十Christian Japan
Part of Hidden Christians and Kakure Kirishitan: Keeping the Faith Without Priests
Theme

Hidden Christian Prayers, Texts and Objects

What the hidden Christians kept without priests: their prayers, their calendar, their one doctrinal book, their lay leaders and Mary in the guise of Kannon.

7 pages

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Start with these pages, then explore any part below.

  1. 1Orasho: Prayers Kept by HeartThe orasho (from Latin oratio, prayer) are the Latin, Portuguese and Japanese prayers the missionaries…
  2. 2Maria Kannon: Our Lady in PorcelainUnable to keep an image of the Virgin, the hidden Christians of Urakami, Sotome and other places honored her…
  3. 3The Keepers: Chōkata, Mizukata and the Lay Leaders of the Hidden ChurchWith no priest in Japan for more than two centuries, the hidden Christians kept their faith through lay…
  4. 4Tenchi Hajimari no Koto: The Beginning of Heaven and EarthTenchi Hajimari no Koto is the hidden Christians' own retelling of the Bible story, from creation to the end…

Short history

The word orasho comes from the Latin oratio, prayer, and the Christians of Japan have used it from the first mission to the present day1. When Hideyoshi's edict of 1587 threatened to leave Japan without priests, the Jesuit vice-provincial Pedro Gómez wrote in 1597 that missionaries should teach the way of perfect contrition everywhere3. The Christians of sixteenth-century Japan called the prayer of contrition konchirisan34.

Lay leaders carried the faith on. The parish history counts this system of lay officers as one of the reasons the faith survived some 220 years without a single priest5. Bastian's calendar is a Catholic liturgical calendar for the year 1634, converted to the Japanese lunar calendar67, and according to one account Urakami used it until 18658. Tenchi Hajimari no Koto is the only surviving doctrinal text that the hidden Christians compiled for themselves9, and it mixes Christian teaching with Japanese folk tales and Buddhist ideas109.

In the great majority of cases, Miyazaki Kentarō writes, the hidden Christians chose real Buddhist images and venerated Mary through the gentle figure of Kannon1213. The likeness had been noticed early: in 1548 Lancillotto, reporting what Anjirō had told him, wrote that the Japanese "have painted a woman with her son in her arms, as we have the Virgin Mary"14.

01

Prayers

2 pages
ThemeOrasho: Prayers Kept by HeartThe orasho (from Latin oratio, prayer) are the Latin, Portuguese and Japanese prayers the missionaries…ThemeKonchirisan (the prayer of contrition)The Catholic Church teaches that a sinner is reconciled to God through contrition, confession to a…
02

Books and the calendar

2 pages
ThemeTenchi Hajimari no Koto: The Beginning of Heaven and EarthTenchi Hajimari no Koto is the hidden Christians' own retelling of the Bible story, from creation to the…LifeBastian: The Calendar and the ProphecyA Japanese catechist of Sotome, remembered almost entirely through oral tradition, who is said to have…
03

Mary in the guise of Kannon

2 pages
ThemeMaria Kannon: Our Lady in PorcelainUnable to keep an image of the Virgin, the hidden Christians of Urakami, Sotome and other places honored…ObjectMaria Kannon: Mary in the Guise of KannonMaria Kannon: Mary in the Guise of Kannon · Christian Japan. Christian Japan: the history, places and…
04

The keepers

1 page
ThemeThe Keepers: Chōkata, Mizukata and the Lay Leaders of the Hidden ChurchWith no priest in Japan for more than two centuries, the hidden Christians kept their faith through lay…
Sources

Footnotes

  1. 1 Miyazaki Kentarō, "The Kakure Kirishitan Tradition," trans. Peter Knecht, in Mark R. Mullins (ed.), Handbook of Christianity in Japan (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 21 (contrition after fumie), 24 to 26 (orashio: oral transmission, aloud and silent, length, characters, kamiyose) and 26 (kyōkeshi orashio). (from articles/orasho, note 3)
  2. 3 Kikuchi Noritaka, "こんちりさんの救い（上）: 近世日本における信仰実践の変容", 東洋学研究 60 (Toyo University, 2024), pp. 87 to 106. https://doi.org/10.34428/0002000413. Our translation. (from articles/konchirisan, note 1)
  3. 4 Nishiwaki (Nanzan University), "「た〔だ〕ひとゑに御大切にわもやうされ」", Nanzan Institute (NJTS 039), section 1.1 and notes 2 to 3. http://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/JINBUN/Christ/NJTS/039-Nishiwaki.pdf (from articles/konchirisan, note 2)
  4. 5 Urakami Cathedral parish history, "禁教時代（迫害と殉教）," section 5 "浦上キリシタンの潜伏組織" and the Santa Clara section. https://uracathe.sakura.ne.jp/kinkyoujidai1.htm (checked October 19, 2026) (from articles/chokata-mizukata, note 1)
  5. 6 Nagasaki Prefecture, Oratio.jp, "バスチャンの日繰りとは？" (text Kawamura Noriko). https://oratio.jp/p_column/basutyan-higuri (checked October 19, 2026) (from people/bastian-prophecy, note 5)
  6. 7 Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Commentary Database, "The Transmission of Christian Lore" (R1-00788, 2019). https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R1-00788.html (checked October 19, 2026) (from people/bastian-prophecy, note 6)
  7. 8 Laures 1957, pp. 87-89 (from people/bastian-prophecy, note 15)
  8. 9 Mullins Handbook 2003, p. 22 (from articles/tenchi-hajimari-no-koto, note 1)
  9. 10 Harrington 1993 Japan's Hidden Christians, 79-95 (from articles/tenchi-hajimari-no-koto, note 3)
  10. 12 Miyazaki Kentarō, "Roman Catholic Mission in Pre-Modern Japan," in Mark R. Mullins (ed.), Handbook of Christianity in Japan (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 21 to 22 (Koyasu and Jibo Kannon; Urakami interrogations, Maria Kannon as honzon); and "The Kakure Kirishitan Tradition," ibid., p. 28 (Dehua porcelain; Hantamaruya and Jizous; Mary as merciful mother). (from articles/maria-kannon-devotion, note 3)
  11. 13 Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Commentary Database, "The Transmission of Christian Lore" (with "Foreign Religion Incidents (the Urakami Crackdowns)"; tolerance if not openly expressed; 1790 and 1839 crackdowns; third crackdown 1856; Kataoka Shunmin; Kichizō; Okabe Nagatsune; Picture 2, Maria Kannon at Tenpukuji). https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/common/001561259.pdf; checked October 19, 2026) (from articles/maria-kannon-devotion, note 4)
  12. 14 Ruiz-de-Medina v1, p. 60 (from articles/maria-kannon-devotion, note 11)

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