are the Catholic communities in Japan which hid themselves during the ban and persecution of Christianity by Japan in the 1600s. During this time, many believers modified their religious practices to resemble Buddhist ones on a surface level, but which held hidden Christian meaning in reality. For instance, depictions of the
Virgin Mary modeled on the
Buddhist deity Kannon (
Avalokiteśvara), goddess of mercy, became common among , and were known as "Maria Kannon". The prayers were adapted to sound like Buddhist chant, yet retained many untranslated words from
Latin,
Portuguese, and
Spanish. The
Bible and other parts of the liturgy were passed down orally, because printed works could be confiscated by authorities. The still exist today, forming "what is arguably a separate faith, barely recognizable as the creed imported in the mid-1500s by Catholic missionaries". In 2025, it was reported that there were less than 100 Hidden Christians left on the island of
Ikitsuki in Nagasaki, down from 10,000 in the 1940s. ==See also==