May 1542 – 1552

Francis Xavier's mission to India and Japan

At the request of the Portuguese king John III, the Jesuit Francis Xavier arrived at Goa in May 1542. There he gathered children for catechesis with a handbell. He then preached along India's Pearl Fishery Coast, where converts came mostly from the lower castes.

In 1549 he sailed to Japan and planted a church there. Despite brutal persecution after his death, it survived underground: three centuries later some hundred thousand secret Christians were found in Nagasaki.

In 1552 Xavier set out for China but died on an island off its coast, never reaching the mainland. He had become head of the new Jesuit province east of the Cape of Good Hope.