Easter in Japan, 2011

Easter, the major festival in the Christian calendar, is observed this month in many countries around the world with high days and holidays.

In Japan, the festival is observed by the Christian faithful. According to a 2000 survey, there were less than two million Japanese Christians of all denominations inJapan, out of a total population of 127 million. Outside the 6,800 or so churches in the country, Easter has little effect on the lives of the vast majority of the population. It passes almost without notice.

As with other imported festivals, such as Christmas and Halloween, Easter's presence, for most people, is the appearance of signature confectionery. During this month, chocolate candy eggs and rabbits are on display at Tokyo supermarkets and department stores.

But if you were to seek an authentic Easter experience in Japan, you could do no better than to head for Nagasaki this month to join the faithful there at Easter massin the cathedral of Urakami.

Nagasaki owes its foundation to a curious combination of circumstances - silk, shipping and Christianity. In 1570 or thereabouts, the bay, sheltered by the long headland that gave the city its name, was chosen as a permanent port for Portuguese ships carrying Chinese silks from Macao. The township that sprang up became a haven for Japanese Christians and in 1580, after regular visits by Portuguese traders and missionaries, a local lord ceded the town to the Society of Jesus. With one hand on the rosary and the other on the purse, the Jesuits then ran the silk trade while managing their mission of spreading Christianity.

This unique and controversial system continued for a number of years but eventually the Japanese, jealous of the Jesuits' role, claimed the city back. Although the new rulers, first the government of Hideyoshi Toyotomi and then the Tokugawa shoguns, initially tolerated Christianity in order to keep their hands on the profitable foreigntrade, they eventually clamped down.

In 1614 the Tokugawa shogunate banned Christianity, ordering the closing of the city's numerous churches and missions. The customary processions, predominantly held to mark Easter, were banned. On May 14 of that year, the last Christian procession was allowed to pass through the city. An eyewitness report tells us how on that day, processions of penitents wound their way through Nagasaki's streets, calling at seven of the 11 churches then existing. These were all later demolished, although the anti-Christian authorities kindly permitted the seven Christian-run hospitals to continue operating for a few more years.

Persecutions of increasing severity continued for years until 1639, when the Shogun ordered the banishment of all foreigners and children of foreigners in the wake of a great revolt at Shimabara, blamed on Christian elements and savagely crushed. Only the Dutch were permitted to remain.

From now, persecution of the followers of the religion was pursued relentlessly and physical traces of Christianity eliminated. But in the more than 200 years of Japan's closure to the outside world, it never disappeared from the hearts and minds of the humble Japanese folk who had taken to this foreign creed with its message of hope and salvation.

On March 17, 1865, Father Bernard Petitjean, a French catholic priest, was about to celebrate mass in the newly built church at Oura in the recently opened foreign settlement in south Nagasaki when he became aware of a group of 12 to 15 Japanese men, women and children. They followed him into the church and knelt near him, joining in the recitation of the mass. One of the group, a 60-year old woman spoke quietly to the priest. "The heart of all of us here is the same as yours." After more than two centuries of suppression, the flame had kept burning.

Petitjean's Christians came from the north Nagasaki district of Urakami where almost all the local inhabitants were secret believers. After the priest's discovery, the villagers were again persecuted by the new Japanese authorities under the old laws but after foreign protests they were finally free to worship as they wished.

Eventually Urakami was chosen as the site of Nagasaki's own Catholic cathedral, completed in 1925. Destroyed by the Atom Bomb in August 1945, the church's successor was visited in 1981 by Pope John Paul II and it was there four years ago that I found myself on Easter Sunday.

It was standing room only. The total congregation must have been close to 1,200. Boisterous children played in the aisles. As the many women in the throng entered the church, they produced lace veils - mantillas - and wore them during the service, a custom introduced by the Portuguese centuries before.

Following the Japanese service was no problem. I'm no longer a regular church-goer but years of singing in a choir as a child mean that anthems like the Kyrie Elision and the Gloria are embedded in my subconscious, needing only an organ chord to revive them.

After the service, outside the great west door, volunteers handed eggs, a traditional and ancient symbol of life and birth, to the departing congregation. They were not chocolate, but hard-boiled chicken eggs, closer to the Easter spirit in Nagasaki that day than any foil-covered candy.

As we left the cathedral grounds for the tram to Dejima, we walked past preserved fragments of the first Urakami cathedral, the cracked, heat-seared faces of the carved stone angels bearing witness that this western Japan city has uniquely experienced two of the most dynamic forces of the past two millennia ever known to mankind - the Christian religion and nuclear war.