''Kakure Kirishitan'' () is a modern term for a member of the

Catholic Church in Japan The Catholic Church in Japan is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the pope in Rome. As of 2021, there were approximately 431,100 Catholics in Japan (0.34% of the total population), 6,200 of whom are clerics ...

who went underground at the start of the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

in the early 17th century (lifted in 1873) due to Christianity's repression by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

(April 1638). The term is particularly used today for those who have refused to embrace modern Roman Catholic practices and still hold onto the traditions established during the times of persecution.

History

are the Catholic communities in Japan which hid themselves during the ban and persecution of Christianity by Japan in the 1600s. During this time, many believers modified their religious practices to resemble Buddhist ones on a surface level, but which held hidden Christian meaning in reality. For instance, depictions of the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

modeled on the

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

deity Kannon (

Avalokiteśvara In Buddhism, Avalokiteśvara (meaning "the lord who looks down", International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: ), also known as Lokeśvara ("Lord of the World") and Chenrezig (in Tibetan), is a Bodhisattva#Bhūmis (stages), tenth-level bodhisattva associ ...

), goddess of mercy, became common among , and were known as "Maria Kannon". The prayers were adapted to sound like Buddhist chant, yet retained many untranslated words from

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

, Portuguese, and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

. The

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

and other parts of the liturgy were passed down orally, because printed works could be confiscated by authorities. were recognized by Bernard Petitjean, a Catholic priest, when Ōura Church was built in Nagasaki in 1865. Approximately 30,000 secret Christians, some of whom had adopted these new ways of practicing Christianity, came out of hiding when religious freedom was re-established in 1873 after the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

. The became known as , or 'ancient Christians', and emerged not only from traditional Christian areas in Kyushu, but also from other rural areas of Japan. Some did not rejoin the Catholic Church, and became known as the . are now primarily found in

Urakami Urakami was an area in the northern part of the city of Nagasaki, Japan. History In 1614, by the orders of shōgun leader Tokugawa Ieyasu, Christianity was banned in Japan in order to suppress European influence and to prevent the undermining o ...

and on the

Gotō Islands The are Japanese islands in the Sea of Japan. They are part of Nagasaki Prefecture. Geography There are 140 islands, including five main ones: , , , , and . The northernmost island is Ukujima. The group of islands runs approximately fr ...

. In the early 1990s, anthropologist Christal Whelan discovered some still living on the

where 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 reached old age, and some of them no longer had any priests from their lineage and prayed alone. Although these had a strong tradition of secrecy, they agreed to be filmed for Whelan's documentary . The still exist today, forming "what is arguably a separate faith, barely recognizable as the creed imported in the mid-1500s by Catholic missionaries". In 2025, it was reported that there were less than 100 Hidden Christians left on the island of Ikitsuki in Nagasaki, down from 10,000 in the 1940s. Shigeo Nakazono, head of a local folklore museum and researcher of the religion for more than 30 years, stated that the structural weakness of the religion was a lack of professional religious leaders taking on the responsibility to teach doctrine and adapt the religion to its changing circumstances.

References

External links

* {{Cite AV media, url=https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/2032176/, title=Hidden Christians: Part 1, date=2019-02-19, language=en, type=Television production, publisher=NHK, series=Japanology Plus Includes a descendant of the Kakure Kirishitan reciting the Orasho.

''

Foreign Correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...

'' documentary Catholicism in Japan Crypto-Christianity Religion in the Edo period History of Christianity in Japan Passing (sociology)

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links