Japan, Christianity in

Japan, Christianity in. St Francis Xavier brought Christianity to Japan in 1549. Despite intermittent persecution from 1596 onwards, thousands of Christians in small communities kept the faith alive. A Franco-Japanese treaty in 1859 allowed freedom of worship to foreigners; it was followed by the arrival of fresh RC missionaries, Anglicans, and Presbyterians. In 1861 a mission came from the Russian Orthodox Church; this founded a community whose numbers were exceeded only by the RCs. In 1877 the various Presbyterian bodies began an amalgamation which was completed in 1891 and the different Anglican missions united to form the ‘Nippon Sei Ko Kwai’ (Holy Catholic Church of Japan) in 1887. At first conversions were aided by the thirst of young Japanese for W. education, but by 1890 a reaction towards national self-reliance had set in. The outbreak of war with the USA and Britain in 1941 led to the removal of all European bishops and clergy, and the government tried to force all non-RC Christians into a single Protestant Church, the United Church of Christ in Japan (the ‘Kyodan’). After the defeat of Japan in 1945, State-Shintoism was disestablished and freedom of religion granted. The Anglicans, Lutherans, and several other groups withdrew from the ‘Kyodan’, but it remains the largest Protestant body in Japan. The ‘Nippon Sei Ko Kwai’ was reconstituted under a Japanese episcopate. In 1990 Christians numbered about 1 per cent of the population.