26 Martyrs of JapanW
26 Martyrs of Japan

The Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan were a group of Catholics who were executed by crucifixion on February 5, 1597, in Nagasaki, Japan. Their martyrdom is especially significant in the history of the Catholic Church in Japan.

Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum and MonumentW
Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum and Monument

The Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum and Monument were built on Nishizaka Hill in Nagasaki, Japan in June 1962 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the canonization by the Roman Catholic Church of the Christians executed on the site on February 5, 1597. The 26 people, a mixture of 20 native Japanese Christians and six foreign priests had been arrested in Kyoto and Osaka on the order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the national ruler, for preaching Christianity. They were imprisoned, then later marched through the snow to Nagasaki, so that their execution might serve as a deterrent to Nagasaki's large Christian population. Hung up on 26 crosses with chains and ropes, the Christians were lanced to death in front of a large crowd on Nishizaka Hill. St Paul Miki is said to have preached to the crowd from his cross.

Gonsalo GarciaW
Gonsalo Garcia

Gonsalo Garcia, O.F.M., was a lay brother of the Franciscans from Portuguese Bombay and Bassein in early modern India. He died a Christian martyr in the 16th-century Shogunate of Japan, and was canonised a saint along with his companions, the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan. He was born at Bassein (Vasai), Baçaim in the Indo-Portuguese era, an exurban town of the present-day Greater Bombay metropolis.

26 Martyrs of JapanW
26 Martyrs of Japan

The Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan were a group of Catholics who were executed by crucifixion on February 5, 1597, in Nagasaki, Japan. Their martyrdom is especially significant in the history of the Catholic Church in Japan.

James KisaiW
James Kisai

James Kisai, also known as Diego Kisai (ディエゴ喜斎) or Jacobo Kisai, was a Japanese Jesuit lay brother and saint, one of the 26 Martyrs of Japan.

26 Martyrs of JapanW
26 Martyrs of Japan

The Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan were a group of Catholics who were executed by crucifixion on February 5, 1597, in Nagasaki, Japan. Their martyrdom is especially significant in the history of the Catholic Church in Japan.

Paul MikiW
Paul Miki

Paul Miki was a Roman Catholic Japanese Jesuit seminarian, martyr and saint, one of the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan.

Philip of JesusW
Philip of Jesus

Philip of Jesus was a Novohispanic Catholic missionary who became one of the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan, the first Mexican saint and patron saint of Mexico City.

San Felipe incident (1596)W
San Felipe incident (1596)

On October 19, 1596, the Spanish ship San Felipe was shipwrecked in Urado on the Japanese island of Shikoku en route from Manila to Acapulco in the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade. The local daimyō Chōsokabe Motochika seized the cargo of the richly laden Manila galleon, and the incident escalated to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, ruling taikō of Japan. The pilot of the ship incautiously suggested to Japanese authorities that it was Spanish modus operandi to have missionaries infiltrate a country before an eventual military conquest, as had been done in the Americas and the Philippines. This led to the crucifixion of 26 Christians in Nagasaki, the first lethal persecution of Christians by the state in Japan. The executed were later known as the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan.