OPEN KEYNOTE BY PROF. Roger Munsi Vanzila

Warmly welcome to the open keynote by Prof. Roger Munsi Vanzila (Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan) on

Kirishitan Shrines in Nagasaki Settings: Looking at the Religiosity of Local Communities

on Thursday June 12, 2025, at 14.00-15.30 in Auditorium Aava A152, Arcanum, Arcanuminkuja 1, Åbo/Turku.

The keynote is part of the conference Religion: Concealed and Revealed organized by Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures (CSCC), Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture (DI) The Polin Institute for Theological Research.

Abstract

The present-day remnants of Kakure Kirishitan practitioners are descendants of Japanese Catholics who were persecuted in the early 1600s and subsequently went underground, practicing their faith secretly for approximately 250 years. Left without priests and scattered throughout Japan-especially Nagasaki prefecture, they developed their own rituals, liturgies, symbols, and a few texts, adapting them from remnants of 16^th century Portuguese Catholicism and often camouflaging them in forms borrowed from the surrounding Buddhism and Shinto. Today these faith-based communities constitute a very small, marginalized minority of the local populace. Ethnographic and historical traces of these religious minorities demonstrate at least three broad types of religious sites: gravestones, Kirishitan shrines, and private ritual settings. This study draws on a narrative analysis approach to investigate the distinctive aspects of Kirishitan shrines within the context of striking religious phenomenon readily observable in the lived experiences and relics of Kakure Kirishitan practitioners in Nagasaki settings. Using ethnographic techniques, the synthesis suggests that Kirishitan shrines inherently display the religiosity of Kakure Kirishitan practitioners seemingly integrated into supporting local communities. Thus contextualized examination, thus, reinforces the significance of Kirishitan shrines as sacred sites and institutions representing the footprints of the Christian mission in Japan. At the very least, their facets and contours reflect not only a form of sacred syncretism but also the symbolism off a sub-culture, often silent, but fully understood within a Christian and Japanese tradition. In general, therefore, the study proposes a refined interpretative tool for demonstrating how Kirishitan shrines have been, within Christian material religion, extended not only to other sacred objects that are ritually scribed dual nature such as Kirishitan festivals, but also to both religious texts and material vessels to a greater spiritual extent. This study highlights mechanisms by which the Kakure Kirishitan religion’s adaptation and preservation functions in the lives of its followers can lead to religious vitality and affirmation in changing localities.

Bio

Roger MUNSI VANZILA, PhD, is professor of anthropology and multiculturalism at Nanzan University (Nagoya, Japan). He is also a member of the Nanzan Anthropological Institute and Anthropos Institute International, and simultaneously, collaborates with the Center d’Études Ethnologique de Bandundu (CEEBA) in the DRC and the Research Center for Nonwritten Cultural Materials of Kanagawa University in Japan. His current research interests include religious practices and related socio-cultural aspects of the present-day remnants of Kakure Kirishitan communities in Japan, and the socio-political institutions, religious practices, and cultural performances of the Sakata people in the DRC. Professor Munsi’s seminal book (in Japanese) on The Biography of Murakami Shigeru: A Kakure Kirishitan Leader from Sotome-Kurosaki who converted to Catholicism (2012) received an Academic Award in June 2013 from the Japan Association of Catholic Universities.  Beside numerous academic articles, he recently published The Dancing Church of the Congo: Missionary paths in a changing Society (2022) and co-authored books on Human Dignity: An Interdisciplinary Approach (2022) and The Relationship between Cotton and Humans: From History to Memories (2022). Forthcoming book are two collections entiled Kirishitan Shrines and Festivals in Japan: Looking at the Religiosity of Local Communities and The Sakata Society in the Congo: Socio-Political and Religious Organizational Patterns.