A Kannon in the temple
Kōzenji, the island's Buddhist temple, was founded when settlers flooded onto Kuroshima. The hidden Christians among them registered there and went to worship like everyone else. But the prefecture says that before a set up in the main hall they quietly offered their own prayers.
Kuroshima is one of five World Heritage villages chosen to show where hidden Christians moved to keep their communities alive. Here the answer was an old ranch. The prefecture says hidden Christians from across the Nagasaki region heard that settlers were being encouraged to redevelop the former ranch of the Hirado domain, and chose it as a place where they could live alongside the existing village.
The ranch at Warabi
The school guide is precise: horses were raised around the hamlets of Warabi and Tashiro until 1802, when the ranch was closed to make farmland, and hidden Christians moved in from and elsewhere. They built houses on the slopes near the shore and went on praying in secret. the prefecture's heritage site says settlement began in the 18th century; the World Heritage panel says the 19th century.
The old village of Honmura kept apart. Its people prayed at the temple and had little to do with the newcomers. Even in death the newcomers were different: at Shikirimaki, Warabi's graveyard until the 1880s, hidden Christian graves face the opposite way to temple graves.
"There are 600 believers"
When news of the Discovery at reached Kuroshima, the island's hidden Christians were overjoyed. Twenty representatives, led by the Deguchi father and son, who served as , crossed to Nagasaki. They told the missionaries, by the prefecture's account: "There are 600 believers on Kuroshima." reported speech, given by the prefecture with "it is said".
They went back many times to learn from the priests, and the priests began to come to the island, crossing the sea at night in disguise. In 1872, while Christianity was still banned, the first Mass on Kuroshima was said in the house of . When the ban was lifted in 1873, the whole community returned to the Catholic Church at once. A stone now marks the Deguchi house as "the place where the faith revived".
Sources: "there are 600 believers"
The World Heritage panel and the 2020 school guide for Sasebo give the official account; the prefecture's heritage site adds the 1880 church and the builder's name. The story of the twenty representatives and the night crossings is told in a prefecture column and carries "it is said".
Four hundred thousand bricks
The Deguchi house served as a temporary church until a first church was built in the middle of the island, where everyone could reach it. the World Heritage panel and the school guide give 1879, built by ; the prefecture's heritage site gives 1880, built by the believers with local bamboo and pine.
In 1897 Father of the Paris Foreign Missions Society came to the island. He designed the present church, begun in 1900 and completed and blessed in 1902, with Maeyama Sakichi as builder. It is one of the largest brick churches in Japan. Bricks bought in Sasebo and Arita were landed at Nakiri beach and carried up the slope by the faithful. To save money Marmand had them try firing their own, but the salty red clay made poor bricks, which are thought to have gone where no one would see them. the number of 400,000 bricks is "handed down".
The stone steps and walls in front of the church are those of the first church. At weekly Mass, the prefecture says, a prayer is still offered in atonement for the .
The island of prayer
Kuroshima is still a Catholic island. Marmand is buried in the Catholic cemetery. The church has a small museum in the former "mon-beya", where children once studied and sisters stayed.
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