Great Martyrdom of Edo

Shortly before or after Tokugawa Iemitsu returned from Kyoto on 18 October 1623, a number of Christians were arrested and held at the Kodenmachō Jailhouse in Edo.

[4] These arrests came in the wake of a betrayal by a servant of the Christian hatamoto John Hara Mondo-no-suke Tanenobu [jp].

The procession was led by three persons on horseback: Jerome de Angelis, an Italian Jesuit missionary; Francis Galvez, a Franciscan priest; and John Hara Mondo-no-suke Tanenobu [jp], a Japanese Christian hatamoto.

[8] According to a Jesuit annual letter,[a] fifty-one people were led to the stake during this procession, but one renounced his faith and was not put to death.

[16][17] John Hara Mondo-no-suke Tanenobu was later beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in Nagasaki on 24 November 2008 together with 187 other martyrs of Japan.

[20] On 19 November 2023, the Archbishop of Tokyo, Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, celebrated Mass at Takanawa Catholic Church, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Great Martyrdom of Edo.