clergy and theological teaching disintegrated until the arrival of Western missionaries in the nineteenth century.

Put simply the sword was stronger than a version of Christianity those missionaries around 1600 brought into Japan. If a majority of the Japanese people at the time, including high-ranking samurais, had converted to Christianity, Buddhist samurai leaders might have been defeated in a civil war. But as a matter of fact, in the middle of the 17th century, almost all the Christians were wiped away from the surface of the Japanese society, though some Christians kept their faith under the disguise of ordinary Buddhists in a very unique manner, till the samurai regime fell and Japan opened the nation to start westernization in the late 19th century.

But this record of martyrdom is reallygrave. In the period of persecution of Japanese Christians by samurais, it is estimated that more than 40,000 believers were killed by samurai. At least concrete records of death penalty are left for about 3,500 believers. This number of martyrs is said to be the largest next to that of Christian victims (about 100,000) executed by the Roman Empire.

So, Japan is the very unique country in terms of propagation of the Christian faith.

(As for the 2020 Olympics, Catholic Madrid and Islamic Istanbul fought without making concession to each other, resulting in Tokyo's winning in a race to be qualified as the host of the Olympics. Spain cannot support Islamic Turkey but can accept mostly Buddhist and slightly Christian Japan even in voting for choosing an Olympics host country.)

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