Archbishop Tarcisius Isao Kikuchi, SVD leads the observance of Holy Week at the St. Mary’s Cathedral in the Archdiocese of Tokyo.

This year, close to 100,000 Catholics in the Archdiocese of Tokyo are observing the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Evangelization of Japan started in 1549 with the arrival of St.Francis Xavier and went on until 1587 when Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued the edict forbidding Christianity and ordered all missionaries to leave Japan.

In the following years of persecution, also in Edo (actual Tokyo), there were cases of martyrdom in 1612 and 1623.

After the “seclusion period”, the first missionaries of the Paris Mission Society arrived in Japan in 1858 and were stationed in the three ports of Nagasaki, Yokohama, and Hakodate.

In 1876 the mission of Japan was divided into two Apostolic Vicariates: Southern Japan with center in Nagasaki and Northern Japan with center in Tokyo.

The first Vicar Apostolic of Northern Japan was Mgr. Pierre Marie Osouf.

On April 17, 1891. the Vicariate Apostolic of Northern Japan was divided into the Archdiocese of Tokyo and the Diocese of Hakodate, and Mgr. Osouf was appointed the first Archbishop of Tokyo.

On August 13, 1912, the Archdiocese of Tokyo ceded the prefectures of Toyama, Fukui, and Ishikawa to the newly Established Prefecture Apostolic of Niigata, and on February 18, 1922, the prefectures of Aichi and Gifu were ceded to the newly established Prefecture Apostolic of Nagoya.

In November 1937, Tokyo was entrusted to the Japanese clergy and confined to Tokyo-to and the prefecture of Chiba. The remaining territory was detached to form the Diocese of Yokohama.

All photos courtesy of the official Facebook account of Archbishop Isao Kikuchi