Otome Toge Maria Chapel – Christian Martyr Site, Tsuwano Shimane – 乙女峠マリア聖堂 – Japan As It Truly Is

The Maria Seido Chapel site was one of the saddest episodes in Japan’s history, when many hidden Christians were tortured and killed between 1868 to 1873. About 3000 Christians in Urakami (Nagasaki) were arrested and divided into 21 groups to destroy their faith. One of these groups (153 people) was sent to Tsuwano, where they were thrown into icy ponds naked and had ice water poured on them to try to break their faith. When that failed, they were starved, giving the Christians only 2 rice balls a day and locked in 3′ by 3′ cages in the cold winter nights.
One of the most famous stories during this persecution was of one man named Yasutaro who was forced to be in a cage night after night in the winter cold, and says he saw visions of the Virgin Mary which gave him strength to continue. But in January 1869 after a heavy snowfall completely buried the cage, he was found dead inside. About 54 of the Christians renounced their faith due to the torture and persecution, and were immediately freed to live in a nearby village. But several still held sympathy for the remaining converts, and secretly managed to get food to them in the camp. In the end about 36 people were martyred, and those that survived the ordeal were returned to Urakami, Nagasaki.

The land is on a now defunct Buddhist temple, and was purchased by the Catholic Church in 1939. The chapel was constructed there in 1948.
At the start of the Christian persecution by the 3rd Shogun, Iemitsu, some estimate that about 300,000 Japanese converts existed in Japan. Today, about 1% of the population calls itself Christian, about evenly split between Catholicism and Protestantism.

Unfortunately also at the time of this video there was a lot of major construction work going on, but now it must look extremely nice. The cherry blossoms at the start of spring were also very beautiful.

For a more detailed history of the events that occurred, see:
http://pweb.cc.sophia.ac.jp/britto/xavier/flynn/flynn01.html

For more videos like this, please subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=thejapanfaq

Please leave some comments below. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.