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History of Roman Catholicism in Japan

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History of Roman Catholicism in Japan

The martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, 1590-1600 tempera painting, Japan.

Christian missionaries arrived with Francis Xavier and the Jesuits in the 1540s and briefly flourished, with over 100,000 converts, including many daimyo in Kyushu. Suddenly in 1587 Christianity was repressed as a threat to national unity and ceased to exist publicly. Many Catholics went underground, becoming hidden Christians (隠れキリシタン kakure kirishitan?), while others lost their lives. Only after the Meiji Restoration was Christianity re-established in Japan.



Portuguese shipping arrived in Japan in 1543,[1] and Catholic missionary activities in Japan began in earnest around 1549, performed in the main by Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits until Spanish-sponsored Franciscans and Dominicans gained access to Japan. Of the 95 Jesuits who worked in Japan up to 1600, 57 were Portuguese, 20 were Spaniards and 18 Italian.[2] Francisco Xavier,[3][4] 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.[5] 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, 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 gravestone (second from the left), in Melaka's St Paul's Church, of someone identified as Peter (?), the "second bishop of Japan", who had died in February 1598




Francis Xavier

Japanese-Portuguese Bell Inscribed 1570, Nantoyōsō Collection, Japan

Francis Xavier was the first Jesuit to go to Japan as a missionary.[citation needed] In Portuguese Malacca in December 1547, Xavier met a Japanese from Kagoshima named Anjiro. 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."[citation needed]


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 on the island of Kyūshū. 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. Shortly before Christmas, he left for Kyoto but failed to meet with the Emperor. He returned to Yamaguchi in March 1551, where he was permitted to preach by the daimyo of the province. However, lacking fluency in the Japanese language, he had to limit himself to reading aloud a Japanese translation of a catechism.

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.[6][7]

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.[citation needed]


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


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.[8] 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 Macau, 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.


Christians refer positively to Oda Nobunaga, who died in the middle of the unification of Japan. He favored the Jesuit missionary Luís Fróis 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.


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

Propagation strategy


Early expansion

Celebrating a Christian mass in Japan.



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.



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 accepted Korean convents such as Marina Pak, baptized in Nagasaki.[10] 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

Netsuke depicting Christ, 17th century, Japan.
A Japanese Kirishitan crucifix, 17th century. Paris Foreign Missions Society.


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,[citation needed] was also the main reason for the anti-Christian policy of the Tokugawa’s bakufu.

Economic 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.[11]

Military activities

Missionaries were not reluctant to resort to military action if they considered it an effective way to Christianize Japan.[citation needed] 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 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.[citation needed] Francisco Cabral also reported to the King of 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.[citation needed]

Many daimyos converted to Christianity in order to gain more favorable access to saltpeter, used to make gunpowder. Between 1553 and 1620, eighty-six daimyos were officially baptized, and many more were sympathetic to the Christians.[12]


Toyotomi Hideyoshi


Persecution and martyrdom

The Christian martyrs of Nagasaki. 16-17th century Japanese painting.
Monument to Kirishitan martyrs in Nagasaki.

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.[14] He was concerned that divided loyalties might lead to dangerous rebels like the Ikkō-ikki Sect of earlier years and produced his edict expelling missionaries. However, this decree was not particularly enforced.[15]

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.

Drawing remembering the 26 Catholic monks.

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.

On February 5, 1597, twenty-six Christians – six European Franciscan missionaries, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laymen including three young boys – were executed by crucifixion 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,[16] 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.


Tokugawa Ieyasu

Hasekura Tsunenaga converted to Catholicism in Madrid in 1615.
Image of Christ used to reveal practicing Catholics and sympathizers

After Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death, 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 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 English traders advised the Shogunate that Spain did indeed have territorial ambitions, and that Catholicism was Spain's principal means. In contrast, the Dutch and English promised that they would limit themselves to trading and would not conduct missionary activities in Japan.

Following Toyotomi's death in 1598, it seems that the Jesuits realized that the Tokugawa shogunate 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 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[17] 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 colonial powers, which had previously occurred in the New World and the Philippines. In 1615, a Franciscan emissary of the Viceroy of New Spain asked the shogun for land to build a Spanish fortress and this deepened Japan's suspicion against Catholicism and the Iberian 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 monk Konchiin Suden (1563–1633) and issued in 1614 under the name of second shogun Hidetada (ruled 1605-1623), was the considered the first official statement of a comprehensive control of Kirishitan.[18] 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".[19] It was fully implemented and canonized as one of the fundamental Tokugawan laws.



The number of active Christians is estimated to have been around 200,000 in 1582.[20] 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 Shimabara Rebellion, led by a young Christian boy named Amakusa Shiro Tokisada, 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 or to the Spanish Philippines. Many Macanese and Japanese Mestizos 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

Maria Kannon, Dehua Kiln Statue of Buddhist Kannon used for Christian worship in Japan, Nantoyōsō Collection, Japan
Buddhist statue with hidden cross on back, used by Christians in Japan to hide their real beliefs




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 and rejoined the Roman Catholic Church after renouncing their unorthodox, syncretic practices. However, there were those who decided not to rejoin. They are known as the Hanare Kirishitan (離れキリシタン, separated Christians).

Modern extinction of Hanare Kirishitans



The anthropologist Christal Whelan uncovered the existence of genuine Hanare Kirishitans on the Gotō Islands 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.[21]

Rediscovery and return

Left image: Japanese Christian left in Jakarta after Sakoku, circa 1656, by Andries Beeckman. Christianity indicated by the hat.
Right image: The same Japanese appears on the right, in the forefront. The Castle of Batavia by Andries Beeckman, circa 1656.



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, retaining their own traditional beliefs and their descendants asserting that they keep their ancestors' religion.[22] However, it became difficult for them to keep their community and rituals, so they have converted to Buddhism or Shinto eventually.[23] When John Paul II visited Nagasaki in 1981, he baptized some young people from Kakure Kirishitan families, a rare occurrence.[24]

See also


  1. ^ Ruiz-de-Medina, Father Juan G., Documentos de Japon, Rome 1990, 1995
  2. ^ Ruiz-de-Medina, Father Juan G., Cultural Interactions in the Orient 30 years before Matteo Ricci. Catholic Uni. of Portugal, 1993.
  3. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909 on St. Francis Xavier
  4. ^ Saint Francis Xavier on Catholic Forum
  5. ^ Robert Richmond Ellis. “The Best Thus Far Discovered”: The Japanese in the Letters of St. Francisco Xavier. Hispanic Review, Vol. 71 No. 2 (Spring 2003), pp. 155-169 in jstor
  6. ^ Ellis, Robert Richmond. “The Best Thus Far Discovered”: The Japanese in the Letters of St. Francisco Xavier. Hispanic Review, Vol. 71 No. 2 (Spring 2003), pp. 155-169 University of Pennsylvania Press. 30 November 2008 jstor
  8. ^ Lopez-Gay, St Francis Xavier and the Shimazu Family, Bulletin of Portguese/Japanese Studies, Uni. Nova de Lisboa, Portugal 2003
  10. ^ Oliveira e Costa, João Paulo
  11. ^ Cooper, Michael, "Rodrigues in Japan, a Jesuit Missionary," History Today, April 1973, Vol. 23 Issue 4, pp 247-255
  13. ^ Cooper, Michael (1974). Rodrigues the Interpreter= An Early Jesuit in Japan and China. Weatherhill, New York. p. 160. ISBN 0-8348-0319-4. "I have received information that in your kingdoms the promulgation of the law, i.e. Christianity, is a trick and deceit by which you overcome other kingdoms, he wrote in a letter to the Philippines in reply to the embassy led by Navarrete Fajardo in 1597. Christian missionaries, in Hideyoshi's mind, represented the first wave of European imperialism."
  14. ^ Elison, George (1973). Deus Destroyed; The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan. Harvard University Press. pp. 54 and 64. ISBN 0-674-19962-6.
  16. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia: Sts. Peter Baptist and Twenty-Five Companions
  18. ^ Higashibaba, Ikuo (2001). Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice. Brill Academic Publishers, Incorporated. p. 139. ISBN 90-04-12290-7. "The Kirishitan band happened to reach Japan. Not only have they sent merchant vessels to exchange commodities, but they also spread a pernicious doctrine to confuse the right ones, so thay they would change the government of the country and own the country. This will become a great catastrophe. We cannot but stop it."
  19. ^ Shimizu, Hirokazu (1977). Kirishitan Kankei Hosei Shiryo Shu. pp. 284–286.
  20. ^ "Catholic Encyclopedia on Japan". http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08297a.htm.
  21. ^ http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0452.html
  22. ^ Kentaro Miyazaki, "Kakure Kirishitan --Orasho, Figured Bass of Their Souls," 2001, Nagasaki Shimbun Shinsho (in Japanese), ISBN 4-931493-40-8, pp.282-283


  • Ellisonas, Jurgis. "Christianity and the daimyo," in John Whitney Hall, ed. The Cambridge History of Japan: Early modern Japan (1991) pp 301–71
  • Elison, George. Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan (1988)
  • Secretariat, General (2007). "AN OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN JAPAN, 1543-1944". Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan. http://www.cbcj.catholic.jp/eng/ehistory/table01.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  • Eishiro, Ito (2007). "Unveiling Histories of the Tohoku District; Juan Goto and Crypto-Christians". IWATE PREFECTURAL UNIVERSITY. http://p-www.iwate-pu.ac.jp/~acro-ito/Japan_pics/Japan_MZS/Juan_Goto.html. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  • C. R. Boxer & J. S. Cummins, The Dominican mission in Japan (1602–1622), 1963
  • Boxer, C. R. The Christian Century in Japan. 3rd edition. Manchester: Carcanet, 1993.
  • Fujita, Neil. Japan’s Encounter with Christianity: The Catholic Mission in Pre-modern Japan New York: Paulist Press 1991.

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