February 5 (in the “old” calendar of the Episcopal Church) commemorates the Martyrs of Japan, Franciscans who were crucified in an act that marked the beginning of the end of the remarkable expansion of Christianity in sixteenth-century Japan.

Few American Christians, especially non-Catholics, are aware of the missionary expansion of Christianity across the world in the sixteenth century. Perhaps that expansion is best exemplified by St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit who was one of Ignatius Loyola’s first companions and who took up the missionary enterprise when Ignatius himself was unable to do so. He traveled first to the Portuguese colony of Goa in India, then to the Philippines, and finally to Japan. He died as he was preparing a voyage to China.

Christian missionaries met with great success in Japan. It’s estimated that by the end of the sixteenth century, there were some 300,000 Christians. Unfortunately, competition between the religious orders and conflict between Spain and Portugal contributed to the ultimate rejection of Christianity by the Japanese state and Christianity’s virulent suppression. Part of the story is told brilliantly in the novel Silence, by Shusaku Endo.

Perhaps most remarkably, in spite of intense persecution, Christianity went underground and survived in Japan. Indeed, when Japan was forced open in the 1850s and European missionaries arrived, they encountered small groups of Christians who had maintained their faith through the centuries. Some of them adopted the Christianity they now encountered, others maintained the faith and practice that had evolved during the centuries of persecution. Their story is told in a moving documentary Otalya: Japan’s Hidden Christians.