OVERVIEW

The ruins of Hinoe and Hara Castles, located in Minamishimabara, are part of the ‘Churches and Christian Sites in Nagasaki’, included on UNESCO’s tentative list of World Heritage sites. Minamishimabara has established the Arima Christian Heritage Museum with the purpose of promoting the inscription of the collection of sites on the World Heritage List.

Both of these historical places give testimony to both the light and dark sides of Nagasaki Prefecture’s Christian history. They represent a valuable memory transmitted through generations. Their tale, handed down only in this very limited area, is just a tiny piece of the vast puzzle of world history, but the flowering of Christian culture and the subsequent religious persecution causing followers to go into hiding, until the faith’s eventual revival, constitute a theme that runs through human history.

The Arima Christian Heritage Museum exhibits 250 years of Christian history showing its propagation, prosperity and suppression, ending in the Shimabara-Amakusa revolt.