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Monument of the 26 Martyrs (Shrine of St. Paul Miki and Companions)

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Nagasaki, Japan (martyrdom) 1597 Feast day: February 6

A shrine associated with St. Paul Miki and Companions.

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The Story

On Nishizaka Hill in Nagasaki, Japan, a long bronze relief bears the images of twenty-six men and boys who were crucified there on February 5, 1597 - St. Paul Miki and his companions, the protomartyrs of Japan. The twenty-six included three Japanese Jesuits, among them Paul Miki, a gifted native preacher; six foreign Franciscan missionaries; and seventeen Japanese laymen, including catechists, physicians, and boys as young as twelve. Arrested in Kyoto and Osaka by order of the ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, they were marched hundreds of miles overland in winter to Nagasaki, the heart of Christian Japan, so that their deaths might terrify the faithful. Bound to crosses and pierced with lances, they died singing and preaching; according to the traditional account, Paul Miki proclaimed from his cross that he forgave his executioners and desired that all Japan might come to know Christ. Far from extinguishing the faith, the martyrdom seeded it. Through two and a half centuries of persecution, hidden Christians in the Nagasaki region secretly preserved baptism and prayer until missionaries returned in the nineteenth century. The twenty-six were beatified in 1627 and canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1862, the first canonized martyrs of Japan; their feast is kept on the General Roman Calendar on February 6. In 1962, for the centenary of the canonization, the monument with its granite-and-bronze memorial by sculptor Yasutake Funakoshi and an adjoining museum were erected on the martyrdom site, with the strikingly modern St. Philip's Church nearby. Pope St. John Paul II prayed here during his 1981 visit to Japan, and the hill remains the spiritual heart of Japanese Catholicism, a place where pilgrims contemplate the cost and the fruitfulness of fidelity to Christ.

Church Recognition

The Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan were beatified in 1627 and canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1862, and their feast - St. Paul Miki and Companions - is celebrated on the General Roman Calendar on February 6; the Nishizaka site is an established Catholic pilgrimage destination honored by a visit of Pope St. John Paul II in 1981.

Catholic Teaching

Martyrdom is the supreme witness to the truth of the faith (CCC 2473), and the story of Japan's hidden Christians shows how the blood of martyrs became the seed of the Church, sustaining baptismal faith even without clergy for centuries.

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Practical

Additional Information

Pilgrims visit the bronze monument on Nishizaka Hill, the Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum with its artifacts of Japan's Christian history, and nearby St. Philip's Church; commemorations peak around the martyrs' feast in early February, and many continue on to Nagasaki's other Christian sites such as Oura Cathedral.

Go Deeper

The Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum in Nagasaki documents the martyrdom and the hidden-Christian centuries; see also the Office of Readings for February 6 (a contemporary account of St. Paul Miki's death), the Catechism on martyrdom (CCC 2473), and Shusaku Endo's writings on Christian Nagasaki for historical context.

Location

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