Blessed Joam Mattheus Adami

Joam Mattheus Adami, (Italian: Giovanni Matteo Adami) (17 May 1576 – 22 September 1633) was a Jesuit missionary born in Mazara del Vallo (Sicilian: Mazzara), in the south-west of Sicily. Adami left for Macau in 1602, travelling via India, and reached Japan in 1604 after completing his studies. He served as the chief priest of the rectory of Yanagawa in Chikugo Province and was exiled to Macau in November 1614. However, he returned to Japan in July 1618. He pursued his missionary activities primarily in Oshu. He was captured and martyred at the gallows and the pit (ana-tsurushi) in Nagasaki on 22 September 1633. Adami joined the Society of Jesus in 1595 at the age of 19. He studied philosophy and theology at the Collegio de Romano in Rome, and was ordained as a priest. In 1602, he headed to Macau, through India, to study theology further. He completed his studies at the Collegio de Macau, before arriving in Japan in 1604. In 1604, at the age of 28, Adami sailed from Macau to Japan on a junk and began learning Japanese on the island of Kyushu in Omura. He wrote an examination to gain a degree in theology in Japan on 23 September 1604, but was thrown out of Omura with other priests the same year. Adami took refuge in Bungotakada Church in Oita. In 1607, he became the chief priest of the rectory of Yanagawa in Chikugo Province, where he engaged in missionary work for seven years with Joam Yama, a monk. His Japanese language abilities improved. After the Edo government proclaimed the Anti-Christian Edicts in 1612, Adami was deported to Macau in November 1614. Yama was also exiled to Macau. Adami returned to Amakusa in Kyushu, Japan, in July 1618, with several Japanese monks and remained in Oyano (now Kami-Amakusa) until 1619. However, persecution in Kyushu had become so severe that he went to Oshu in 1620, the northeastern part of Honshu (Japan’s main island), where he engaged in missionary work with Yama.