
The lecture was done by Alec Ryrie, Gresham Professor of Divinity, in 11th of March 2020 6:00pm UK Time.
In the age of exploration, Catholic missionaries fanned out across the world, meeting with extraordinary success but also extraordinary opposition: nowhere more so than in Japan, where the fast-growing Catholic community was brutally suppressed in the early XVIIth century. This lecture will explore how this bloody crisis shaped myths of Japanese cruelty and cults of Catholic sanctity in Europe, while also precipitating the 250-year ‘closing’ of Japan and the intense piety of a small remnant of underground Japanese Christians.