Simon Yempo
Who they were
Simon Yempo was a Japanese who had lived in a Buddhist monastery with others who received baptism, and he became a catechist for the Jesuit missionaries.
He was burnt alive with some fifty other Christians outside Edo (Tokyo) on 4 December 1623, the martyrdom led by the priests Bd Jerome de Angelis and Bd Francis Galvez, and he was beatified with them in 1867.
The miracles
As a martyr he was raised to the altars without a miracle.
Why that counted as sanctity
A Japanese catechist burnt alive for the faith at Edo in 1623.
The cause
The cause continues. No postulation address is published here yet. Favours received through this person’s intercession, and offers of help, are best sent to the religious order or congregation they belonged to, or to the diocese where the cause was opened; either will pass them to the postulation.
Connected on this site
- Francisco Gálvez Blessed“At Edo in Japan, the blessed martyrs Francisco Gálvez, priest of the Order of Friars Minor, Girolamo de Angelis, priest, and Simon Yempo, religious, both of the Society of Jesus, burned at the stake out of hatred for the faith.” — this site's research
- Butler's Lives of the Saints, ed. Thurston and Attwater (1956), vol. II - 1 June
- Wikidata Q2038106 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
Checked against the sources listed on 22 September 2026. Corrections welcome.