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After Japan was opened to greater foreign interaction in 1853, many Christian clergymen were sent from Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches, though proselytism was still banned. After the Meiji Restoration , freedom of religion was introduced in 1871, giving all Christian communities the right to legal existence and preaching.
Emperor Ōgimachi issued edicts to ban Catholicism in 1565 and 1568, but to little effect. [4] Beginning in 1587, with imperial regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi's ban on Jesuit missionaries, Christianity was repressed as a threat to national unity. [5] After the Tokugawa shogunate banned Christianity in 1620
The first conclusive appearance of western religions in Japan was Christianity, which had been introduced by European travelers beginning in 1549. In the period between 1614 and 1889, Christianity and all other foreign religions were banned and its adherents persecuted, with Buddhism being co-opted by the Tokugawa authorities as a means to keep ...
Kakure Kirishitan are the Catholic communities in Japan which hid themselves during the ban and persecution of Christianity by Japan in the 1600s. [3] [5] Depictions of Mary modeled on the Buddhist deity Kannon (Avalokiteśvara), goddess of mercy, became common among Kakure Kirishitan, and were known as "Maria Kannon". [6]
The first appearance of Christianity in Japan was the arrival of Navarrese missionary Francis Xavier in Japan in 1549 by Portugal ship. Christianity was prohibited in Japan for 259 years, from 1614 after the Catholic Church was seen as a threat.
After the Tokugawa shogunate banned Christianity in 1620, it ceased to exist publicly. Many Catholics went underground, becoming hidden Christians (隠れキリシタン, kakure kirishitan), while others lost their lives. Only after the Meiji Restoration, was Christianity re-established in Japan.
An existing ban on the Christian religion was then enforced stringently, and Christianity in Japan survived only by going underground. [24] Another part of the shogunate's actions after the rebellion was to excuse the clans which had aided its efforts militarily from the building contributions which it routinely required from various domains. [25]
The U.S. State Department cited the report by the Human Rights Without Frontiers International, which is connected to CESNUR, in the 2011 annual International Religious Freedom Report to Japan summarized that deprogrammers cooperate with family members on "abductions" of members of the Unification Church and other minority religious groups for several years.