The Church Of St. Paul In Macau And Martyrdom In Japan

The Church of St. Paul in Macau is a fruit of the communication between the East and the West, whose artistic value and historical significance is extremely high. Due to especial geographical and historical circumstances, the Church of St. Paul is closely connected with Japan, especially the martyrdom of Japanese Cristian in the age of Edo. In this article, I want to take the interrelation between the Church of St. Paul and the martyrdom of Japanese Cristian as a main line, do up the completed relationship of the both by collecting related historical documents in Chinese and foreign languages and analyzing of details of existing facade of the church, and make it clearthat the martyrdom had a great effect on the Church of St. Paul not only in facilitating cultural exchange between China, Japan and Europe, but also in multiplying its theological connotation and promoting its artistic value.Methodologically, this research is taken from three perspective as written below:(1) From History of Relationship between China and foreign countries, take largely advantage of historical documents in different languages, such as Correspondence of Japan Jesuits’, Carta annua de lapao, books referred to Nanban Artist in Japan, local chronicles of Kyushu area, Cartas Anuas do Colegio de Macau (1594-1627) and so on, to do up the relationship between the Church of St. Paul and the martyrdom of Japanese Cristian, find out the details which are ignored by former researches.(2) From Cristian Theology, study the theological connotation of carves in the facade and paintings inside, to highlight the influence that the martyrdom of Japanese Cristian put on the Church’s architectural ornament.(3) From Comparative Literature and Cross-Culture Study, though the analysis of the East and the West cultural elements in Church’s architectural ornament, and the summarizing of referred historical events, study the exchange and collision of the East and West culture in the Church and make its significance on cultural exchange showed in multiple dimensions.In the content, this article is divided into four parts:(1) The first chapter, in which the relationship between the Jesuit’s East-Asia System and the Church of St. Paul, comparatively outlines the process both of establishment of missionary fortress in Macau and Japan Parish clearly, and make it clear that the Church is intensely connected with Japan Parish since initial. And the most importantly, in this part the Two Missionary Operation Systems in East-Asia are presented for the first time. One of the so-called Two Missionary Operation Systems in East-Asia is Parish System managed by bishop, and the other is the Jesuit’s Missionary System. No matter in which system, Macau and the Church of St. Paul both take very important positions.(2) The second chapter, which tells the process of the martyrdom getting more and more serious and the situation of Japanese theological seminary during the martyrdom period, emphasizes how the Church put all the missionaries and Japanese Christians under its protection during the martyrdom period. And it is reflected in three aspects: at first, the Church received all the missionaries and Japanese Christians who took refuge there and provided them accommodation and religion site. Moreover, it trained many European missionaries for China and Japan after1618. Finally, the Church held many solemn ceremonies to commemorate the martyrs and comfort the refugees.(3) The third chapter, the content of which has not been paid enough attention by scholars, emphasizes the Japanese Christian artists who took refuge in Macau. In this part, I tried to put every single clues in different documents home and abroad together to ferret out Nicolao’s and his four disciples’ life and works, which offers a better condition for a deeper research afterwards. Even though there are several problems in this chapter, I still make it a dependent chapter, because I want to attract more researchers’ attention on this topic.(4) The forth chapter, which is based on the forth three chapters, focuses on the reflection of martyrdom in the Church’s architectural ornament. I try to use theological and art-historical analysis method to interpret details of carves in the facade and the paintings inside, so that the theological connotation of the Church can be enriched, at the same time, both its art value and historical significance can be promoted.In a conclusion, basically reached expectation, this article put the relationship between the Church of St. Paul and the martyrdom of Japanese Christian as a main line, though the detail analysis of facade and summarizing of related historical documents, the interrelation is definite, and important roles of Japanese Christian artists played in the construction and decoration are confirmed, as well as the reflection of martyrdom in the Church’s architectural ornament. This article enriched the Church’s connotation both of entity (architecture) and of spirit (theology), and showed the Church’s great significance in China-Foreign cultural exchange in various dimensions.