A Christian Encounter in Japan

The trail of blood spilled by martyrs for Christ is long and terrible to trace, stretching as it does for millennia and surging over virtually every national border. One cannot question the earnest faith of the tens of thousands of followers of the Master who were willing to give “the last full measure of devotion” for His name’s sake.

We can cite the burning of the people of Ammonihah prior to the ultimate sacrifice of the Lamb of God Himself, and we are likewise familiar with such tales of moral courage as that of Stephen, stoned to death for his testimony; of James the brother of John,beheaded with Herod’s sword; of the remainder of the ancient apostles; of Joan of Arc and the innocent slain during the Inquisition; and countless others, both those whose names are recorded in the chronicles of history as well as the unnamed whose identities are presently known only to the Jesus of Nazareth for whom they died.

Most Primary children today can tell a story or two of the persecutions, deprivations, and tragic deaths of the many martyrs of the early Restoration. The opening of the heavens to Joseph Smith collapsed the gap between the manifestations of the Spirit to the Old Testament patriarchs and those to prophets of modern times; it also brought closer together in the hearts of the Latter-day Saints the noble martyrs of ancient days with those blessed, honored pioneers who left their own trails of blood along the plains of the American frontier as they were driven and scourged by their enemies.

In the heartland of the Restoration, we tend to confine our focus to those who died as religious martyrs in Europe and the United States. Just as we teach the universality of the gospel of Jesus Christ, however,we might do well to ponder occasionally the profound sacrifices of those in other lands. My own particular research for the past several years has focused upon Christianity in Japan. That history is not well known,even among LDS missionaries who return after serving in Japan. Some can identify Heber J. Grant as the apostle who initiated the preaching of the gospel in Japan in 1901; a smaller number can name Alma O.Taylor as the inspired young man who completed the first translation of The Book of Mormon into Japanese.We appropriately rejoice that two temples are currently in operation there, with another announced for Sapporo. Those who dig a little deeper into statistics may be somewhat disheartened to learn that only about 1 percent of the current Japanese population claims membership in any Christian denomination. Compared to the remarkable success of Christian proselytizing in South Korea, the fruits of missionary labors in Japan can appear somewhat meager.

But what about the hundreds of thousands of Japanese who converted to Catholicism in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries? Proselytizing labors began in Japan with the arrival of Francis Xavier, the Jesuit apostle to Asia, in 1549. In less than sixty years, as many as 300,000 Japanese were converted. That number included several important warlords (daimyō), some of whom actively encouraged the preaching of the gospel to their vassals. These were years of intense civil war among many powerful military factions, and it was not until around 1615 that one of the leaders, Tokugawa Ieyasu, was able to bring most of the country under his rule and secure peace—and international isolation—for Japan. (His story is widely known from the fictionalized account of his exploits in James Clavell’s Shogun.) Because of the constantly changing power relations, however, these were also years of great instability, with warriors turning their coats and lining up behind whichever warriors appeared to have the temporary advantage. It is very likely, amidst all the back-stabbing and  assassinations and political machinations and shifting alliances, that many Japanese had their yearnings for stability and unfailing trust satisfied only in the teachings of the Heavenly Lord brought to them by the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries.

The hegemons who took political and military control in the early 1600s, however, concluded that they could not afford to have divided loyalties among their followers. They had to insure that they themselves were the supreme lords in the minds of all their vassals, and
so began a systematic and brutal process of persecution, torture, and bloodshed that produced what was, by some accounts, a tale of martyrdom unequalled in the annals of Christianity. Over 4,000 individuals were martyred for Christ in seventeenth-century Japan, while thousands of others were beaten and cajoled into apostasy. All the foreign missionaries were expelled from the country, and those who went into hiding to attempt to continue their ministry among the flock were hunted down, tortured, and annihilated. Thousands of other
Japanese Christians went underground with their faith, preserving a form of their religion in secret for over two hundred years.

The most moving account of these fearsome days can be found in the novel Silence, written in 1966 by the Japanese Catholic novelist, Endō Shūsaku (1923–1996). An English translation of the novel is available; it was named one of the one hundred most important spiritual
books of the twentieth century by Harper Publishers; and a film version is currently in preparation by director Martin Scorsese. It is essential reading for any Christians who wish to expand their understanding of the great sacrifices that have been made in other parts of the world by those who choose to follow the Master, no matter what the cost.

Over the course of my academic career, I have had the privilege of translating several of Endō’s novels into English (unfortunately, I was a green teenager when Silence was translated!). Although many of them are set in the age of intense Christian persecution, the novel I recently finished translating, The Life of Kiku (published in Japanese in 1982), sheds light on a group of Christians whom Endō has called “the final martyrs.” I am going to include a moving excerpt from the novel below, but a little historical background will help set the
stage for the dramatic events it describes.

The opening of an isolated Japan began in the summer of 1853, when US Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Edo Bay with a letter from President Millard Fillmore inviting the establishment of friendly commerce between the two nations. Internal dissatisfaction with the rule of the shoguns, combined with a recognition that Japan could not stand up to the military might of the modernized West, pressured Japan to conclude treaties with several foreign nations. By early 1860, French Catholic priests were allowed back into Japan, but they were strictly forbidden to teach their religion to any Japanese; their ministry was to be limited to those foreigners residing in Japan. But the fathers were confident that some descendants of the early martyrs must have continued to practice their faith in hiding, and they attempted in various
ways to elude the eyes of the magistrates as they sought to make contact with the hidden Christians.

In Nagasaki, one of the strongholds of Christian conversions in the sixteenth century, Father Bernard Petitjean made himself conspicuous to the locals by taking long strolls throughout the town, stopping to chat with children and quietly questioning adults whether they knew of any Christians (known to the Japanese as “Kirishitans”) in the area. With the completion of a little chapel atop Ōura hill in the spring of 1865, Father Petitjean hoped that the sanctuary and its contents would draw some of the descendents of the original Kirishitans from their concealment. In The Life of Kiku, Endō describes events that actually took place in Nagasaki on March 17, 1865:

The skies were clear that day. It was a day no different from any other. Father Petitjean instructed his housekeeper, Okane, “Please ask your husband to sweep the garden.” After he finished his lunch, he took a dry cloth and went inside the new chapel. Standing in front of the altar, his eyes took in every corner of the sanctuary that the Japanese carpenters had so industriously fashioned under Father Furet’s direction. It’s beautiful, he thought. It was not a grand, lavishly ornamented cathedral like those back home in Chartres Paris, and Reims, but to him it was as pristine, as fragrant with the scent of wood, and as immaculate as any of the graceful Buddhist temples of Japan. He was thankful that this lovely church had been entrusted to him.

With his cloth he dusted the altar, then the statues that were placed on either side of the altar—one of Jesus, the other of the Holy Mother cradling the infant Jesus. Then he arranged the candles and counted the cruets of wine used in the Mass.

Today as every day he could see through the partially opened door the crowd of spectators who were peering curiously toward him.

Because of the prohibition by the magistrate, the Japanese would not take one further step toward the church.
He had no sense how long the proscription on Christianity would be continued.

When he finished with his cleaning, he knelt down in front of the altar and clasped his hands together. Easter was approaching.
Sunlight poured through the stained glass windows. The time was just barely past 12:30.

He heard a faint sound behind him as he prayed. Thinking it must be Okane’s husband, he turned around. And there Petitjean saw four or five Japanese quietly staring at him.

The men wore shabby clothing and their faces had been baked brown in the sun. They gazed at him timidly, their eyes like those of mice that scrutinize their surroundings from the shadows, but when Petitjean turned his head in their direction, they quickly retreated. No doubt they were men who had come through the forbidden doorway out of curiosity and were sneaking a quick look at the inside of the chapel.

With a strained smile he again clasped his hands and made to resume his prayer.

Again he heard a faint noise. This time he remained in his kneeling position and paid them no attention. He calculated that this would give the Japanese a little more leisure to examine the altar and the statues of Jesus and Mary.

Just as he anticipated, the men seemed to have taken a bit of courage: behind him he heard footsteps moving two, then three paces forward. There they stopped, and Petitjean could sense that they were gazing at the altar with the intense curiosity so common among the Japanese.

Ah, they’ve become a bit brazen! The Japanese seemed to be coming even closer. Were they trying to move up close and get a clear view of the altar, the gold cross atop the altar, and the candlesticks? And were they then going to boast of what they had learned to their comrades who waited nervously outside?

“These strange things lined up here . . . Do you know what they’re called?” They were so close Petitjean could overhear their conversation.

Then a woman’s voice spoke. “Sir . . . Our hearts are all the same as yours.”

It was the voice of a middle-aged woman. She stood directly behind him, whispering softly as though she were divulging an important secret. “Sir . . . Our hearts are all the same as yours.”

Petitjean was jerked back into reality, as though startled from a dream, and with wide eyes he turned to look behind him.

The woman must have been about forty, perhaps a little older. It was difficult for a Frenchman to guess the age of a Japanese woman. She was so nervous that she was on the verge of tears.

“Our hearts are all the same as yours.”

He was so dumbfounded he didn’t immediately grasp the meaning of her words. The instant her meaning became clear to him, he felt as though he had been struck with a large club.

It was them! They had finally appeared!

The woman asked, “Sir . . . Where is the statue of Santa Maria?”

Petitjean tried to stand up, but he couldn’t get to his feet. The intensity of his emotions made it impossible for him to move.

“The statue . . . of Santa Maria,” he whispered. “Come with me.”

Petitjean led the woman to the base of the statue of the Holy Mother on the right of the altar. The young Holy Mother stood smiling, a crown on her head and the infant Jesus cradled in her arms. [The same statue is still on display today in the Ōura Cathedral in Nagasaki.]

The woman, along with the other men and women in the group, lifted their eyes to look where Petitjean was pointing. They were silent for a time, until the woman muttered,as either a sigh or a moan, “So precious!” The others sighed as well.

Petitjean’s voice was hoarse when he asked, “Are you Kirishitan . . . ?” His throat was parched.

“Yes,” a young man at the front of the group nodded as spokesman for them all.

“I—” Petitjean wanted to tell them that he was a priest. But there was not yet a word in Japanese for “priest.” “Petitjean. Petitjean.” He pointed to his nose and repeated his name. “Where have you come from?”

“Urakami.”

. . . Just then, a voice called from the entrance, “Hurry! An officer is coming!” Those in the chapel swiftly turned away from Petitjean and disappeared like smoke through the exit.

Petitjean stood motionless in the empty chapel. Wave after wave of inexpressible emotions came crashing against his heart. He felt like shouting. He wanted to shout to Father Furet: You see! They are here in Nagasaki! They really do exist! What a splendid city this is!

Through two hundred years of ruthless persecution and fierce oppression, the Japanese Christians had endured like a single tree in a downpour, and some of them still remained. What the drunken Chinese in the Ryukyus had told him was no lie. Petitjean was overcome with a dizzying excitement as he realized that he was the one who had first met up with the Japanese Christians who had hidden themselves underground.

“O Lord, I thank Thee. I . . . I thank Thee!” He knelt and folded his fingers in prayer as a flood of tears poured from his eyes. Through the tears that veiled his eyes he saw the lovely statue of the Holy Mother. “How precious!” The woman’s words still echoed vividly in his ears.

There had been no contact of any kind between the Catholic priests and their Japanese flock for over two hundred and twenty years. This dramatic reunion might have ushered in a new era of faith and hope for the underground Christians in Nagasaki and its environs; hopes
among the believers were high, not only because they once again had ecclesiastical leaders to guide them, but because Christians from many
foreign lands were now coming and settling in Japan, and the governments of Western nations began pressuring the Japanese government to lift the inhuman ban on the practice of the faith they shared with their Japanese brethren.

But Japan was once again in political upheaval; in 1868 the shogunate fell and a group of ambitious oligarchs sought to redesign the Japanese system of government acting under the presumed authorization of the Emperor Meiji but following Western models. These new rulers, already stinging from the unequal trade agreements that had been forced on them by the United States, England, and France, feared that opening the floodgates to Christian proselytizing among their people would lead to conflicted loyalties and unrest among the newly disenfranchised warrior class, so they kept the Christian proscription in place.

In a show of the government’s power, between the emergence of the hidden Christians in Petitjean’s chapel in 1865 and the lifting of the ban on Christianity a full eight years later, over 3,400 suspected Christians were arrested and exiled to scattered locations throughout the country. They were subjected to deprivation, torture, starvation, and other cruel measures aimed at breaking their allegiance to the foreign religion. Six hundred and sixty of them died in exile, while another five hundred apostatized under duress. By the time freedom of religion was belatedly granted, nearly 14,000 hidden Christians had been discovered.

Perhaps the most touching and peculiar aspect of the faith of the hidden Christians in Japan, who were left to their own devices without
authorized supervision, was the prayers of contrition which the faithful offered up to God after they were forced, by government edict, to trample on an image of Christ or Mary each New Year’s to signify that they were not Christians. Once they returned to their homes, however, they set fire to the straw sandals they had worn to trample on the images, then put the ashes into a bowl of water and drank them down, simultaneously uttering prayers that they might be forgiven for their weakness.1 They used images of the Buddhist goddess of compassion, Kannon, as substitutes for icons of the Virgin Mary, and they threw themselves on her mercy, begging her to intercede to quell the wrath of an offended paternal God.

Thus, more than twenty years after the Mormon pioneers fled to the mountain valleys of Utah to escape their persecutors, followers of Jesus were still being tortured and harassed for their beliefs in a far distant land. The bitter “heritage of the faithful” produced martyrs for
the name of Christ in Japan less than thirty years before Heber J. Grant and his companions arrived in Tokyo to begin preaching the Restored Gospel to the Japanese people. The “cry of the blood” of those Japanese martyrs has surely “ascend[ed] up to God” (2 Nephi 27:3).

1. This practice is described by Christal Whelan in her article “Written and Unwritten Texts of the Kakure Kirishitan,” in Japan and
Christianity: Impacts and Responses, ed. John Breen and Mark Williams (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), 134.