japan began in earnest around 1549, performed in the main by Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits until Spanish-sponsored Franciscans and Dominicans

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

, gained access to Japan. Of the 95 Jesuits who worked in Japan up to 1600, 57 were Portuguese, 20 were Spaniards and 18 Italian. Francisco Xavier, Cosme de Torres (a Jesuit priest), and Father John Fernandes were the first, who arrived to Kagoshima with hopes to bring Christianity and Catholicism to Japan.

The main goal was to save souls for God. But religion was also an integral part of the state and evangelization was seen as having both secular and spiritual benefits for both Portugal and Spain. Wherever these powers attempted to expand their territories or influence, missionaries would soon follow. By the Treaty of Tordesillas

Treaty of Tordesillas

The Treaty of Tordesillas , signed at Tordesillas , , divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal along a meridian 370 leagueswest of the Cape Verde islands...

, the two powers divided the world between them into exclusive spheres of influence, trade and colonization. Although at the time of the demarcation, neither nation had any direct contact with Japan, that nation fell into the sphere of the Portuguese.

The countries disputed the attribution of Japan. Since neither could colonize it, the exclusive right to propagate Christianity in Japan meant the exclusive right to trade with Japan. Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits under Alessandro Valignano

Alessandro Valignano

Alessandro Valignano, , was a Jesuit missionary born in Chieti, back then part of the Kingdom of Naples, who helped supervise the introduction of Catholicism to the Far East, and especially to Japan....

took the lead in proselytizing in Japan over the objection of the Spaniards. The fait accompli was approved in Pope Gregory XIII

Pope Gregory XIII

Pope Gregory XIII , born Ugo Boncompagni, was Pope from 1572 to 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake for the Gregorian calendar, which remains the internationally-accepted civil calendar to this date.-Youth:He was born the son of Cristoforo Boncompagni and wife Angela...

's papal bull

Papal bull

A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....

of 1575, which decided that Japan belonged to the Portuguese diocese of Macau

Macau

Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

. In 1588, the diocese of Funai (Nagasaki) was founded under Portuguese protection.

In rivalry with the Jesuits, Spanish-sponsored mendicant orders entered into Japan via Manila

Manila

Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

. While criticizing Jesuit activities, they actively lobbied the Pope. Their campaigns resulted in Pope Clement VIII

Pope Clement VIII

Pope Clement VIII , born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was Pope from 30 January 1592 to 3 March 1605.-Cardinal:...

's decree of 1600, which allowed Spanish friars to enter Japan via the Portuguese Indies, and Pope Paul V

Pope Paul V

-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...

's decree of 1608, which abolished the restrictions on the route. The Portuguese accused Spanish Jesuits of working for their homeland instead of their patron. The power struggle between Jesuits and mendicant orders caused a schism within the diocese of Funai. Furthermore, mendicant orders tried in vain to establish a diocese on the Tohoku region

Tohoku region

The is a geographical area of Japan. The region occupies the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region consists of six prefectures : Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata....

that was to be independent from the Portuguese one.

The Roman Catholic world order was challenged by the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

and England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Theoretically, it was repudiated by Grotius's Mare Liberum. In the early 17th century, Japan built trade relations with the Netherlands

Netherlands

and England

England

. Although England withdrew from the operations in ten years under James I

James I of England

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

due to lack of profitability, the Netherlands continued to trade with Japan and became the only European country that maintained trade relations with Japan until the 19th century. As trade competitors, the Protestant countries engaged in a negative campaign against Catholicism, and it subsequently affected shogunate policies toward the kingdoms of Spain and Purtugal.

Francis Xavier

was the first Jesuit to go to Japan as a missionary. In Malacca in December 1547, Xavier met a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese from Kagoshima named Anjiro

Anjiro

or , later known as Paulo de Santa Fé, was a well known Japanese interpreter from Satsuma Province. After committing a murder, he fled to the province of Goa, where he met Saint Francis Xavier and returned to Japan with him as an interpreter...

. Anjiro had heard from Xavier in 1545 and had travelled from Kagoshima to Malacca with the purpose of meeting with him. Having been charged with murder, Anjiro had fled Japan. He told Xavier extensively about his former life and the customs and culture of his beloved homeland. Anjiro helped Xavier as a mediator and translator for the mission to Japan that now seemed much more possible. "I asked [Anjiro] whether the Japanese would become Christians if I went with him to this country, and he replied that they would not do so immediately, but would first ask me many questions and see what I knew. Above all, they would want to see whether my life corresponded with my teaching."

Xavier returned to India in January 1548. The next 15 months were occupied with various journeys and administrative measures in India. Then, due to displeasure at what he considered un-Christian life and manners on the part of the Portuguese which impeded missionary work, he left India and traveled to East Asia. He left Goa on 15 April 1549, stopped at Malacca and visited Canton

Guangzhou

Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

. He was accompanied by Anjiro, two other Japanese men, the father Cosme de Torrès

Cosme de Torrès

Cosme de Torres , a Spanish Jesuit of the sixteenth century, was one of the first Christian missionaries in Japan. He was born in Valencia and died in Amakusa, an island now in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan.-Early Life :...

and Brother João Fernandes. He had taken with him presents for the "King of Japan" since he was intending to introduce himself as the Apostolic Nuncio.

Xavier reached Japan on 27 July 1549, with Anjiro and three other Jesuits, but it was not until 15 August that he went ashore at Kagoshima, the principal port of the province of Satsuma

Satsuma Province

was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. Its abbreviation is Sasshū .During the Sengoku Period, Satsuma was a fief of the Shimazu daimyo, who ruled much of southern Kyūshū from their castle at Kagoshima city.In 1871, with the...

on the island of Kyūshū

Kyushu

is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....

. As a representative of the Portuguese king, he was received in a friendly manner and was hosted by Anjiro's family until October 1550. From October to December 1550, he resided in Yamaguchi

Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi

is the capital city of Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan.As of February 1, 2010, the city has an estimated population of 198,971 and a population density of 194.44 persons per km²...

. Shortly before Christmas, he left for Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

but failed to meet with the Emperor. He returned to Yamaguchi in March 1551, where he was permitted to preach by the daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

of the province. However, lacking fluency in the Japanese language

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, he had to limit himself to reading aloud a Japanese translation of a catechism

Catechism

A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...

.

The Japanese people were not easily converted; many of the people were already Buddhist or Shinto. Francis tried to combat the disposition of some of the Japanese that a God who had created everything, including evil, could not be good. The concept of Hell was also a struggle; the Japanese were bothered by the idea of their ancestors living in Hell. Despite Francis’ different religion, he felt that they were good people, much like Europeans, and could be converted.

Xavier brought with him paintings of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child. These paintings were used to help teach the Japanese about Christianity. There was a huge language barrier as Japanese was unlike other languages the missionaries had previously encountered. For a long time Francis struggled to learn the language. Artwork continued to play a role in Francis’ teachings in Asia.

Xavier was welcomed by the Shingon monks since he used the word Dainichi
Vairocana
Vairocana is a celestial Buddha who is often interpreted as the Bliss Body of the historical Gautama Buddha; he can also be referred to as the dharmakaya Buddha and the great solar Buddha. In Sino-Japanese Buddhism, Vairocana is also seen as the embodiment of the Buddhist concept of shunyata or...

for the Christian God; attempting to adapt the concept to local traditions. As Xavier learned more about the religious nuances of the word, he changed to Deusu from the Latin and Portuguese Deus. The monks later realized that Xavier was preaching a rival religion and grew more aggressive towards his attempts at conversion.

When Xavier arrived in Japan, the country was embroiled in a nationwide civil war. Neither the emperor nor the Ashikaga shogun could exercise power over the nation. At first, Xavier planned to gain permission for building a mission from the emperor but was disappointed with the devastation of the imperial residence. The Jesuits approached daimyo in southwestern Japan and succeeded in converting some of them. One reason for their conversion may have been the Portuguese trade in which the Jesuits acted as brokers. The Jesuits recognized this and approached local rulers with offers of trade and exotic gifts.

The Jesuits believed that it was most effective to seek to influence people in power and to pass the religion downward to the commoners. At the least, they needed to gain permission from local rulers to propagate Catholicism within their domains. Indeed, as feudal lords converted to Catholicism, the number of believers within their territories also drastically increased. After the edict

Edict

An edict is an announcement of a law, often associated with monarchism. The Pope and various micronational leaders are currently the only persons who still issue edicts.-Notable edicts:...

banning Christianity, there were communities that kept practicing Catholicism without any contact with the Church until missionaries were able to return much later.

When Xavier disembarked in Kagoshima, the principal chiefs of the two branches of the Shimazu family, Sanehisa and Katsuhisa, were warring for the sovereignty of their lands. Katsuhisa, adopted Takahisa Shimazu who in 1542 was accepted as head of the clan having previously received the Portuguese merchants on Tanegashima Island, learning about the use of firearms. Later, he met Xavier himself at the castle of Uchiujijo and permitted the conversion of his vassals.

Having a religious background, Takahisa showed himself to be benevolent and already allowed freedom of worship but not helping the missionaries nor favoring their church. Failing to find a way to the centre of affairs, the court of the Emperor, Xavier soon tired and left to Yamaguchi thus beginning the Yamaguchi period. Xavier stayed in Yamaguchi for two months on his way to an abortive audience with the Emperor in Kyoto. Yamaguchi was a prosperous and refined city and its leaders, the Ouchi family, were aware that Xavier's journey to Japan had begun after the completion of his mission in India.

They took Catholicism for some sort of new sect of Buddhism and were curious to know of the priest's doctrine. Tolerant but shrewd, their eyes less on baptism than the Portuguese cargoes from Macao, they granted the Jesuit permission to preach. The uncompromising Xavier took to the streets of the city denouncing, among other things, infanticide, idolatry, and homosexuality (the last being widely accepted at the time). Misunderstandings were inevitable.

The Jesuits attempted to expand their activity to Kyoto

Kyoto

and the surrounding regions. In 1559, Gaspar Vilela obtained permission from Ashikaga Yoshiteru

Ashikaga Yoshiteru

, also known as Yoshifushi or Yoshifuji, was the 13th shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1546 to 1565 during the late Muromachi period of Japan. He was the eldest son of the 12th shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiharu; and his mother was a daughter of Konoe Taneie...

to teach Christianity. This license was the same as those given to Buddhist

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

temples, so special treatment cannot be confirmed regarding the Jesuits. On the other hand, Emperor Ogimachi issued edicts to ban Catholicism in 1565 and 1568. The orders of the Emperor and the Shogun made little difference.

Christians refer positively to Oda Nobunaga

Oda Nobunaga

was the initiator of the unification of Japan under the shogunate in the late 16th century, which ruled Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was also a major daimyo during the Sengoku period of Japanese history. His opus was continued, completed and finalized by his successors Toyotomi...

, who died in the middle of the unification of Japan. He favored the Jesuit missionary Luis Frois

Luís Fróis

Luís Fróis was a Portuguese missionary.He was born in Lisbon and in 1548 joined the Society of Jesus . In 1563, he came to Japan to engage in missionary work, and in the following year arrived in Kyoto, meeting Ashikaga Yoshiteru who was then Shogun...

and generally tolerated Christianity. But overall, he undertook no remarkable policies toward Catholicism. Actually, Catholic power in his domain was trivial because he did not conquer western Japan, where the Jesuits were based.

With the passage of time, Xavier's sojourn in Japan could be considered somewhat fruitful as attested by congregations established in Hirado, Yamaguchi and Bungo

Bungo Province

was a province of Japan in eastern Kyūshū in the area of Ōita Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Buzen Province. Bungo bordered Buzen, Hyūga, Higo, Chikugo, and Chikuzen Provinces.-History:...

. Xavier worked for more than two years in Japan and saw his successor-Jesuits established. He then decided to return to India.

For 45 years, the Jesuits were the only missionaries in Asia, and then the Franciscans began proselytizing as well.

Propagation strategy

Christian books were published in Japanese from the 1590s on, some with more than one thousand copies and from 1601 a printing press was established under the supervision of Soin Goto Thomas, a citizen of Nagasaki with thirty Japanese working full time at the press. Liturgical calendars were also printed after 1592 until at least 1634. Christian solidarity made also possible missionary mail delivery throughout the country until the end of the 1620s.

Early expansion

By 1579, at the height of missionary activity, there were about 130,000 converts.

By the end of the 16th century, the Japanese mission had become the largest overseas Christian community that was not under the rule of a European power. Its uniqueness was emphasized by Alessandro Valignano since 1582, who promoted a deeper accommodation of Japanese culture. Japan was then the sole overseas country in which all members of those confraternities were locals, as was the case with Christian missions in Mexico, Peru, Brazil, the Philippines, or India, in spite of the presence of a colonial elite.

Most Japanese Christians lived in Kyushu, but Christianization was now a regional phenomenon and had a national impact. By the end of the 16th century it was possible to find baptized people in virtually every province of Japan, many of them organized in communities. On the eve of the Sekigahara battle, fifteen daimyo were baptized, and their domains stretched from Hyuga in Southeast Kyushu to Dewa in North Honshū (see Costa 2003). Hundreds of churches had been built throughout Japan.

Accepted on a national scale, Christianity was also successful among different social groups from the poor to the rich, peasants, traders, sailors, warriors, or courtesans. Most of the daily activities of the Church were performed by Japanese from the beginning, giving the Japanese Church a native face, and this was one of the reasons for its success. By 1590, there were seventy native brothers in Japan, fully one half of Jesuits in Japan and fifteen percent of all Jesuits who were working in Asia.

The 1592 War between Japan and Korea also provided Westerners with a rare opportunity to visit Korea. Under orders of Gomaz, the Jesuit Gregorious de Cespedes

Gregorious de Cespedes

Gregorious de Cespedes was a Portuguese priest who went to Korea to do missionary work. He accompanied the forces commanded by Daimyo Konishi Yukinaga, himself a Christian, and proselytized among the Japanese soldiers...

arrived in Korea with a Japanese monk for the purposes of ministering to the Japanese troops. He stayed there for approximately 18 months, until April or May of 1595, thus being on record as the first European missionary to visit the Korean peninsula but was unable to make any inroads. The 'Annual Letters of Japan' made a substantial contribution to the introduction of Korea to Europe, Francis Xavier having crossed paths with Korean envoys dispatched to Japan during 1550 and 1551.

The Japanese missions were economically self-sufficient. Nagasaki’s misericórdias became rich and powerful institutions which every year received large donations. The brotherhood grew in numbers to over 100 by 1585 and 150 in 1609. Controlled by the elite of Nagasaki, and not by Portuguese, it had two hospitals (one for lepers) and a large church. By 1606, there already existed a feminine religious order called Miyako no Bikuni (nuns of Kyoto) which accept Korean convents such as Marina Pak, baptized in Nagasaki. Nagasaki was called “the Rome of Japan” and most of its inhabitants were Christians. By 1611, it had ten churches and was divided into eight parishes include a specifically Korean order.

Nature of early Christian community

Different groups of laymen supported Christian life in Japanese mission, e.g., dōjuku, kanbō, and jihiyakusha helped the clergymen in activities like the celebration of Sunday liturgy in the absence of ordained clergy, religious education, preparation of confessions, and spiritual support of the sick. By the end of the 16th century kanbō and jihiyakusha had similar responsibilities and also organized funerals and baptized children with permission to baptize from Rome. The kanbō were those who had left secular life but not taken formal vows, while the jihiyakusha were married and had a profession.

These groups were fundamental to the mission, and depended on both the ecclesiastical hierarchy as well as the warlords who controlled the lands where they lived. Therefore, the success of the Japanese mission cannot be explained only as the result of the action of a brilliant group of missionaries or of the commercial and political interests of a few daimyo and traders.

At the same time the missionaries faced the hostility of many other daimyo. Christianity challenged Japanese civilization. A militant lay community, the main reason for missionary success in Japan, was also the main reason for the anti-Christian policy of the Tokugawa’s bakufu.

Economic activities

The Jesuits in Japan had to maintain economic self-sufficiency because they could not expect stable and sufficient payment from their patron, the King of Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, the king allowing the Jesuits to engage in trade with Japan. Such economic activity can be found in the work of Francis Xavier

Francis Xavier

, the pioneer of Catholic missions in Japan, who covered the cost of missionary work through merchant trading. From the 1550s to the 1570s, the Jesuits covered all necessary expenses with trade profits and bought land in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

Their officially recognized commercial activity was a fixed-amount entry into the Portuguese silk trade between Macau and Nagasaki. They financed to a certain amount the trade association in Macau, which purchased raw silk in Canton and sold it in Nagasaki. They did not confine their commercial activity to the official silk market but expanded into unauthorized markets. For the Macau-Nagasaki trade, they dealt in silk fabrics, gold, musk and other goods including military supplies and slavery. Sometimes, they even got involved in Spanish trade, prohibited by the kings of Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

and Portugal

Portugal

, and antagonized the Portuguese traders.

It was mainly procurators who brokered Portuguese trade. They resided in Macau and Nagasaki, and accepted purchase commitments by Japanese customers such as the shogunate daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

and wealthy merchants. By brokerage, the Jesuits could expect not only rebates but also favorable treatment from the authorities. For this reason, the office of procurator became an important post amongst the Jesuits in Japan. Although trade activities by the Jesuits ate into Portuguese trade interests, procurators continued their brokerage utilizing the authority of the Catholic Church. At the same time, Portuguese merchants required the assistance of procurators who were familiar with Japanese customs

Customs

Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...

, since they established no permanent trading post in Japan. Probably the most notable procurator was João Rodrigues, who approached Toyotomi Hideyoshi

Toyotomi Hideyoshi

was a daimyo warrior, general and politician of the Sengoku period. He unified the political factions of Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, named after Hideyoshi's castle...

and Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu

was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan , which ruled from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, abdicated from office in 1605, but...

and even participated in the administration of Nagasaki.

Such commercial activities were contrary to the idea of honorable poverty that the priests held. But some Jesuits at this time placed the expansion of the society's influence before this ideal. Mendicant orders fiercely accused the Jesuits of being corrupt and even considered their activity as the primary reason for Japan's ban on Catholicism. Mendicant orders themselves were not necessarily uninvolved in commercial activities.

João Rodrigues was a Jesuit missionary who became a fluent interpreter of Japanese life to the West. At age 16 he was assigned to the Jesuit Mission in Nagasaki in 1577 in a period of military and civil strife. He gained an unmatched fluency in speaking Japanese and was a lead interpreter in high level negotiations, as with Hideyoshi. He compiled essential reference books including a Japanese grammar, Japanese-Portuguese dictionary with interpretative sections on Japanese life and culture, a history of the mission, and an introduction to Japanese culture. As treasurer of the mission he handled business and worked with Portuguese shippers.

Military activities

Missionaries were not reluctant to resort to military action if they considered it an effective way to Christianize Japan. They often associated military action against Japan with the conquest of China. They thought that well-trained Japanese soldiers who had experienced long civil wars would help their countries conquer China. For example, Alessandro Valignano

Alessandro Valignano

said to the Philippine Governor that it was impossible to conquer Japan because the Japanese were very brave and always received military training but that Japan would benefit them when they would conquer China. Francisco Cabral

Francisco Cabral

Francisco Cabral was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary in Japan.In 1554 he entered the Society of Jesus, and after his studies went to Japan, where he laboured strenuously to propagate the Christian religion...

also reported to the King of Spain

Spain

that priests were able to send to China two or three thousand Japanese Christian soldiers who were brave and were expected to serve the king with little pay.

Many daimyos converted to Christianity in order to gain more favorable access to saltpeter

Potassium nitrate

Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the formula KNO3. It is an ionic salt of potassium ions K+ and nitrate ions NO3−.It occurs as a mineral niter and is a natural solid source of nitrogen. Its common names include saltpetre , from medieval Latin sal petræ: "stone salt" or possibly "Salt...

, used to make gunpowder

Gunpowder

Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...

. Between 1553 and 1620, eighty-six daimyos were officially baptized, and many more were sympathetic to the Christians.

The Jesuits provided various kinds of support including military support to Kirishitan daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

when they were threatened by non-Kirishitan daimyo. Most notable was their support of Omura Sumitada

Omura Sumitada

Ōmura Sumitada Japanese daimyo lord of the Sengoku period. He achieved fame throughout the country for being the first of the daimyo to convert to Christianity following the arrival of the Jesuit missionaries in the mid-16th century. Following his baptism, he became known as "Dom Bartolomeu"...

and Arima Harunobu

Arima Harunobu

was the second son and successor of Japanese daimyo Arima Yoshisada. Harunobu was born in the castle of Arima and controlled the Shimabara area of Hizen province. After Harunobu's father's death, he began the persecution of Christians in his region. With Ryūzōji Takanobu expanding into his domain,...

, who fought against the anti-Catholic Ryuzoji

Ryuzoji Takanobu

was a Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period, who ruled a region in northern Kyūshū. He was the eldest son of Ryūzōji Chikaie, and upon headship, became the 19th head of the Ryūzōji clan. Takanobu's son, Masaie, would become the last head of the Ryūzōji....

clan. In the 1580s, Valignano believed in the effectiveness of military action and fortified Nagasaki and Mogi. In 1585, Gaspar Coelho

Gaspar Coelho

Gaspar Coelho was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary. He replaced Francisco Cabral as the Superior and Vice-Provincial of the Jesuit mission in Japan during the late 16th century....

asked the Spanish Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

to send a fleet but the plan was rejected due to the shortness of its military capability. Christians Protasio Arima and Paulo Okamoto were named as principals in an assassination plot to murder the magistrate in charge of the Shogunate's most important port city of Nagasaki.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi

The situation was changed when Toyotomi Hideyoshi

Toyotomi Hideyoshi

reunified Japan. Once he became the ruler of Japan, Hideyoshi began to pay attention to external threats, particularly the expansion of European power in East Asia. The turning point for Catholic missions was the San Felipe incident, where in an attempt to recover his cargo, the Spanish captain of a shipwrecked trading vessel claimed that the missionaries were there to prepare Japan for conquest. These claims made Hideyoshi suspicious of the foreign religion. He attempted to curb Catholicism while maintaining good trading relations with Portugal and Spain, which might have provided military support to Dom Justo Takayama

Dom Justo Takayama

Dom Justo Takayama was a kirishitan daimyo and a Japanese Samurai who followed Christianity in the Sengoku period of Japan...

, a Christian Daimyo in western Japan.

Persecution and martyrdom

By 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had become alarmed, not because of too many converts but rather because the hegemon learned that Christian lords reportedly oversaw forced conversions of retainers and commoners, that they had garrisoned the city of Nagasaki, that they participated in the slave trade of other Japanese and, apparently offending Hideyoshi's Buddhist sentiments, that they allowed the slaughter of horses and oxen for food. He was concerned that divided loyalties might lead to dangerous rebels like the Ikkō-ikki

Ikko-ikki

', literally "Ikkoshū Uprising", were mobs of peasant farmers, Buddhist monks, Shinto priests and local nobles, who rose up against samurai rule in 15th to 16th century Japan. They followed the beliefs of the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism which taught that all believers are equally saved by Amida...

Sect of earlier years and produced his edict expelling missionaries. However, this decree was not particularly enforced.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi promulgated a ban on Catholicism in form of the "Bateren-tsuiho-rei" (the Purge Directive Order to the Jesuits) on July 24, 1587. Hideyoshi put Nagasaki under his direct rule to control Portuguese trade.

When Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued the Bateren-tsuiho-rei, the Jesuits in Japan, led by Coelho, planned armed resistance. At first, they sought help from Kirishitan daimyo but the daimyo refused. Then they called for a deployment of reinforcements from their homeland and its colonies. But this plan was vetoed by Valignano. Like the Kirishitan daimyo, he realized that a military campaign against Japan's powerful ruler would bring catastrophe to Catholicism in Japan. Valignano survived the crisis by laying all the blame on Coelho. In 1590, the Jesuits decided to stop intervening in the struggles between the daimyo and to disarm themselves. They only gave secret shipments of food and financial aid to Kirishitan daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

.

On February 5, 1597, twenty-six Christians – six European Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

missionaries

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laymen including three young boys – were executed by crucifixion

Crucifixion

Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...

in Nagasaki. These individuals were raised on crosses and then pierced through with spears. While there were many more martyrs, the first martyrs came to be especially revered, the most celebrated of which was Paul Miki. The Martyrs of Japan were canonized by the Roman Catholic Church on June 8, 1862 by Blessed Pius IX

Pope Pius IX

Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...

, and are listed on the calendar as Sts. Paul Miki and his Companions, commemorated on February 6, February 5, the date of their death, being the feast of Saint Agatha

Agatha of Sicily

Saint Agatha of Sicily is a Christian saint. Her memorial is on 5 February. Agatha was born at Catania, Sicily, and she was martyred in approximately 251...

.

Persecution continued sporadically, breaking out again in 1613 and 1630. On September 10, 1632, 55 Christians were martyred in Nagasaki in what became known as the Great Genna Martyrdom. At this time Catholicism was officially outlawed. The Church remained without clergy and theological teaching disintegrated until the arrival of Western missionaries in the 19th century.

Tokugawa Ieyasu

After Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu

assumed power over Japan, in 1600. Like Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he disliked Christian activities in Japan but gave priority to trade with Portugal and Spain. He secured Portuguese trade in 1600. He negotiated with Manila

Manila

to establish trade with the Philippines. The trade promotion made his policies toward Catholicism inconsistent. At the same time, in an attempt to wrest control of the Japan trade from the Catholic countries, Dutch and British traders advised the Shogunate that Spain did indeed have territorial ambitions, and that Catholicism was Spain's principal means. In contrast, the Dutch and British promised that they would limit themselves to trading and would not conduct missionary activities in Japan.

Following Toyotomi

Toyotomi Hideyoshi

's death in 1598, it seems that the Jesuits realized that the Tokugawa shogunate

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

was much stronger and more stable than Toyotomi Hideyoshi's administration, yet the mendicant orders relatively openly discussed military options. The Jesuits and the Mendicant Orders kept a lasting rivalry over the Japanese mission and attached to different imperial strategies.

The Tokugawa shogunate

Tokugawa shogunate

finally decided to ban Catholicism, in 1614 and in the mid-17th century demanded the expulsion of all European missionaries and the execution of all converts This marked the end of open Christianity in Japan.
The immediate cause of the prohibition was a case of fraud involving Ieyasu's Catholic vavasor, but there were also other reasons behind it. The Shogunate was concerned about a possible invasion by the Iberian

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

colonial powers, which had previously occurred in the New World and the Philippines. In 1615, a Franciscan

Franciscan

emissary of the Viceroy of New Spain

New Spain

New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...

asked the shogun for land to build a Spanish fortress and this deepened Japan's suspicion against Catholicism and the Iberian

Iberian Peninsula

colonial powers behind it. Domestically, the ban was closely related to measures against the Toyotomi clan. In the statement on the "Expulsion of all missionaries from Japan", drafted by Zen

Zen

Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...

monk Konchiin Suden (1563–1633) and issued in 1614 under the name of second shogun Hidetada

Tokugawa Hidetada

was the second shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty, who ruled from 1605 until his abdication in 1623. He was the third son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate.-Early life :...

(ruled 1605-1623), was the considered the first official statement of a comprehensive control of Kirishitan. It claimed that the Christians were bringing disorder to Japanese society and that their followers "contravene governmental regulations, traduce Shinto, calumniate the True Law, destroy regulations, and corrupt goodness". It was fully implemented and canonized as one of the fundamental Tokugawan laws.

The systematic persecution beginning in 1614 faced stiff resistance from Christians, despite the departure of more than half the clergy. Once again, the main reason for this resistance was not the presence of a few priests but rather the self-organization of many communities. Forced to secrecy, and having a small number of clergymen working underground, the Japanese Church was able to recruit leadership from among lay members. Japanese children caused admiration among the Portuguese and seem to have participated actively in the resistance. Nagasaki remained a Christian city in the first decades of the 17th century and during the general persecutions, other confraternities were founded in Shimabara, Kinai and Franciscans in Edo.

The Buddhist ecclesiastical establishment was made responsible for verifying that a person was not a Christian through what became known as the "temple guarantee system" (terauke seido). By the 1630s, people were being required to produce a certificate of affiliation with a Buddhist temple as proof of religious orthodoxy, social acceptability and loyalty to the regime.

The number of active Christians is estimated to have been around 200,000 in 1582. There were likely around 1,000 known martyrs during the missionary period. In contrast, Christians attach a great importance to martyrdom and persecution, noting that countless more people were dispossessed of their
land and property leading to their subsequent death in poverty.

The Japanese government used Fumie

Fumie

A was a likeness of Jesus or Mary upon which the religious authorities of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan required suspected Christians to step in order to prove that they were not members of that outlawed religion. The use of fumi-e began with the persecution of Christians in Nagasaki in 1629...

to reveal practicing Catholics and sympathizers. Fumie were pictures of the Virgin Mary and Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

. Government officials made everybody trample on these pictures. People reluctant to step on the pictures were identified as Catholics and then sent to Nagasaki. The policy of the Japanese government (Edo) was to turn them from their faith. If the Catholics refused to change their religion, they were torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

d. Many of them still refusing to abandon their faith were executed on Nagasaki's Mount Unzen

Mount Unzen

is an active volcanic group of several overlapping stratovolcanoes, near the city of Shimabara, Nagasaki Prefecture, on the island of Kyūshū, Japan’s southernmost main island....

.

The Shimabara Rebellion

Shimabara Rebellion

The was an uprising largely involving Japanese peasants, most of them Catholic Christians, in 1637–1638 during the Edo period.It was one of only a handful of instances of serious unrest during the relatively peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate's rule...

, led by a young Christian boy named Amakusa Shiro Tokisada

Amakusa Shiro

also known as was the teenage leader of the Shimabara Rebellion.- Biography :The son of former Konishi clan retainer , Shirō was born in modern-day Kami-Amakusa, Kumamoto in a Catholic family...

, took place in 1637. The Rebellion broke out over economic desperation and government oppression but later assumed a religious tone. About 27,000 people joined the uprising, but it was crushed by the shogunate after a sustained campaign. They are not considered martyrs by the Catholic Church since they took up arms for materialistic reasons. Many Japanese were deported to Macau

Macau

Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

or to the Spanish Philippines

Philippines

. Many Macanese

Macanese people

The Macanese-born Portuguese people or simply the Macanese people refer to an ethnic group which originated in Macau since the 16th century, consisting mostly of people with some Portuguese ancestry.-Culture:...

and Japanese Mestizo

Mestizo

Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...

s are the mixed-race descendants of the deported Japanese Catholics. 400 were officially deported by the government to Macau and Manila, but thousands of Japanese were pressured into moving voluntarily. About 10,000 Macanese and 3,000 Japanese were moved to Manila.

Kakure Kirishitan

The Catholic remnant in Japan were driven underground and its members became known as the "Hidden Christians"

Kakure Kirishitan

is a modern term for a member of the Japanese Catholic Church that went underground after the Shimabara Rebellion in the 1630s.-History:Kakure Kirishitans are called the "hidden" Christians because they continued to practice Christianity in secret. They worshipped in secret rooms in private homes...

. Some priests remained in Japan illegally, including eighteen Jesuits, seven Franciscans, seven Dominicans, one Augustinian, five seculars and an unknown number of Jesuit irmao and dojuku. Since this time corresponds to the Thirty Years' War

Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....

between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, it is possible that the checking of Catholic power in Europe reduced the flow of funds to the Catholic missions in Japan, which could be why they failed at this time and not before. During the Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

, the Kakure Kirishitan

Kakure Kirishitan

s kept their faith. Biblical phrases or prayers were transferred orally from parent to child, and secret posts (Mizukata) were assigned in their underground community to baptize their children, all while regional governments continuously operated Fumie

Fumie

to expose Christians. Drawn from the oral histories of Japanese Catholic communities, Shusaku Endo

Shusaku Endo

Shūsaku Endō was a 20th-century Japanese author who wrote from the unusual perspective of being both Japanese and Catholic...

's acclaimed novel "Silence

Silence (novel)

is a 1966 novel of historical fiction by Japanese author Shusaku Endo. It is the story of a Jesuit missionary sent to seventeenth century Japan, who endured persecution in the time of Kakure Kirishitan that followed the defeat of the Shimabara Rebellion...

" provides detailed accounts of the persecution of Christian communities and the suppression of the Church.

Kakure Kirishitan

Kirishitan

, from Portuguese cristão, referred to Roman Catholic Christians in Japanese and is used as a historiographic term for Roman Catholics in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries. Christian missionaries were known as bateren or iruman...

s are called the "hidden" Christians because they continued to practice Christianity in secret. They worshipped in secret rooms

Secret passage

Secret passages, also commonly referred to as hidden passages or secret tunnels, are hidden routes used for stealthy travel. Such passageways are sometimes inside buildings leading to secret rooms. Others allow occupants to enter or exit buildings without being seen...

in private homes. As time went on, the figures of the saint

Saint

A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

s and the Virgin Mary were transformed into figurines that looked like the traditional statues of the Buddha

Buddhism

and bodhisattvas. The prayers were adapted to sound like Buddhist chant, yet retained many untranslated words from Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. The Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

was passed down orally, due to fears of printed works being confiscated by authorities. Because of the expulsion of the Catholic clergy in the 17th century, the Kakure Christian community relied on lay leaders to lead the services.

In some cases, the communities drifted away from Christian teachings. They lost the meaning of the prayers and their religion became a version of the cult of ancestors, in which the ancestors happened to be their Christian martyrs

Christian martyrs

A Christian martyr is one who is killed for following Christianity, through stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word "martyr" comes from the Greek word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness."...

.

Many secret Christians, some of whom had adopted these new ways of practicing Christianity, came out of hiding when religious freedom was re-established in the mid-19th century

Meiji Restoration

The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...

and rejoined the Roman Catholic Church after renouncing their unorthodox, syncretic

Syncretism

Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...

practices. However, there were those who decided not to rejoin. They are known as the Hanare Kirishitan .

Modern extinction of Hanare Kirishitans

Following the legalization of Christianity and secularization of Japan, many Hanare Kirishitan lineages ended abruptly. Traditionally, boys learned the rituals and prayers from their fathers; when boys were uninterested or moved away from the homes, there would be no one left to continue the lineage.

For a while, Hanare Kirishitans were thought to have died out entirely, due to their tradition of secrecy. A group on Ikitsuki Island

Ikitsuki, Nagasaki

is a former town on the island of the same name located in Kitamatsuura District, Nagasaki, Japan.On October 1, 2005 Ikitsuki, along with the town of Tabira, and the village of Ōshima, both from Kitamatsuura District, was merged into the expanded city of Hirado....

in Nagasaki prefecture

Nagasaki Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. The capital is the city of Nagasaki.- History :Nagasaki Prefecture was created by merging of the western half of the former province of Hizen with the island provinces of Tsushima and Iki...

, which had been overlooked by the Japanese government during the time of persecution, made their practices public in the 1980s and now perform them for audiences; however, these practices have acquired some attributes of theater, such as the telling of folktales and the use of statues and other images which most underground Christians had never created.

The anthropologist Christal Whelan uncovered the existence of genuine Hanare Kirishitans on the Gotō Islands

Goto Islands

The are Japanese islands in the East China Sea, off the western coast of Kyūshū. The islands are a part of Nagasaki Prefecture.- Geography :There are 140 islands in total, including five main islands:,,,, and....

where Kakure Kirishitans had once fled. There were only two surviving priests on the islands, both of whom were over 90, and they would not talk to each other. The few surviving laity had also all reached old age, and some of them no longer had any priests from their lineage and prayed alone. Although these Hanare Kirishitans had a strong tradition of secrecy, they agreed to be filmed for her documentary Otaiya.

Rediscovery and return

Japan was opened to foreign interaction by Matthew Perry in 1853. It became possible to live in Japan for foreigners with Harris Treaty in 1858 . Many Christian clergymen were sent from Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Churches, though proselytizing was still banned. In 1865, some of the Japanese who lived in Urakami

Urakami

Urakami was an area in the northern part of the city of Nagasaki. It is the exact ground zero where the atomic bomb exploded on August 9, 1945. It is the site of Urakami Cathedral, which was the largest cathedral in East Asia before it was destroyed by the bomb and then rebuilt.-External links:...

village near Nagasaki visited the new Ōura Church

Ōura Church

is a Roman Catholic church in Nagasaki, Japan, built soon after the end of the Japanese government's Seclusion Policy in 1853. It is also known as the Church of the 26 Japanese Martyrs...

which had been built by the Paris Foreign Missions Society

Paris Foreign Missions Society

The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious order, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons dedicated to missionary work in foreign lands....

(Missions étrangères de Paris) barely a month before. A female member of the group spoke to a French priest, Bernard Thadee Petitjean, and confessed that their families had kept the Kirishitan faith. Those Kirishitan wanted to see the statue of St. Mary with their own eyes, and to confirm that the priest was single and truly came from the pope in Rome. After this interview, many Kirishitan thronged toward Petitjean. He investigated their underground organizations and discovered that they had kept the rite of baptism and the liturgical years without European priests for nearly 250 years. Petitjean’s report surprised the Christian world; Pope Pius IX called it a miracle.

The Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

Shogunate's edicts banning Christianity were still on the books, however, and thus the religion continued to be persecuted up to 1867, the last year of its rule. Robert Bruce Van Valkenburgh, the American minister-resident in Japan, privately complained of this persecution to the Nagasaki magistrates, though little action was taken to stop it. The succeeding Meiji government initially continued in this vein and several thousand people were exiled (Urakami Yoban Kuzure

Urakami Yoban Kuzure

was the last and biggest of four crackdowns on Christians in Urakami Village, Nagasaki, Japan.Christianity was prohibited in Japan for 259 years, from 1614 after the Catholic Church had been seen to become a threat - Nagasaki had grown prosperous through trade with Portugal, local lords and their...

). After Europe and the U.S. began to vocally criticize the persecution, the Japanese government realized that it needed to lift the ban in order to attain its interests. In 1873 the ban was lifted. Numerous exiles returned and began construction of the Urakami Cathedral

Urakami Cathedral

St. Mary's Cathedral, often known as Urakami Cathedral after its location Urakami, is a Roman Catholic church located in Motoomachi, Nagasaki, Japan.- History :...

, which was completed in 1895.

It was later revealed that tens of thousands of Kirishitan still survived in some regions near Nagasaki. Some officially returned to the Roman Catholic Church. Others remained apart from the Catholic Church and have stayed as Kakure Kirishitan

Kakure Kirishitan

, retaining their own traditional beliefs and their descendants asserting that they keep their ancestors' religion. However, it became difficult for them to keep their community and rituals, so they have converted to Buddhism

Buddhism

or Shinto

Shinto

or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

eventually. When John Paul II visited Nagasaki in 1981, he baptized some young people from Kakure Kirishitan families, a rare occurrence.

External links

Pilgrimage Sites and Churches in Nagasaki by TCA (Think Catholic Asia) Japan located inside Nagasaki Catholic Center

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Background

Francis Xavier

Propagation strategy

Early expansion

Nature of early Christian community

Economic activities

Military activities

Toyotomi Hideyoshi

Persecution and martyrdom

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Kakure Kirishitan

Modern extinction of Hanare Kirishitans

Rediscovery and return

See also

External links