Christianity in Japan

This book is about the history of the Orthodox Church in Japan.
Christianity developed with the arrival of the first Catholic Missionaries in the 16th century. The persecution stoped this development.
In the 19th century religious liberty was granted. St. Nikolai Kasatkin the first Orthodox Missionary was sent from Russia to Japan in 1861. At his death in 1912, the Orthodox Church was one of the most important Christian communities in Japan.
After his death the bishop that continued his work was Sergey Tikhomirov. After WW2 the were American bishops and now Japanese ones that continues the legacy of St. Nikolai.
It is a beautiful history with written by a Romanian missionary in The Land of The Rising Sun.

The article presents Wojciech (Albert) Męciński, S.J., (ca. 1598-1643), a Jesuit martyr and the first Pole to reach Japan through the prism of his vocation to the country. The outlined historical background of Męciński's travel was supplemented by references to his letters, from which there emerges an image of a man deeply convinced about the necessity of a personal testimony of faith. The stability of Męciński's decision – twenty years passed from the moment of making it to its realization – becomes clear after an analysis of deep religious motivation. Męciński is almost silent about the country which is the objective of the journey of his life, stressing his devotion to Christ. On his way to Christ, he is heading to Japan, and thus combines the love of Christ with his willingness to give up his life in the country he did not know.

十六世紀半ばから十七世初頭にかけ、日本イエズス会により、日本語の教理書が出版されたということは周知の通りだ。世俗のヨーロッパ文学である『イソップ物語』の和訳、そして天草版『平家物語』、『太平記抜書』の存在もよく知られている。しかし、日本語で書かれたオリジナルのキリスト教説話が現存するということは案外知られていない。近年、このテキスト群を「異文化接触」というレベルで取り上げた研究が現れているが、漢訳仏典や漢籍の影響を受けた『日本霊異記』『今昔物語集』などとは対照的に、室町末期にラテン語文脈から国語に翻案されたキリスト教文学は、残念ながらこれまで国文学として扱われてこなかった。その理由をここで詳しくは追究できないが、日本精神というものが（漢文脈との関連性ではある程度まで認められている一方で）キリスト教との関係性については根本的に異質で相容れないものと一般的には理解されていることが、その背景にあると考えられる。しかし、キリスト教説話を聞いた織豊期の日本人がこのように日本精神とキリスト教を両極的なものとして捉えていたということは、資料からは読み取れない。本稿では、キリスト教も日本精神も信仰していない筆者が日本中世キリスト教の代表的な説話集をバレト写本という資料の中から取り上げ、その原典が何であったかを明らかにし、さらに、同時代の日本文学との関係性を探る。その結果、この説話集は当時の武士階級によって評価された軍記・語り物文学、取り分け幸若舞と最も関連性が深いということを示す。

Histoire@Politique, Politique, culture, société (Revue scientifique du Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po), « Comptes rendus – ouvrages »,
http://www.histoire-politique.fr/index.php?numero=31&rub=comptes-rendus&item=627
Mis en ligne le 23 mai 2017

Klaus Koschorke, «"'Dialectics of the Three Selves": The ideal of a "self-governing" native church -from a missionary concept to an emancipatory slogan of Asian and African Christians in the 19th and early 20th centuries», in "InternationaIising Higher Education: From South Africa to England via New Zealand: Essays in honour of Professor Gerald Pillay", eds. Hoffie (J W) Hofmeyr and John Stenhouse (Centurion, South Africa: Mediakor, 2018): 127-142.

Tras su introducción en Japón a partir de 1549 de manos del jesuita Francisco Javier, comenzó una nueva etapa de la historia nipona que ha sido usualmente denominada como el Siglo Cristiano, cuyo desarrolló se produjo entre los años 1549 y 1650 aproximadamente. En un primer momento, las creencias cristianas se extendieron rápidamente, y a comienzos del siglo XVII Japón contaba con unos 300.000 conversos y más de 200 iglesia distribuidas en diversas zonas del país. Los cristianos japoneses fueron conocidos como kirishitan, japonización del portugués cristao, actualmente empleado para referirse tanto a las creencias como ritos de estos conversos de comienzos de la Edad Moderna en tierras niponas.

The perennial statement of the Japanese being a very difficult group to be reached with the gospel is a challenge for the Christians to find and present a contextualized message that will meet their needs.

In this research, we will look at the Japanese worldview – namely the cultural/social factors where their religious (rituals) and cultural traits are intertwined, creating a seamless sense of being “Japaneseness” a proud feature of the Japanese. We will look at cultural and social factors such as (a) group oriented society and harmony (wa), (b) true feelings/public façade concept (honne/ tatemae) and the most celebrated festival holiday – the Bon Festival, which is to entertain the return of the departed spirits.

We will look at the missiological factors, namely missiological shortcomings and recommend steps to reconstruct missiological
effectiveness in Japan.

This work shows that the transmission of European natural philosophy by Christian missionaries in Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was made in a systematic way, even if at an elementary level. The Kenkon Bensetsu is used as main evidence of this. This text was introduced into Japan by Antonio Rubino, on the orders of Inoue Masashige it was translated by Sawano Chūan, at the request of Kainoshō Masanobu it was transliterated by Nishi Kichibei and Mukai Genshō, and this last one also wrote a commentary on its theories from a neo-Confucian perspective.

The historical setting and the process that led to the production of the Kenkon Bensetsu are described. From this it is established that the Japanese of all walks of life were curious about the causes of natural phenomena; that the missionaries had the ability to provide those explanations, drawing from the pool of theories provided by sixteenth century Aristotelian natural philosophy, adjusted to the interests and talents of their audience; and that the Japanese authorities considered that these theories were important in some way and thus took the necessary steps to ensure that that they would not be consigned into oblivion as a consequence of their efforts to stamp out Christianity.

The text is integrally translated following explicit criteria, therefore opening the way to further exploration by many researchers. Some of its most striking characteristics concerning content and style are analysed.

From 1614 to 1873 Christianity was outlawed in Japan. The Tokugawa Shogunate, which ruled Japan for most of this period, built rigorous and complicated systems of surveillance in order to monitor their population's religious habits. This paper seeks to describe the evolution of Edo period (1603-1868) anti-Christian religious surveillance. The first two sections of the paper explore the development of surveillance under the first three Tokugawa leaders. The following sections focus on the evolution of these systems (the recruitment of informants, temple registration, the composition of registries, and tests of faith) in subsequent periods and includes some short passages from previously untranslated contemporaneous documents. Finally, the paper offers some thoughts on the efficacy of anti-Christian surveillance, arguing that the toleration of the existence of hidden communities resulted from changes in Christian behaviour that made them harder to discover and a willingness on the part of the authorities to tolerate illegal activity due to economic disincentive and a reduction in the threat that Christianity posed.

Martin Nogueira Ramos, "Neither Apostates nor Martyrs. Japanese Catholics Facing the Repression (1612-Mid-Seventeenth Century)", in Alexandra Curvelo & Angelo Cattaneo, eds, Interactions Between Rivals: The Christian Mission and Buddhist Sects in Japan (c.1549–c.1647), Berlin, Peter Lang, 2021, pp.361-392

OPEN ACCESS:
https://www.peterlang.com/document/1190560?fbclid=IwAR0bX_C1vDWijp3w2kog0iLla6rJ15etlkf-NOXDH-h8h-sghpfY2zIB_Jw

You can download the paper on the Nichibunken database:

https://nichibun.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_view_main_item_detail&item_id=7628&item_no=1&page_id=41&block_id=63

By examining the dynamic interactions between the authorities, the Buddhist clergy, and the hidden Christians, this article aims to deepen our understanding of the Tokugawa anti-Christian policy in the aftermath of the Shimabara-Amakusa revolt (November 1637–April 1638), a period of international tension for Japan as the Iberian threat was not over. It focuses on Sessō Sōsai (1589–1649), a Rinzai monk who was summoned by the authorities of Nagasaki in mid-1647 to preach to the populace. Some of his writings and his working papers have survived. These firsthand sources enable us to bring together fields that previous scholarship has generally tackled separately: intellectual, institutional, and social history. This essay argues that around 1640, Sessō Sōsai and his patrons in Nagasaki felt that the religious inquiry had reached a deadlock as the alleged apostates could suddenly (and violently) return to their previous faith. They understood that, in order to be more efficient and obtain sincere apostasies, their fight against the forbidden cult should focus more on the actual beliefs of the hidden Christians. They paid particular attention to the belief in miracles and in the omnipotence of God.

Kanzo Uchimura (1861-1930) was a Japanese author, a Christian evangelist, the founder of the indigenized Christian movement, known as Mukyōkai and a famous pacifist before the World War II. He was regarded as one of the foremost thinker and practitioner of indigenized Christianity amongst the Japanese Christian since Protestantism entered Japan in 1859.  Yet for that reason in trying to make Christianity more indigenized as compared to being Western, Uchimura has become one evangelical Christian that was being “hated by my countrymen…disliked by foreign missionaries” for Jesus’ sake.

Cet article s’inscrit dans les débats actuels en histoire du Japon sur la perception du catholicisme et le façonnement des identités religieuses au début de l’époque d’Edo. J’apporte d’abord des éléments de réponse aux deux questions suivantes : les Japonais de la première moitié du XVIIe siècle perçoivent-ils le catholicisme comme une religion étrangère ? Établissent-ils des liens entre la pratique religieuse et l’idée qu’ils se font du Japon ? Des recherches récentes, qui se fondent essentiellement sur des textes écrits par les guerriers, tendent à montrer que le catholicisme était souvent assimilé à la figure de l’altérité absolue, voire à ce que l’on pourrait appeler l’ « anti-Japon ». J’estime que ce point de vue doit être nuancé, notamment en ce qui concerne les roturiers. Mon propos porte ensuite sur l’attitude des catholiques face à la répression et aux critiques qui leur étaient adressées par le pouvoir. En m’appuyant sur des documents rédigés par les participants à la révolte de Shimabara-Amakusa (1637-1638), je défends l’idée d’une radicalisation de leur identité religieuse qui repose en grande partie sur leur rejet des dieux et des bouddhas.


This article is in accordance with the current debates in Japanese history about the perception of Catholicism and the formation of religious identities in the beginning of the Edo period. First, the analysis aims to answer the two following questions: Do Japanese of the first half of the 17th century perceive Catholicism as a foreign religion? Do they make links between religious practice and their idea of Japan? Recent studies, which are mostly based on texts elaborated by warriors, tend to show that this religion was often assimilated to an absolute otherness, or even to an enemy of Japan. In my view, this approach needs to be qualified, particularly concerning the commoners. Second, I focus on the behavior of the Catholics toward the suppression and the critics directed to them by the authorities. To this end, I examine documents written by the participants to the revolt of Shimabara-Amakusa (1637-1638). I argue that the religious identity of the Catholics became more radical during the first decades of the ban and that this shift mostly rested on the rejection of Gods and Buddhas.

This is a paper from graduate school days, written for a seminar in European Transregionalism taught by Prof. Stanley Brandes.  It examines the cultural miscues and slippages of the early Christian missionaries trying to get a foothold in Japan in the late 1500s and early 1600s.  I try to make clear that religion, politics, and economics were all linked and interdependent, with  global networks influencing and sometimes exacerbating tensions between the missionaries and the Japanese feudal lords.  The introduction is particularly vivid in recounting the execution of both foreign and domestic Catholics.

In the early 1800s, the Japanese discovered to their amazement the existence of an ever-expanding empire ruled by a man called Napoleon. Meanwhile, Parisian orientalists started to acquire books on Japan and to dispel the shrouds of mystery surrounding this island country on the other side of the world. In authorized coteries and circles, the circulation of information encouraged the emergence of a “diplomacy of minds.” By 1900, a new era had dawned: official diplomatic ties had been established between the two countries since half a century and they were now rubbing elbows in the international political arena. Empire to Empire studies the first hundred years of indirect, then direct, contact between France and Japan. As shadows of an ancient world are ushered away from the stage, modernity appears to be unstoppable in its march. The contributors to this volume have chosen to explore subjects different from the issues most often associated with bilateral relations such as diplomatic history in the narrower sense or the triumphant success of Japonisme. They aim to reconsider some of the defining traits associated with first encounters—a mixture of hope and error, dialogue and fear, and imagination and reality—and to shed light on lesser-known aspects of Franco-Japanese relations.


Au début des années 1800, les Japonais apprennent avec stupeur l’existence d’un empire en constante expansion dirigé par un certain Napoléon alors que les orientalistes parisiens commencent à réunir des livres sur cet archipel de l’autre bout du monde. La circulation de l’information établit une forme de « diplomatie de l’esprit ». À l’orée du XXe siècle, une nouvelle ère a déjà commencé : Japonais et Français ont établi des relations officielles depuis un demi-siècle et se côtoient désormais sur l’échiquier politique international. D’un empire, l’autre parcourt le premier siècle des contacts (indirects puis directs) entre la France et le Japon. Alors que les ombres d’un ancien monde se voient congédiées de la scène de l’histoire, la marche des temps modernes apparaît inexorable. Les auteurs de ce volume ont délibérément choisi d’explorer des thématiques différentes de celles souvent associées aux relations bilatérales telles que l’histoire diplomatique stricto sensu ou encore le succès du japonisme. Ils visent à interroger ce qui caractérise d’ordinaire les premières rencontres – l’espoir et l’incompréhension, le dialogue et la crainte, l’imaginaire et le réel – et éclairer ainsi des facettes méconnues de la relation franco-japonaise.

Whereas many studies have been written on Japan’s “Christian Century” (16th and 17th centuries) and the last hidden Christian communities still active today, the hidden Christian/Catholic villages of the nineteenth century remain virtually uninvestigated. My aim is to show how religion influences the social organization of these villages, their contacts with the external world, and their perception of others. In 1865 the Catholic Church, which had returned to Japan, made contact with these communities, triggering a wave of conversions. For these peasants, embracing the Catholic religion meant continuing the cult of their Ancestors. However, while previously they would keep their faith a secret, they now assert their identity as Catholics and clash with their direct environment.

Japan has an almost 470-year history of Christian proclamation since Francis Xavier’s arrival in 15492 though the Christian faith was prohibited from 1639 to 1868.3 Japan’s current Christian population is only 1,955,729 (1.54%) out of 126,995,411 and its evangelical population is 596,498 (0.47%), which represents 30.5% of the whole Christian population) according to Operation World. 4 Among manysuggested reasons hindering Japanese’ conversion to the Christian, especially evangelical, faith is the popular practice of ancestor veneration, which “has been an important aspect of religious practice in Japan for centuries.”5

In order to build a road for effective ministry into the future we must take a thorough look at the ministry of the past learning as much from it as we can. Anabaptist history is not locked in the sixteenth century, but is alive through the faithful activity of Anabaptists all over the world. I want to contribute to that growing history by researching and analyzing the history of the General Conference Mennonite Mission in Japan. Its origin in 1951 through 1981 forms a manageable slice appropriate for this project. I believe there is a treasure of insight and wisdom to be found in those thirty years of faithful work. It is my hope that this story of robust faith and deep Christian love will inspire others to continue to cherish the history of world mission and to discern how to faithfully participate in sharing the Gospel of peace and joy.

The paper proposes a philological reflection on the concept of shinkoku (land of the gods) to outline the reasons for the lack of inter-religious dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity that underlay Japan’s closure with respect to the West. The edict expelling Catholic priests arrived in 1597 not only due to their inability to embrace syncretically the local philosophical and religious bases, but also because of forced conversions and the destruction of temples and monasteries. Rejection of the Japanese religious system on one hand—and on the other refusal to accept the supremacy of another god over the kami, the Shinto deities already intelligently associated with the manifestations of the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas (that had long legitimized the country’s power hierarchy)—made the two worlds irreconcilable.

In contemporary Japan it is clear that postwar attitudes toward religion are largely “nonreligious” (mushūkyō) and a substantial majority of Japanese claim no particular faith or affiliation. These trends are perennially attested to in a vast number of sociological surveys and investigations where a consistent majority of Japanese describe their religious disposition as nonreligious. However, similar surveys suggest that these same individuals do also continue to engage in behaviors that might otherwise still be considered religious.  Despite the prevalence of nonreligiousness among the members of contemporary Japanese society there exist very few explorations into how nonreligiousness functions “on the ground” as a part of people’s lives or how to treat religious acts when these acts are undertaken by nonreligious individuals.  In this paper, I use my investigation of contemporary Christian weddings to problematize claims of nonreligion and highlight the most salient features of nonreligious attitudes as they play out within the context of wedding ceremonies.

This article is a transcript of a presentation with the same title at the 'Newer Stage for Namban Historical Studies' International Conference held at Waseda University, January 2020.

Its purpose is to draw attention to the distinction between catechesis and doctrine, to argue that much of what was taught in Jesuit catechesis was not uniquely Christian but was mainly the exposition of the basic tenets of the then mainstream western philosophical thought, and to claim that the debates between Buddhists and Christians, as described in Nanban historical sources, were mainly philosophical discussions

towards the Catholic missionaries, while the second book provides a chance to compare Japan's transformation under the Tokugawa period. Together, both books provide a comprehensive understanding of the historical changes that took place in Japan during this time period.

This paper provides a brief history of the 16th and 17th Century presence of Christianity in the Tōhoku region of Japan. The paper describes aspects of the 16th and 17th Century Catholic missions to Japan which are unique to Tōhoku, whilst simultaneously exploring potential issues associated with studying the history of Christianity in the region.

In "Missionsgeschichte als Geschichte der Globalisierung von Wissen: Transkulturelle Wissenaneignung und -vermittlung durch christliche Missionare in Afrika und Asien im 17., 18. und 19. Jahrhundert", eds. Ulrich van der Hayden and Andreas Feldtkeller (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2012): 193-212.