02 — Hakodate and the First Converts

The first fruit of the Hakodate years: Sawabe Takuma, the samurai and Shinto priest who came to the consulate intending to kill the young missionary and instead became the first Japanese Orthodox Christian; the first secret baptisms of 1868 under the anti-Christian edicts; and the small hidden community that formed around them.

This section treats the founding converts and the birth of the first Japanese Orthodox community, gathered in secret while Christianity was still a capital crime.

Files

File	Description
sawabe-the-samurai.md	Sawabe Takuma, the Shinto priest who came to kill Nicholas and became the priest Paul Sawabe; the famous dialogue; the first baptisms of 1868.
the-first-community.md	Sakai, Urano, and the first hidden community; the dangers under the edicts; the growth of the catechumens and the move toward open mission.

See Also

• Collection README
• 01 — Foundations — the years of preparation that preceded these conversions
• 03 — Building the Mission — the open mission that followed the lifting of the ban