"Taking Jesus from the Cross" woodcut by Sadao Watanabe, Japanese, 1965

The Jesuit Francis Xavier had planted Christianity in Japan, and by 1600 there were some 300,000 baptized believers. Meanwhile Japan had been brought into political unity, and the new emperors sought to expunge all foreign influence. Missionaries were ordered to leave the country as early as 1587, but persecution began in earnest in 1614. Missionaries who remained in Japan were executed, as were many Japanese Christians. Some were beheaded, some were burned alive, and on one occasion, seventy Japanese Christians were crucified upside down on the beach and left to be drowned by the incoming tide. What the Japanese authorities wanted was for Christians to renounce their faith. Those who stood firm under torture were killed. According to one estimate, some 1,900 Christians died in Japan during this persecution. Not since the Roman Empire had Christians faced such persecutions. More than two centuries would pass before Japan would again be open for Christian preaching.