Honkyoji Temple and the Omura Family Cemetery
The Omura ruled the lands around Omura Bay from the tenth to the nineteenth century and were instrumental in developing trade between Europe and Japan in the sixteenth century.
Omura Sumitada (1533–1587), the eighteenth lord of Omura, was the first daimyo to convert to Christianity.
He opened the port of Nagasaki to Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries.
His motivation to convert to Christianity is thought to have been partly the opportunity to trade with the Portuguese, who could provide European firearms, saltpeter for making gunpowder, and Chinese silk.
After he was baptized in 1563, Sumitada ordered Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in his lands to be demolished and compelled people in his domain to convert to Christianity.
Sumitada’s son Yoshiaki (1596–1616) was baptized but later renounced Christianity.
In 1587, shortly after Sumitada died, the de facto ruler of the country Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1538–1598) issued an edict limiting the propagation of Christianity, likely to counter the potential threat the religion posed to Japanese political and social institutions.
Omura Yoshiaki expelled all Christian missionaries from his lands and publicly renounced Christianity in 1602, converting to Nichiren Buddhism.
He ordered the destruction of the churches that his father had built in their lands, and constructed temples and shrines in their place.
