House of Chokata （Nyoko-do）

After the severe and prolonged period of prohibition, it seemed that all of the Christians had disappeared. By around 1644, all of the missionaries had been deported from Japan. However, even through that situation some groups had been secretly maintaining the Christian faith in Nagasaki.
A parishioner called Magoemon, who used to work for Saint Clara Church, and Tomoshichiro organized the underground structure of local Christians secretly. Each Hidden Christians’s group had Chokata who played a role as a leader.

The house in which every Chokata had lived, up until the third ‘falling’ of Urakami, is a symbol of Hidden Christianity. Doctor NAGAI Takashi, whose wife was the great-granddaughter of the last Chokata Kichizo, lived in the small house called Nyoko-do at the same place. He wrote many essays as a medical doctor, a victim of the Atomic Bomb and as a devoted Christian.