The new centre will be inaugurated next January to mark the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the Kakure Kirishitan, believers who remained faithful to Catholic teaching for two centuries without any contact with the Church. The museum is located near the epicentre of the atomic explosion, to remember the Catholics who died during World War II.

Nagasaki (AsiaNews) - Thanks to a publisher and the Catholic archdiocese, a museum will open next January in Nagasaki to celebrate the "Kakure Kirishitan", the Christians who remained faithful to Christ and the Church in spite of fierce persecution and total absence of freedom of religion and worship.

Chiyoko Iwanami, 66, is behind the initiative. A resident of Tokyo, she wanted to pay tribute to the memory of those Christians who were persecuted under the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Edo period (1603-1867).

The museum will be located in the city's Heiwamachi district, not far from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and the Urakami Cathedral.

"Many citizens died in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, causing a lot of (Kakure Kirishitan) memories to be lost," said Iwanami. "I want people to know how difficult it was (to defend their faith) until freedom of religion was established."

The museum will open in January to mark the 150^th anniversary of "the discovery of Christians" in 1865. It will cover 140 square metres on the first floor of a housing complex owned by Iwanami, who ran a publishing company whose titles include books on anti-Christian persecution and the history of Nagasaki.

The Archdiocese of Nagasaki will be in charge of the collection, housing and display at the museum. Organisers plan to exhibit confiscated religious medals and icons housed at the Tokyo National Museum (pictured, a Buddha with a cross on his back, one of the artefacts used by Christians to avoid detection).

Following early conversions in the 16^th century, Japan's Christian community, "Kakure Kirishitan" in Japanese, remained faithful to the Church for some two and a half centuries of underground existence, this despite the lack of missionaries, priests, religious freedom or practice. When Japanese authorities granted the French missionaries the right to build a church in Ōura (near Nagasaki), they came out of hiding.

On 17 March 1865, as he prayed inside the newly-built church, Fr. Petitjean, from the Paris-based Foreign Missions Society, later to become Nagasaki's first bishop, was approached by a small group of local farmers who asked him if "it was possible to greet Jesus and Mary".

Following a moment of surprise, the clergyman listened to their story, and heard the tale of a large Christian community that had stayed loyal to Rome despite the start of persecution in the 16^th century.

Pope Francis has often mentioned Japanese Christians. During the general audience of 15 January he said: "That community suffered a severe persecution in the early seventeenth century. There were many martyrs, members of the clergy were expelled and thousands of people were killed. Not a single priest was left in Japan: they were all expelled. The community then went underground, keeping the faith and prayer in hiding. And when a child was born, the father or the mother baptised him, because we can all baptize. When, after about two and a half centuries - 250 years later - the missionaries returned to Japan, thousands of Christians came out of hiding and the church could flourish. It had survived by the grace of their Baptism".

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