By Father Graham McDonnell | Special to the Herald

Of the 188 martyrs beatified in Nagasaki on Nov. 24, 52 were martyred in Kyoto, on the bank of the river which runs through the center of the city.

The “Great Kyoto Martyrdom,” as it is known, took place on Sunday evening, Oct. 6, 1619, at the command of the Shogun Hidetada Tokugawa who had abruptly ordered the execution of the Christians.

The victims, 52 men, women and children, were herded into 11 hand-drawn carts that held eight persons each, and paraded through the main streets of Kyoto as a warning to others. Leading the wagons were guards who shouted, “These prisoners have been sentenced to death by fire because they persist in believing the teaching of Christ, which has been outlawed by the shogun.”

The martyrs countered those jibes by saying, “Yes, we are Christians and we offer our lives to God.”

Their faces gleamed with joy at the prospect of meeting God face-to-face. Bystanders witnessing their deep faith greeted them with applause. After a journey that had stretched nearly eight kilometers across the city of Kyoto, they reached the execution site on the eastern bank of the Kamogawa River. It was late afternoon.

The location, about three hundred meters from Hokoji Temple, was the busiest place in the city. The temple, affectionately called the “Big Kyoto Buddha,” was modeled after the “Big Buddha” temple in Nara. Years later, in 1798, the “Big Kyoto Buddha” was struck by lightning and completely destroyed. All that remains today is a huge temple bell, bearing silent witness to the events narrated below.

On the river bank was a plot of land 50 meters long and 25 meters wide where a huge pile of kindling, wood beams and trash taken from the condemned Christians’ homes, was piled high around 27 large cross-like stakes.

The official in charge, Katsushige Itakura, was the governor of Kyoto. As a young man, he had been a Buddhist priest. Itakura knew that in executions by fire, the kindling was set away from the victims, allowing the flames to prolong the suffering. This special torture could cause some to give up their faith and recant. But Itakura also realized that with these faithful Christians, there was little hope of recanting. For this reason he had pity on the victims, and ordered the kindling placed as close as possible to them, so their sufferings would be brief.

The victims were bound two to each cross, back-to-back. The leader of the martyrs was John Hashimoto, who, with his wife Tecla and their five children, drew sympathetic glances from the bystanders. Tecla was expecting her seventh child.

To celebrate her martyrdom, she wore a stately, white silk veil that reached to her feet. The sight of this young mother and her five children as they walked to their crosses brought tears to the eyes of many. She clutched her three-year-old daughter Luisa, as her 12-year-old son Toma was tied to her cross at her right side. Eight-year-old Francisco was tied to her left. Her six-year-old Pedro and 13-year-old Katarina were tied together to another cross close by.

When the fires were lit, the night sky shone brilliantly with flames leaping from the ghastly funeral pyre. All of the martyrs began praying and singing hymns. When Katarina cried that she could no longer see because of the smoke, her mother shouted, “Sing out the names of Jesus and Mary.”

The raging flames soon brought an early end, leaving onlookers stunned by the sublime sacrifice of the parents and the heroic bravery of the children. That evening, the Catholics secretly buried about 30 bodies found in the ashes. The location of this mass grave, somewhere in Kyoto, remains unknown to the present day.

The eldest child of the Hashimoto family, Miguel, was not home when the rest of the family was arrested. Later he appeared at the prison declaring his intention to join his family as a martyr too, but he was turned away, since his name was not on the list of the condemned. Instead, he was admonished by the prison officials to return home and think about carrying on the family name.

The pastor, Father Diego Ryosetsu Yuki, had been hearing confessions when the Christians were arrested. He and a foreign priest witnessed the martyrdoms, and provided what remains one of the most detailed accounts in the history of martyrdoms in Japan. Several years later, Father Yuki himself was martyred and is among the 188 beatified.

Those early Christians, all spiritual children of Saint Francis Xavier, died in the early years of the 17th century. They will join 42 canonized saints and 205 other “blesseds” who adorn the pages of Japan’s 400 years of Christian history.