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FIRST JAPANESE TO VISIT EUROPE DIED BEFORE ORDINATION

Updated: December 02, 1992 05:00 PM GMT
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The first Japanese to visit Europe was a poor "samurai´ (member of the traditional military class) who was to be ordained a Jesuit priest, but he died before achieving his goal -- a goal set personally by Jesuit founder Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

Jesuit Father Hubert Cieslick, a historian of early Christianity in Japan, has retold in an October 1992 magazine article the saga of Bernardo of Kagoshima, reportedly the first Japanese to visit Europe.

Bernardo, a samurai of modest means, was the first or second (historians are unsure) Japanese baptized by Saint Francis Xavier in Kagoshima around 1549.

Xavier esteemed the samurai convert and when Ignatius encouraged Xavier to send to Europe young Japanese who would see the Christian world and report back to Japan, Bernardo was Xavier´s first choice.

Another Japanese, Mateo, accompanied Bernardo but died in Goa before reaching Europe. After the trials of the long journey, Bernardo arrived in Portugal so weak and sick it took him several months to recover his health.

Accepted into the Jesuits, Bernardo went to Rome where he met the Saint Ignatius. In 1555 Bernardo was sent back to the famous university of Coimbra, Portugal, where he pursued studies which were both difficult and alien to him.

He died in 1557 before being ordained into the priesthood. His remains now rest in the common crypt of a Jesuit church in Coimbra.

Bishop Fredrich von Wisberg of Wurzburg, Germany, asked Bernardo to inscribe as a keepsake a page in Japanese characters with an Italian translation. The document was kept in the diocesan archives, but was destroyed with the rest of the archives in a 1945 air raid during World War II.

END

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