Lives of ‘hidden Christians’ revealed

The history of persecuted Christians in Japan dating back four centuries has emerged from documents in the Vatican archives, writes Ellen Teague.

The Vatican Library and Secret Archives has been restoring the documents, written on delicate Japanese rice paper, relating the experiences of Japanese Christians between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. They were collected by Croatian Salesian missionary Fr Mario Marega, who spent several decades in Japan from 1929.

In January 2014, the Vatican Library announced a major project to prepare an inventory as well as to digitise, catalogue and study around 10,000 original documents. These are mainly government records from what was the Bungo province in eastern Kyushu. Some are statements that residents of Christian villages were required to sign renouncing Christianity, and some document the annual fumi-e ritual, where people were forced to step on a crucifix or religious image to prove they were not Christians. Apostasy orders were issued in 1614, 1635 and 1646 and apostasy declarations were forwarded to the local government archive.