Saint Francis Xavier Memorial Church Hirado

 

Located on a hillside overlooking the small harbour in the main town of Hirado Island in Nagasaki.

The church was built in 1913 and reconstructed on its current site in 1931.

Originally called just Hirado Catholic Church, it was renamed the Sr. Francis Xavier Memorial Church after a statue of Xavier was erected in 1971.

Xavier visited Jaan in 1549 and initially stayed in what is now Kagoshima. In 1550 he visited Hirado and it is said that in a few short weeks, he accrued more converts here than in the many months he spent in Kagoshima.

I visited the modern church, actually a cathedral, in Kagoshima much earlier on this pilgrimage.

Hirado has several more historic churches and earlier this day I stopped in at the Tabira Church before crossing the bridge to Hirado.

It seems that like Tabira Church, it is no longer so easy to enter the building, a result it seems of the increasing popularity of Nagasaki's Christian sites since being registered as World Heritage.