Japan was

Since, under the influence of missionaries in the country, various uprisings very often broke out, which the local princes used to weaken dependence on central government, by the middle of the 17th century, by order of the emperor Christianity in Japan was banned. The followers of religion were persecuted, and missionaries were prohibited from entering the country. The ban was canceled only in the fifties of the 19th century, and before that Christianity in Japan existed in the form of a kind of secret cult.