Nagasaki revisited as shelters harboring secret Christians in feudal years

January 29, 2015

Nagasaki revisited as shelters harboring secret Christians in feudal years



Nagasaki, located in the westernmost part of Kyushu, one of Japan’s four main islands, has many faces in its historical background. Nagasaki City, the capital of Nagasaki Prefecture, is one of Japan’s two A-bombed cities, the other being Hiroshima. Nagasaki and Hirado, about 70 kilometers to the north, used to be “windows” for external commerce for about 250 years of “sakoku” isolation from the 17th century. 
Sites linked to secret Christians in the feudal years can be found in widely scattered areas in Nagasaki Prefecture.

Tabira Church, which stands on a hilltop overlooking Hirado Strait, was completed after three years of work in 1917 and dedicated in the following year. At present, 600 to 700 believers attend the church, though the number was once about 2,000, said an old man who was on hand to receive visitors at the church. “Our church will turn 100 in 2018, just three years ahead. So, we have to discuss where to build a monument (in commemoration of the centennial),” he said.

Christianity was brought into Japan by a Jesuit missionary, Francisco de Xavier, in the middle of the 16th century. Other missionaries followed suit and quickly won many believers among not only influential persons but also ordinary people in Kyushu and other parts of western Japan. But their propagation was banned a few decades later.

As Christians began to be persecuted, some of them gave up their faith, while others maintained their faith secretly at shelters. 
One can imagine the severity of the persecution by visiting a monument built in memory of 26 martyred Christians on the top of Nishizaka Hill in Nagasaki. The so-called 26 Saints of Japan, including three boys and six foreign priests and monks, were taken to Nagasaki and executed there on February 5, 1597. 
Rites in memory of the martyrs will be held at churches across Japan, including Tabira Church, on the very day.

The year of 2015 is a special year for Christians in Japan. A group of secret Christians appeared at a church built for foreigners in Nagasaki and confessed their faith before a French missionary  on March 17, 1865, exactly 150 years ago. Despite the incident, the crackdown on Christian believers continued until 1873, when the new Meiji government scrapped the ban on the propagation amid criticisms by Christian countries. This eventually opened the way for Japanese Christians to build their own churches.

For Christians and related persons in Nagasaki Prefecture, this year will be even more special. Japan will formally recommend a total of 13 time-honored Christian sites, 12 places in Nagasaki Prefecture and one in neighboring Kumamoto Prefecture, this year as candidates for UNESCO World Heritage registration. Tabira Church, formally called Catholic Tabira Church, is among the candidate sites.

Tabira Church consists of the church building itself, a priestly house, front gate posts and an adjoining graveyard. Construction was carried out by congregation people, who carried up bricks, roof tiles, wood and other building materials from the sea. Lime as joints between bricks was made by burning seashell brought from the seashore. A kiln built for this purpose remains at an original site near the front of the church.

The red brick church building has a three-story front structure and behind it, a high arched, dome chapel with a beautifully painted interior. On top of the front building is an octagonal dome-shaped belfry, from which the bell is rung three times a day.

Visitors are received first by a statue of the Virgin Mary of Lourdes, built in front of the entrance in 1981. Then, they walk into the church and find beautifully decorated stained glass windows in the upper and lower sections and high above the altar. Those in the lower section depict the life of Jesus Christ from his childhood to death and resurrection. 

This year’s mass on the New Year’s Day brought together about 250 believers. As part of the mass, participants held a rite to celebrate the coming-of-the-age of two male followers.
According to a monthly newsletter published by the church, there will be no children who receive Holy Communion this year. “This is probably the first since our church started,” the author wrote anxiously.

The number of believers is further declining in the Tabira congregation, just like other Catholic churches in remote regions. As a result, the maintenance of the church is becoming harder. But the number of tourists appears to be increasing, since the proposed World Heritage registration of the Christian-related sites, including Tabira Church, became widely known last year. The encouraging news is expected to help Tabira congregation people to keep their faith and tradition from generation to generation over the years.