Portal:Christianity/Selected article/February 2008

  Netsuke depicting Christ 17th century, Japan Kirishitan (吉利支丹, 切支丹, キリシタン), from Portuguese cristão, referred to Roman Catholic Christians in Japanese and is used as a historiographic term for Roman Catholics in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries. Christian missionaries consisted of "fathers", or bateren from the Portuguese word “padre”, and "brothers", or iruman from the Portuguese word "irmão".

Catholic missionary activities in Japan began in 1549, exclusively performed by Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits until Spanish-sponsored mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, gained access to Japan. Francisco Xavier, Cosme de Torres (a Jesuit priest), and Father John Fernandez were the first, who arrived to Kagoshima with hopes to bring Christianity and Catholicism to Japan. Catholicism was subsequently repressed in several parts of the country and ceased to exist publicly in the 17th century.

However, there are some historians who state that there is enough archaeological evidence to suggest that Nestorian (Assyrian Church) missionaries first landed in Japan in AD 199, believing that they travelled through India, China and Korea before the Tang dynasty. It has also been estimated that the first churches were fully established by the end of the 4th century especially at Nara in central Japan.

(more)