A length of stone wall holds up nothing in a small park in the middle of Kagoshima. It is what the air raid of 8 April 1945 left of the church Fr. Émile Raguet built here in 1908 — the first church raised on the ground where Christianity entered Japan. Three bronze figures were set beside the wall in 1999: St. Francis Xavier, and the two Japanese disciples who worked with him, Yajirō and Bernardo.
Xavier came ashore on 15 August 1549, the feast of the Assumption, at the head of Kinko Bay, with the active volcano Sakurajima across the water. He travelled with the Jesuit priest Cosme de Torres, Brother Juan Fernández, and Anjirō — a Satsuma samurai who had fled to Portuguese Malacca after killing a man, met Xavier there, and was baptised Paulo de Santa Fé. He is the first Japanese Christian on record, and he came home as the mission's interpreter. On 29 September the lord of Satsuma, Shimazu Takahisa, gave the Jesuits leave to preach, in the hope of Portuguese trade.
Xavier spent roughly a year in Kagoshima. What he began was outlawed in 1587 and pushed underground for some three centuries. Mission work resumed on this spot in 1891, and three churches have been built on it since. The one a pilgrim enters was dedicated in 1999 for the 450th anniversary of the landing, its exterior shaped to recall the ship that brought Xavier to Japan; a bone of the saint, with a Vatican certificate of authenticity, is kept in the sanctuary. The landing itself is marked about 2.4 km away, at the water's edge in Gionnosu Park.
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
The Jesuits' first year went well enough. Shimazu Takahisa's permission of 29 September 1549 opened Satsuma to preaching, and Anjirō's kinsmen in Kagoshima were among the first to be baptised. When the lord withdrew his favour and forbade conversions, Xavier moved north. He left Japan in 1551 and died the following year off the coast of China.
In 1587 Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued the edict expelling the missionaries, and Christianity was prohibited in Japan for roughly three hundred years. The Meiji restoration reopened the country, and full religious freedom came in 1873. Some of the communities evangelised after Xavier's landing had gone underground during the prohibition and kept a devotional tradition of their own through those centuries. Most of them did not join the Catholic Church when toleration returned; the Kakure Kirishitan, the hidden Christians, are a distinct religious tradition, and the scholarship on them is the best route into what happened in Kyūshū after Xavier.
Missionary work resumed at the present site in 1891. Fr. Émile Raguet, a priest of the Paris Foreign Missions Society who also compiled Japan's first French–Japanese dictionary, built a stone church here, dedicated in 1908 — described by the parish as Japan's first full-scale stone church. On 8 April 1945 an air raid burned it down; the fire came immediately after Mass had been said in it.
A wooden church replaced it in 1949, for the 400th anniversary of Xavier's arrival, built with a donation from Rome. For the dedication the relic of Xavier's right arm was brought from the Church of the Gesù in Rome, and a pilgrimage party of more than a hundred came from Europe and America. The arm went back; the relic kept in Kagoshima is the bone fragment in the sanctuary.
The diocese grew around the parish. Kagoshima was made an Apostolic Prefecture on 18 March 1927, split from Nagasaki and entrusted to Franciscans from Canada. It was raised to a diocese on 25 February 1955 — Wikipedia attributes the promotion to a bull of Pius XII, Qua sollicitudine, a name this research could not check against the Vatican text — and became a suffragan see of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Nagasaki on 4 May 1959. The diocese covers Kagoshima Prefecture, 9,187 km², and counted 8,559 Catholics in 68 parishes with 35 priests in 2022. Bishop Francis Xavier Hiroaki Nakano has led it since 7 July 2018.
Termites and age brought the wooden church down in 1998. Sakakura Associates won the invited competition for its replacement, and the present reinforced-concrete cathedral was dedicated in 1999, for the 450th anniversary. Its floor area is about 1,300 m² and it seats 750, roughly double the building it replaced. The church was named a Jubilee Church for the Holy Year 2025, as it was for the Jubilee of Mercy in 2016.
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Kagoshima
St. Francis Xavier Cathedral (Xavier Memorial Church)
鹿児島カテドラル・ザビエル記念聖堂
The cathedral was built for two purposes, and the parish states both: to be the 司教座聖堂, the bishop's seat and the mother church of the diocese, and to be a memorial to the arrival that first brought the Gospel to Japan. The 1999 building reads as a ship from the street. Inside, the stained glass runs to red for Xavier's missionary zeal and blue for the sea he crossed; the Stations of the Cross are original paintings by the Japanese artist Mitsuda Seihō, and the organ was built by Túverli of Sweden and finished in March 2001. The bone of St. Francis Xavier, with its Vatican certificate, is enshrined in the main sanctuary. A reference room on the first floor holds material on Xavier and the early Japanese mission.
The bell tower rises 31 m over Terukuni-chō. Xavier's Bell hangs in it and is rung at noon and at six in the evening; the back of the bell carries an engraved crab bearing a cross, from the episode in the saint's life.
Monument of St. Xavier's Landing
ザビエル上陸記念碑
The monument stands in Gionnosu Park, on the waterfront of Kinko Bay with Sakurajima across the channel, at the place where Xavier and his companions came ashore in August 1549. It was erected in 1978 and carries a ceramic relief by Louis Fransen and a bronze sculpture by Tsuyoshi Yoshino. It lies about 2.4 km from the cathedral in a straight line — some half an hour on foot by the streets, or a short tram or taxi ride. In some years the August memorial festival has begun here, with pilgrims walking from the monument to the cathedral for the Mass.
Xavier Stay Monument (Xavier Park)
ザビエル滞鹿記念碑
The park occupies the block next to the cathedral and keeps the stone wall of Fr. Raguet's 1908 church, the part of it the 1945 raid left standing. A bronze bust of Xavier stands beside the wall. The life-sized bronzes of Xavier with Yajirō and Bernardo were put up in 1999 by the sculptor Morikazu Mizoguchi for the 450th anniversary; Bernardo, a Kagoshima convert, is thought to have been the first Japanese person to reach Europe.
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
Christianity-Arrival Memorial Festival — on or near 15 August
The diocese calls it キリスト教伝来記念祭; the cathedral parish and older notices call it the Xavier Landing Memorial Festival, ザビエル上陸記念祭. It marks the anniversary of the 1549 landing, which falls on the Solemnity of the Assumption. The observance is anchored on 15 August, though in some years it has moved to the nearest Sunday or to the 11 August public holiday. A ceremony is held before the statue of Xavier in the cathedral forecourt — the bell is rung, a letter of Xavier is read, the bishop gives his greeting — and the assembly processes into the church singing the Xavier hymn, for a Mass celebrated by the bishop. A memorial lecture and a fellowship gathering often accompany the liturgy.
The same day closes the Japan Catholic Peace Ten-Day Period, kept from 6 to 15 August, which ends on the national end-of-war memorial day. The diocese describes the day as carrying a peace intention alongside the commemoration of the mission.
The parish calendar for 2006 records a walking pilgrimage from the landing monument at Gionnosu Park to the cathedral before the Mass; later diocesan notices describe the forecourt ceremony, the Mass and the lecture without mentioning the walk.
Feast of St. Francis Xavier — 3 December
The patronal feast of the cathedral and of the diocese, and the feast of the patron of missionaries in the universal Roman calendar. The cathedral keeps it with a feast-day Mass. It is also the name day of Bishop Francis Xavier Hiroaki Nakano, marked in the diocesan schedule.
Dedication of the Cathedral — 15 September
The anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral church, listed by the diocese and by GCatholic. The present building was consecrated in 1999.
Citizens' Christmas — Third Sunday of Advent
市民クリスマス is a civic Christmas celebration held in the main sanctuary and open to the city beyond the Catholic community. The diocese names it among the roles the cathedral carries as the mother church of the diocese.
🛏️ Where to Stay
Hotel Fukiageso (hotel) — The closest lodging to the cathedral, on the same block in Terukuni-chō and facing Terukuni Shrine, about three minutes on foot. Fifty-five rooms mixing Western and tatami-futon types, a natural hot-spring bath on the top floor, Satsuma kaiseki dining, and English-speaking staff at the front desk. Reservations are taken on the hotel's own site. Website
APA Hotel Kagoshima Chuo Ekimae (hotel) — A business hotel beside Kagoshima Chuo Station, about 1.3 km from the cathedral, some sixteen minutes on foot or one tram stop, with an on-site public bath. The practical base for pilgrims arriving by Shinkansen. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
Green Guesthouse (guesthouse) — A low-priced guesthouse about 1.3 km from the cathedral, near the port ferry terminals, with dormitory beds and private rooms, a communal kitchen, and a rooftop terrace looking out to Sakurajima and Kinko Bay. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
🚗 Getting There
By Air: Kagoshima Airport (KOJ) lies about 40 km northeast of the city, with an airport shuttle bus to the Kagoshima Chuo bus terminal in roughly 40 minutes. International flights arrive from Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong; domestic flights from Tokyo Haneda and Narita, and from Osaka Itami and Kansai.
By Train: Kagoshima Chuo is the southern terminus of the Kyushu Shinkansen — about 1 hour 20 minutes from Hakata in Fukuoka, about 50 minutes from Kumamoto, and about 3 hours 50 minutes direct from Osaka on the Mizuho and Sakura services. From Tokyo the journey runs by Tokaido Shinkansen to Hakata, about 5 hours 15 minutes, then the Kyushu Shinkansen. The Kirishima limited express reaches Kagoshima Chuo from Miyazaki in about 2 hours 10 minutes.
By Bus: Highway buses run to Kagoshima from Fukuoka (the Sakurajima-go, about 4 hours 15 minutes), Kumamoto (the Kirishima-go, about 3 hours 30 minutes) and Miyazaki (the Hamayu-go, about 2 hours 50 minutes).
By Car: The Kyushu Expressway carries traffic down the island from Fukuoka and Kumamoto to Kagoshima; it is the road the highway buses use.
By Ferry: Kagoshima's port terminals serve Sakurajima across the bay and the southern islands — Yakushima, Tanegashima and Okinawa. A Port Liner bus connects Kagoshima Chuo Station with Kagoshima New Port.
Local Transport: Two tram routes cross the city, and both call at Takamibaba, about five minutes' walk from the cathedral. The Kagoshima City View sightseeing bus stops at Xavier Park, on the block beside the church.
📚 Further Reading
Books:
James Brodrick SJ. Saint Francis Xavier, 1506-1552 — The standard English life of the saint, written in 1952 by a Jesuit historian with the Society's archives open to him. The Kagoshima landing and the Japanese mission are covered in detail. A mid-century work, reissued print-on-demand.
John Dougill. In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians — A traveller's account of the hidden Christians from Xavier's 1549 arrival through the 1614 ban, the underground centuries, and the 1865 re-emergence at Nagasaki. Written for the general reader.
Stephen Turnbull. The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan — The first major English study of the Kakure Kirishitan as a religious tradition in their own right, tracing their beliefs and rituals. An academic Routledge title; the scholarly companion to Dougill.
Online Resources:
History of the Japanese Catholic Church — The Daughters of St. Paul's English account of Xavier's landing, his audience with Shimazu Takahisa, and what followed.
GCatholic: St. Francis Xavier Cathedral — Record of the cathedral, its patron and its standing as a Jubilee Church.
🎥 Recommended Videos
Xavier Landing Memorial Festival: the ceremony before Mass — The Diocese of Kagoshima's own footage of the memorial ceremony at the landing monument, filmed in 2018. In Japanese, six minutes.
Christianity-Arrival Memorial Festival — The diocesan commemoration of Xavier's arrival, from the diocese's channel. In Japanese, nineteen minutes.
Mass for the Feast of St. Francis Xavier — The patronal feast-day Mass in the cathedral, recorded by the diocese. In Japanese, one hour ten minutes.
🔗 Useful Links
Kagoshima Cathedral — Xavier Memorial Church — The parish's own site, with the history of the three churches on the site and the cathedral's furnishings (in Japanese).
Catholic Diocese of Kagoshima — Diocesan site carrying the annual schedule, event notices and the recordings of diocesan liturgies (in Japanese).
GCatholic: Diocese of Kagoshima — Canonical record of the diocese, its bishops and its statistics.
VISIT KAGOSHIMA CITY — The city's official tourist site in English, with the entries for the landing monument and Xavier Park.
Kagoshima City Transportation Bureau — Tram routes and the City View sightseeing bus.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Nagasaki (142 km north-northwest) — Where the mission Xavier began met its persecution and its long underground survival: the Twenty-Six Martyrs of 1597 on Nishizaka Hill, Oura Cathedral and the hidden Christians who made themselves known there in 1865, and Urakami under the atomic bomb.
Ijuin (about 25 km northwest) — The castle town associated with Xavier's audience with Shimazu Takahisa. The diocesan youth group organises an annual 24 km walking pilgrimage to it from the cathedral, with the rosary and Mass on arrival. The walk is a diocesan event with no waymarking of its own, and Ijuin has no separate guide here.
🪶 Closing Reflection
"This year your country is celebrating the 450th anniversary of the arrival in your land of St Francis Xavier, patron of the missions and a great figure to whom the Japanese are particularly attached."
— Pope John Paul II, Address to the new Ambassador of Japan to the Holy See, 11 September 1999
