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VICKI BEYER

Il[E[$[HllhcGllgolmarlUrs
N Aucusr 9, 1915, an
American R-29 droned
across the rky over theNagasaki area, and at least 8,000 ofthem died in the atomic holocaust.
For the Christians of Nagasaki,

Japanese port city of Nagasaki. It

it was one more sad chapter in awas three days after the world'slong history of misery and death
suffered at the hands of their fellow

tirst atom bomb explosion in a populated area had devastated the cityof Hiroshima.
Because of cloud cover, thebomber had to bypass its prim arytarget, the city of Kokura. It also
missed its second ary target, theMitsubishi shipyards in Nagasaki.
Finally it dropped its atom bomb
about a half a mile from the historic
Uragami church, a red brick structure that stood on a small hill on theoutskirts of Nagasaki. In seconds
the church was destroyed and all
the people inside were dead.
The bombing of Nagasaki inflicted a terrible loss on the church
ir Japan. At that time, the greatest
concentration of the country's
Roman Catholics lived in thehuman beings.
On Feb . 5, 1597, twenty Japanese Christians and six Spanish missionaries were crucified on a hill in
Nagasaki, marking the outset of aharsh wave of religious persecutionthat brought death or exile to thou-sands of Jupanese Christians.
Christians around the world today(includirg users of the LutheranBook of Worship) still commemorate the Martyrs of Jupun onFeb. 5.
The old city of Nagasaki could becalled the cradle of Christianity inJapan. There, in the mid-16th century, the first missionaries, Jesuit
priests, mostly Portuguese, began
their ministry to the Japanese.

At that time the country was go-irg through a period of great
political and social upheaval. With
the support of one of the mighty
generals of the duy, Nobunaga
Oda, the Jesuits were allowed totravel and preach. By the time hedied in 1582, there were 150,000
Japanese Christians.
Nobunaga's successor, General
Hideyoshi Toyotomi, at the outset
continued the policy of support formissionaries and Christians.
In the 1580s, however, Spanish
Franciscans also began to work inJapan. Hideyoshi viewed the competition between the trading
powers with which these two mis-

sionary groups were associatedwith great suspicion. He also feared
their strong religious allegiance,viewing it as a rival to his own
power.

In 1587 , Hideyoshi ordered themissionaries to leave, and they

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cassock, Father Petitjean began torefused. Hideyoshi feared rebellion
by the oppressed farmers andtake long walks through Nagasakiand ride horseback in the areaaround the city.

village people for whom Christianity had great appeal. In 1596,

In his effort to be noticed, he
usually managed to fall off hispersecuti on began in earnest.

Christians-by then numbering at
leas t 300,000-were forced torenounce their faith or die.
In the 40 years that followed thehorse. Invariably nearby Jupanese
would come to help him, and hewould strike up a conversation.
Sooner or later, he would ask, "Aremartyrdom of the 26 Christians inNagasaki, Christians were persecuted with great severity. Many
went underground and worshiped

there any Christians around here?"Invariably the answer would come,ttNo. tt

After Father Petitjean had been

in secret.
Since they had no priests,

in Japan half a year, Nugasaki's

Oura cathedral was completed. Avillagers would choose one man tobaptize and catechrze. Outwardly,
though, these Christian believers
appeared to practice Buddhism.
Many even kept statues of Buddha
or the Buddhist goddess Kannon in
their homes. The statues frequently

wore crosses.
This went on for seven generations.

Hideyoshi had isolated Japan
from the rest of the world in the1590s as a means of tightening hiscontrol over the country and uniti^g it under his rule.
He recognized, however, thatJapan , v\ island natior, needed toimport some goods it could not
produce, so he allowed the port ofNagasaki to remain open to receive
shipments from abroad. At first thetrade was mainly with China andother parts of Asia but, ?S time
passed) some of the Western nations, especially the Netherlands,
also sent ships.

In 1853 American naval ships
led by Commodore Mattherv Perrycompelled the Jupanese to reopen
their country to trade with theWest.

By 1861, Nagasaki had a large/2 / I|AL,L /982

r-week after its dedicatior, the priest
was praying in the church when agroup of Japanese farmers walked

Portion of the originalUragami Cathedral,
destroyed by the atomic
bomb, now stands in thepeace park around theepicenter of theexplosion.

population of Western Christians.
Although Christianity was stillprohibited among the Jupanese, aCatholic priest, Father Petitjean,
was allowed to build a cathedral in
Nagasaki and minister to the manyforeigners who lived there.
The priest knew that before thepersecution began, there had been
thousands of Japanese Christians.
He felt that, although 250 years
had passed, perhaps there were stillsome Christians in the area. He
decided to search for them.
Wearing hi s conspicuous

in. As he knelt in front of the altar,
a woman from the group came up
to him and whispered, "We are of
the same faith as you. Where is thestatue of St. M ary?"
Father Petitjean, huppy and surprised, showed the farmers thestatue of Mary holding the baby
Jesus. This satisfied them that thiswas indeed the same faith to which
they had clung secretly, desperately, for so many years.
The farmers were from thevillage of Uragaffii, in the hills
north of Nagasaki. Soon Father
Petitjean began to go out at night toworship with them in secret. As

time passed, other Christianvillages began to reveal themselvesto the priest.

Since Christianity was still illegal, everything was done secretly,usually at night. By the end of theyear, seven different pockets ofChristians were known to the priest
and he estimated the number ofJapanese Christians at 20,000.
Still being careful to preservesecrecy, Petitj ean and anotherpriest who had recently come toNagasaki provided pastoral carefor these underground Christians.
Petitj ean prepared a catechismand a book of daily' pra)'er, usirg

itg a Buddhist priest to conduct
funeral services. The governor

found that everything they owned
had been destroyed. Houses andfields luy in waste.
But one woman wrote in her
diary, "We have nothing earthly
here, but we can now worship as
Christians out in the open. We
have the freedom to attend churchin Nagasaki four kilometers
away."
After enduring so much for theirfaith, the people of lJragami wanted to build their own house ofworship. With their own labor, it
took the villagers 30 years to erect
their beautiful red brick church.
It is said to be built on the site of
the home of the village headman
where, in the days of persecutiotr,
people had to gather to declarethemselves non-Christians or risk

granted their request.

punishment.

the special Japanese terminologythat had developed over the centuries of hiding. Soon so many people were involved in this ministrythat it was becomirg less and lessclandestine.

Seeing their faith come alive
again, the Christians realtzed thatthey could not continue to pretend
to be B uddhists as their ancestors
had done. The village of Uragami

boldly aSked the governor of
Nagasaki to exempt them from us-No retribution was made at thattime, but the government wasaware of renewed Chri stian activity. Finally, in Jrly 1867,

authorities raided Uragami atnight and 64 Christians werearrested. Although these people

was granted.
In that last wave of persecution,

This was the church that theatom bomb destroyed on Arg . 9,1945. A remnant of it now stands in
the Uragami peace park. In 1958 anew church was built of reinforced
concrete. Last year, in preparation
for the visit of Pope John Paul 2, rt
was covered with red bricks, makirg it look like the original buildirg.
The faith of these Christians
through persecution, torture, starvatiotr, hiding, exile, and even theatomic bombing is incredible. The
Holy Spirit has been at work inJapan in ways Westerners will
never comprehend. Those hidden
Christians who stayed steadfast forgenerations are like a city set on ahill. Their faith makes them seen!
by the world.

4,000 died of torture and starvation. B ut very few gave up theirfaith. When those rvho had beenz"uho teaches English at a IaPanese

Father Petitjean. During
his ministry Nagasaki
Roman Catholics cameout into the open after
hundreds of years ofhiding.

were released after a few months, itmarked the renewal of Christianpersecution.

In time, 1 500 were j ailed andsaw all their property confiscated.
They were starved and tortured inan effort to get them to abandon
their faith. Many were exiled toother areas of Japan. Still they heldstrong in their faith.

Th e gov ernm ent of J up vo,meanwhile, in trying to establish
diplomatic ties with the West, met
an obstacle in its negotiations with
the U.S. The Japanese delegation
was informed by President t-llysses
S. Grant that he could not sign atreaty with a country that wasflagrantly persecuting Christians.
Although the delegation pro-tested that the p res ident w asaddressing an internal matter, they

took his message back to Toky o.
Even with this outside pressure, itwas not until 1873 that the AntiChristian Edict of 1 614 \\'as linallyrepealed and freedom oi religion

exiled returned to their homes, they

The author is an LeA missionar))high school in Kumamoto.

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