Driven Underground Years Ago, Japan's 'Hidden Christians' Maintain Faith

Driven Underground Years Ago, Japan's 'Hidden Christians' Maintain Faith

From the Roman Empire to the Cold War-era Soviet Union, many Christian groups throughout history have been forced to conceal their faith to survive government persecution. But some of Japan's kakure kirishitan, or "hidden Christians," have remained closeted for nearly 4 1/2 centuries — long after the threat of persecution had lifted.

Their religion morphed into what is arguably a separate faith, barely recognizable as the creed imported in the mid-1500s by Catholic missionaries, including the Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier.

On a recent trip to Ikitsuki Island in southern Nagasaki prefecture, one of the few places where the "hidden Christian" traditions hang on, I met a 53-year-old resident named Masashi Funabara. Sitting in the government office where he works, he sang for me in a soft voice the sacred songs taught to his ancestors by the missionaries.

Some of the songs are in Latin, and Funabara struggles a bit to remember them. Shigeo Nakazono, a local museum curator and expert on hidden Christians, helps him sing.

Nakazono says that while much of the teachings of the missionaries have been lost, the Japanese Christians have preserved the songs in a form quite close to what one might have heard in 16th-century Spain.

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