japan catholic documentary religion spain king christianity word dictionary
The first known appearance of organized Christianity in Japan was the arrival of the Portuguese Catholics in 1549. Francis Xavier arrived in Japan with three Japanese Catholic converts intending to start a church in the Nagasaki area. The local Japanese people initially assumed that the foreigners were from India and that Christianity was a new "Indian faith". These mistaken impressions were due to already existing ties between the Portuguese and India; the Indian city of Goa was a central base for the Portuguese East India Company at the time, and a significant portion of the crew on board their ships were Indian Christians.[28] Later on, the Roman Catholic missionary activities were exclusively performed by Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits and Spanish-sponsored mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans. Francisco Xavier (a Catholic Saint),[29] Cosme de Torres (a Jesuit priest), and John Fernandez were the first who arrived in Kagoshima
with hopes to bring Christianity to Japan. Xavier and the Jesuit order
was held in good esteem and his efforts seemed to have been rewarded
with a thriving community of converts.[30] At baptism, these converts were given Portuguese "Christian names"
and encouraged to adopt Western culture. This practice contributed to
suspicions that the converts were in reality foreign agents working to
subvert social order.[note 1][30] Under Oda Nobunaga, the Jesuits enjoyed the favor of the shogunate, but the situation began to change once Toyotomi Hideyoshi's suspicions were aroused against Christianity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)