Aimé Villion

Aimé Villion (also known in Japanese as アマトス・ビリオン from Latin Amatus Villion), (September 2, 1843 – April 1, 1932) was a French missionary affiliated with the Paris Foreign Missions Society. He came to Japan in October 1868 (the first year of the Meiji era), and while conducting missionary activities in Kobe, Kyoto, Yamaguchi, Hagi, Nara, etc., he devoted himself to researching Christian historical sites and building monuments to commemorate martyrs.

Career Aimé Villion was born September 2, 1843, in Genay, a village near Rhône in southern France. In addition, he requested Bernard Petitjean to send nuns to Kobe, and on July 9, 1877, four sisters of the Congrégation des Soeurs de l'Enfant-Jésus de Chauffailles came to Japan.

After spending seven years in Kobe, in 1879 he was succeeded by Father August Chatron and entered Kyoto. In Kyoto, he visited Chion-in Temple to study Buddhism and opened a French language school to teach young people French. Among the students of this cram school were Eiichi Shibusawa. Around this time, he also taught at a Japanese-French school that opened next to the French legation in Tokyo, and among the students at that time were Saionji Kinmochi, and Takashi Hara. Villion made efforts to build a church in Kyoto, and on May 1, 1890, with the aid of Jeanne Bigard, founder of the Society of St. Peter the Apostle, the Saint Francis Xavier church (now Kawaramachi Church) was completed.

In February 1889, just before he purchased the construction site for the construction of the St. Francis Xavier church, and just before the construction of the church finally started, he was suddenly ordered to transfer to Yamaguchi where he was appointed pastor. During this period, he made many trips to investigate the martyrs of Hagi and Tsuwano, and six years later in November 1895, he entrusted the Yamaguchi church to another young priest and was transferred to Hagi. In Yamaguchi, Chuya Nakahara's adoptive grandfather was a believer, so he also interacted with the Nakahara family. While conducting missionary work in Hagi, he researched and researched historical sites of Christianity, and in August 1891, built a stone monument to a martyr's tomb known "Shifuku no Monument" in Tsuwano. He also discovered the ruins of Daidoji, where Francis Xavier is said to have lived.

In 1924, the Hagi Church was transferred from the Paris Foreign Missions Society to the Society of Jesus, so Villion withdrew to Kobe. In the following year, he assumed the post of pastor of the Nara Church. On October 16, 1926, a monument was erected on the site of Daido-ji Temple and an unveiling ceremony was held.

In 1932, he fell ill, hoping that he would die on the tatami mats of Kawaguchi Church He was transferred to the cathedral and died on April 1 of the same year in Osaka without ever returning to his hometown.