The Tsukiji Catholic Church in Akashi-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, is one of the oldest churches in Tokyo.

When Japan’s national isolation policy, which continued over 200 years, came to an end, present Akashi-cho in Tokyo was designated as a foreign settlement in 1869.  Different from other foreign settlements in Yokohama and Kobe, where many foreign trading houses were mainly built, Christian schools and hospitals were built here.  Some existing schools and a hospital in Tokyo stem from them.  Right after the end of Christian Prohibition Order in 1873, French missionaries built the first Tsukiji Catholic Church here in the next year as the base of missionary work in Tokyo and northward.   After that, the church was raised to a cathedral in Tokyo in1920.  The cathedral was unfortunately destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, but was reconstructed soon in 1927, which is present church in the photo.

The new chapel was designed after Eglise de la Madeleine in Paris in compliance with the wishes of the then archbishop.  It looks a stone structure at first glance but, in fact, is made of wood and plaster.  What a quintessentially Japanese building!!  Although the original building is gone, a plaster statue of Saint Peter fortunately survived the big quake, and stands now beside the front door of the church.

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