Ōura Church ( #大浦天主堂 ) is considered the oldest official Japanese Christian/Catholic church beginning to be built in 1862, by Paris Foreign missionaries in Nagasaki 🙏🏻 But that was more than 200 years after the Martyrdom of 26 Christians & hundreds more that were killed and some were Sainted, and this French commissary was well aware of it to build this Church in commemoration of them..
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However I don’t necessarily agree with this classification, because back in the 1549 (Tenmon 18) period, Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier has first arrived at Kagoshima. He then gave up his missionary work there & visited Hirado 平戸 the following year where he started new missionary work, and during this period had already spread the movement to build many Churches in the 15-17th Century. I think those buildings were destroyed & taken down by both Toyotomi Hideyoshi & the Edo Tokugawa era, without remaining traces but records overseas and in Japan include their presence back in the days, and also forcing many Christian believers to be persecuted & had to hide for Centuries to be Hidden Christians or Catholics. There seems to be a 2 Century vacuum period of records somewhere lying in between.. 😧😪
