17th-Century Japanese Letter to Pope V Discovered

November 23, 2022232 views0

17th-Century Japanese Letter to Pope V Discovered

2022-11-23T09:49:32+01:00

By Church News

A 17th-century letter from Japanese Christians in Japan’s Tohoku region to Pope Paul V has been discovered by a research team from Japan recently making it the first artefact of its kind found outside the Vatican.

The professor of history at Sophia University in Tokyo and lead researcher of the project, Shinzo Kawamura, considers the discovered scroll as the original letter that was sent by the Japanese Christians.

The scroll was sent in reply to a letter in which the Pope offered encouragement to Japanese Catholics facing persecution.

“The one in Florence is very likely the original letter,” Kawamura said.

He also added, “multiple copies were apparently made in an attempt to defend the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), which was then blamed for not having prevented a religious ban, against a range of critics.”

Researchers found the scroll with the word “first” written in Latin on its back in a Dominican convent’s library which belongs to a church in Florence.Two other scrolls with the words “second” and “third” sent from the Tohoku region discovered earlier are now housed in the Vatican Apostolic Library.The research team also found that the contents of the letter were the same as the copies of two replies from the Tohoku region that are stored at the Vatican.The letters also include the name of Goto Juan (1578-1623), who converted to Christianity as a retainer of famed warlord Date Masamune (1567-1636), among other individuals.The missive found in Florence, Italy is part of an on-site study program titled “Vatican & Japan: The 100-Year Project” organized by the Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation and sponsored by the Asahi Shimbun and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture.

The project, supported by various Japanese companies, focuses on the diplomatic relationship between the Vatican and Japan in furthering friendship for the next 100 years.

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