In 1949, former Kyoto University professor Sakae Ikeda wrote a letter in a Japanese newspaper requesting help. "Whoever may want to help reintroduce Nestorianism . . . to Japan . . . is requested to write me," the letter pleads.

The idea of "reintroducing" Nestorian Christianity here might seem surprising taking into account the official history textbook line that Christianity was introduced here by Francis Xavier in 1549.

Yet, Ikeda is one of a number of scholars who claim the Nestorian Church, or Church of the East, arrived in Japan over 1,000 years before St. Francis was even born.