A New Zealand Columban, Father Leo Schumacher, has been pastor of St. Joseph’s Church in the Tsukiji neighborhood of central Tokyo, Japan, for the last several years. It is quite near St. Luke’s International Hospital and only two subway stops away from the Ginza. With the relocation of the famous Tokyo fish market and the construction of the Olympic Village and a couple of other Olympic venues, the area has been seeing a lot of redevelopment.
The Church, which looks like a classical Greek temple, was constructed a hundred years ago, after the previous church building was wrecked by the 1923 Kanto earthquake and fire. The church survived the war and has served the parish well for ten decades, but a one-hundred-year-old building is hardly constructed with the most recent techniques to prevent destruction by earthquakes. So, in the last few years, the Church has been strengthened and almost entirely rebuilt.
Because of its convenient location, a good number of Catholic tourists who happen to be staying in hotels in the central business district of Tokyo find their way to St. Joseph’s. There really are not that many Catholic Churches in the area. And, apart from St. Ignatius at the entrance to Sophia University, most of them are not in prominent locations. Although the Catholic Church in Japan is still relatively small, it does have an amazing and glorious history dating all the way back to August 15, 1549, when St. Francis Xavier stepped onto Japanese soil at Kagoshima. He spent less than two years in Japan but had a major impact. Other Jesuits took up the mission in Japan, and the first church was constructed at Nagasaki in 1569. Progress was quick, but there was pushback. In 1587 there an edict was issued that restricted Christianity and all missionaries were ordered to leave the country. But even with the growing oppression of Christians, the number of Catholics in the country continued to increase and surpassed 300,000 people. The authorities feared they would pave the way for European colonialism.
On February 5, 1597, 26 men and boys were martyred by crucifixion on a hill in Nagasaki. In 1614, an edict banning Christianity was proclaimed, and systematic persecution began up and down the country. Notice boards announcing the ban were set up at the entrances to towns from 1618 and were not removed until 1873. Included on the notice boards were bounties being offered for reporting Christians to the authorities:
- Priest: 500 silver pieces
- Brother/seminarian: 300 silver pieces
- Lay Christian: 100 silver pieces
- Former Christian who has returned to the faith: 300 silver pieces
At that time, fifty silver pieces would have been enough to buy enough rice to feed one person for one year. Then on December 4, 1623, 50 more people were martyred at Edo (now Tokyo). Fourteen years later, the so-called Christian era came to a violent end with 37,000 people killed by the Shogun regime at Shimabara near Nagasaki. From that point, Christian practice in Japan went underground for the next two and a half centuries.
During the period of persecution, outlawed Christians created statues of the Virgin Mary disguised as the Buddhist deity Kannon holding a child. Such an image appeared to be Kannon, the goddess of mercy, but could also be Mary and the infant Jesus. A cross would sometimes be carved in the back of the statue.
One method of enforcing the prohibition of Christianity was what were called fumi-e or step pictures. These were images of Christ or the Blessed Mother, which the authorities of the Tokugawa military government required any suspected Christians to step on to prove they were not adherents of the prohibited religion. At first, paper drawings of Jesus or Mary were used, but as these were easily damaged, wooden plaques and metal reliefs were eventually employed.
To share some of that history with foreign visitors to the parish, St. Joseph’s in Tsukiji has placed several objects on display to tell the story of the hidden Christians and their heroic suffering.
Columban Fr. John Burger lives and works in the U.S.
