Proselytism in Edo
Sotelo then went to Japan where he tried to establish a Franciscan church in the area of Edo (present-day Tokyo). The church was destroyed, in 1612, following the interdiction of Christianity in the territories of the Tokugawa shogunate on April 21, 1612 (the prohibition edicts were a reaction to a bribery scandal between a close collaborator of the Shogun, Okamoto Daihachi, and the Christian daimyo Arima Harunobu).
Sotelo fled to the northern part of Japan, in the area controlled by the daimyo of Sendai, Date Masamune, under whom Christianity was still allowed. He came back to Tokyo the following year and constructed and inaugurated a new church on May 12, 1613, in the area of Asakusa Torigoe. The Bakufu reacted by arresting the Christians, and Sotelo himself was put in the Kodenma-chō (小伝馬町) prison. Seven fellow Japanese Christians, who had been arrested with Sotelo, were executed on July 1, but Sotelo was freed following a special request by Date Masamune.
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