Jerome de Angelis

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Jerome de Angelis (Girolamo degli Angeli) (born at Castro-Giovanni, Sicily, 1567; died 4 December 1623) was an Italian Jesuit missionary to Japan. He was beatified in 1867^[1].

[edit] Life

He entered the Society of Jesus in 1585, and in 1602 began his mission in Japan. He remained there after the publication of the edict expelling all Christian missionaries from the country.

The first European on Hokkaido^[2][3], he was the first missionary to reach Yezo and the Ainu people. De Angelis, after making many converts to Christianity, seeing that his neophytes were cruelly persected because of his presence among them and his preaching, gave himself up to the authorities. Condemned to death, he underwent public execution by fire.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Stephen Turnbull, Japan's Hidden Christians, 1549-1999 (2000), p. 44.
2. ^ http://www.library.ucsb.edu/people/larsgaard/plan1600.html
3. ^ http://133.12.23.145:8080/AnaServer?Laures10+245867+items.anv+numit=5

This article incorporates text from the entry Girolamo degli Angeli in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.