Asian woman dressed in kimono holding a baby – a representation disguised as Mary and Jesus
In the rural islands of Nagasaki, a handful of believers practices a version of Christianity that has direct links to a time of samurai, xoguns and missionaries and martyred believers – that still recite Orasho, based on the texts that Portuguese missionaries took to Japan.
In the remote islands of the Nagasaki region, a centenary form of Christianity is silently disappearing.
Os Kakure Kirishitanor hidden Christians, who have preserved their faith for 250 years of brutal persecution, now face a relentless enemy who cannot overcome: Time itselfcounts a.
“At this time, I fear that we will be the last,” he says Masatsugu Tanimoto68, one of the few practitioners who can still recite the Latin prayers that their ancestors have learned 400 years ago. “It is sad to see this tradition finish with our generation ”.
Christianity flourished initially in 16th century Japan, when missionaries Jesuits converted hundreds of thousands of peopleparticularly on the island of Kyushu, where they established commercial ports in Nagasaki.
But the Xogunate rulers Japanese quickly saw religion as a threat to your powerlaunching a violent repression in the early 1600s.
Confronted with torture and execution, the Japanese Christians went to clandestinity. They developed ingenious methods to disguise their faith, worshiping what they called “God’s god”With icons that looked like Buddhists to the outsiders, but that contained secret Christian meaning.
Na ilha de Ikitsuki, Hidden Christians still gather In discreet small rooms where parchment paintings show an Asian woman dressed in kimono holding a baby – a representation disguised as Mary and Jesus.
Another scroll portrays a man with a kimono covered with camellias, symbolizing the MARTRIO DE JOÃO BATISTA.
These communities also preserve ceramic bottles with holy water from Nakaenoshima, an island where hidden Christians were martyred in the 1620s. Nothing in these objects openly connects them to Christianity-precisely that is the goal.
When Japan officially raised the ban on Christianity in 1873, many hidden Christians converted to Catholicism. Others, however, opted for Maintain their distinctive practices – A unique mixture of Catholicism, Buddhism and Shinto that has evolved for centuries of isolation.
“Hidden Christians are very proud of what they and their ancestors believed for hundreds of years, even risking their lives,” he explains Em Mase-HasegawaProfessor of Religious Studies at JF Oberlin University in Tokyo.
Tanimoto says his ancestors rejected Catholicism conventional because it becomes Catholic meant abandoning the Buddhist elements and Shinto who had become an integral part of their faith.
“I’m not a Christian“He clarifies.“ Our prayers ask our ancestors to protect us. We are not doing this to worship Jesus or Mary… our responsibility is to faithfully follow the way our ancestors practiced. ”
Old prayers in a modern world
Central in the cult of hidden Christians is the Recitation of Orasho – Prayers derived from Latin or Portuguese texts brought by missionaries of the 16th century. These songs, a mixture of archaic and Latin Japanese, were preserved through oral tradition and manuscript copies passed from generation to generation.
Recently, in Ikitsuki, three seniors performed a RARE Orasho Ceremony. Dressed in formal dark kimonos, solemnly made the sign of the cross before they started their prayers – a virtually unchanged ritual four centuries ago.
Tawhimoto It is the youngest of only four men in their community that can recite these prayers. He has learned them from his uncle 40 years ago so that he could pray to the goddess god that his family has kept for generations.
Although it does not understand the parts in Latin, memorized them completelyfollowing handwritten prayer books that your grandfather created with brush and ink.
The decline of hidden Christianity Accompanies the transition from Japan from agricultural society to a modern and industrialized nation. Government data show that there were about 30,000 hidden Christians in Nagasaki In the 1940s, including about 10,000 in Ikitsuki.
Currently, estimates suggest that less than 100 are left on the islandhaving the last confirmed baptism ritual occurred in 1994.
“Numa society of growing individualismit is difficult to maintain hidden Christianity as it is, ”he says Shigeo Nakazonodirector of a local folk museum that has been researching hidden Christians for 30 years.
Nakazono points to the structural weakness of religion – absence of leaders professional religious who could adapt faith to change times.
As hidden Christianity faces extinction, efforts are underway to preserve its legacy. Nakazono began collecting artifacts and archiving video interviews with practitioners.
In 2018, it recognized the places of hidden Christians in the Nagasaki region as Worldrecognizing its cultural importance.
For remaining practitioners, hope lies in pass your traditions For at least one more generation. “Hidden Christianity will be extinguished sooner or later, and this is inevitable,” says Tanimoto, “but I hope it will continue at least in my family. Little Rosh of Hope“.
