Japan's 'Hidden Christians' face extinction
Posted: Monday, December 24, 2007, 8:45 (GMT)
One by one, the sacred relics - a medal of the Virgin Mary, a crucifix and other revered objects - are taken from a cupboard and placed on an altar for a Christmas Eve rite passed down through centuries from Japan's earliest Christians.
Then, kneeling in the simple hall built where martyrs are said to have been burned on this tiny, remote island 400 years ago, five elders murmur chants as they bow and make the sign of the cross.
The kimono-clad deacons are descendants of "Kakure Kirishitan", or Hidden Christians, who kept their religion alive on Ikitsuki and in other isolated pockets of Japan during 250 years of suppression, adapting their rites to the demands of secrecy and blending them with local beliefs.
These days, the religion faces a modern threat of extinction as young people, like those elsewhere in rural Japan, leave their homes in search of jobs, drifting away from their gods and the rituals that honour them.
"It's sad. The tradition of our ancestors is disappearing," said Ayuzo Matsuyama, one of those gathered to observe "Osanmachi" and "Gotanjo" - Christmas Eve and Christmas - last weekend, the last Saturday and Sunday before the winter solstice.
"We inherited this 'old Christianity' from our ancestors and we wanted to continue it forever, but young people don't feel that way," added the 79-year-old former maker of sake, or rice wine.
TRANSFORMING RELIGION
First brought to Japan by Portuguese missionaries in 1549, Christianity was banned a few decades later in 1614, initiating a period of bloody persecution that forced the faithful to choose between martyrdom or hiding their beliefs.
Rites such as confession and communion that could be conducted only by priests were lost. Others took on elements of Buddhist ancestor worship, indigenous Shinto with its focus on purification, and folk practices such as prayers for good crops.
Medals or hanging scrolls depicting saints and martyrs, often with Japanese features, were hidden in cupboards as "nando-gami" ("gods in the closet") and only taken out on special days.
In an apparent echo of the bread and wine of the Eucharist, elders still share sashimi and sake as part of the Christmas Eve and other ceremonies. Huge "mochi" rice cakes adorn the alter.
Transmitted orally and in secret, Latin "oratio" chants, "orasho" in Japanese, lost all but symbolic meaning.
"They preserved the style and form of the Christianity ... that they inherited, but the teachings were no longer from the Bible and changed into respect for local martyrs, so in that sense it can be seen as a Japanese ethnic religion," said Shigeo Nakazono, curator of an island museum who has studied the "Kakure Kirishitan" for years.
When Roman Catholic missionaries returned with the lifting of the ban in 1873, some Japanese Christians accepted their teachings, but others clung to what they saw as the true faith of their fathers.
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Added: Friday, January 4, 2008, 12:45 (GMT)
I agree wholeheartedly with Ernie Ganey, from Reno. Catholics are not christian. To call them so is wrong, and certainly they all need to be "born again". This is so much part of the end time delusion and propaganda of the worldwide catholic cult. The devil is still up to his old tricks .As for me I will believe and follow only Jesus. As for the lost and dying world, they all have no excuse, the "light" has come into the world, and darkness cannot, and never will overcome it. All anyone anywhere has to do is look around them, and see the creation, (The word says they have no excuse why they cannot know Him because of the creation since the beginning ) and cry out to Him and ask of Him and He will answer them, anyone , anywhere.
praise His name forever.
william Hey, Ipswich Australia
Added: Wednesday, January 2, 2008, 15:36 (GMT)
This article is just a clear example of how badly "the ends of the earth" have been "evangelized". What really needs to happen, is for people who actually follow the God of the Bible and follow the Bible to re-evangelize the "Western World". Japan and other traditionally "non-christian" countries will never know true New Testament Christianity, as long as they think this "form" of "christianity" is Christian. How sad to equate the performing of rites and rituals and false religion with a true and living relationship with God through the blood ONCE OFFERED by Jesus Christ. Nothing else saves but the BLOOD. No other name under heaven.
S. Maines, wallburg, nc USA
Added: Wednesday, December 26, 2007, 17:24 (GMT)
Calling these people Christians in Japan is not true because they are Catholics. The current lie being spread is that papists are Christian which is not true. You are doing a disservice to publish this propoganda because papist do not beleve in Jesus Christ only for their salvation so they are lost and going to hell when they die!
In His service,
Ernie Ganey
Born again Christian and Former papist supporter
Ernie Ganey, Reno, NV
