 The church was destroyed in 1612, following the interdiction of Christianity in the territories of the Tokugawa shogunate on 21 April 1612.After a period of intense missionary activity by the Catholic Church, Tokugawa Hidetada, the second "shōgun" of the Tokugawa dynasty, issued a decree which banned the practice and teaching of the Christian faith, and under the threat of loss of life, all the missionaries had to leave Japan.This decree started the bloody persecution of Christians, which lasted several decades.