Oura Church

French missionaries built this church in 1864 for the foreign residents of the newly opened port, and dedicated it to the twenty-six Christians crucified in Nagasaki in 1597. It is the oldest church still standing in Japan and the only Western-style building designated a National Treasure.

Its significance is not architectural. On 17 March 1865, a few weeks after the church opened, a group of villagers from nearby Urakami came in, and one of the women approached Father Petitjean and told him quietly that their hearts were the same as his. They asked where the statue of Santa Maria was.

Christianity had been banned in Japan since 1614 and the persecution had been thorough. These families had kept the faith for 250 years with no priests, no church and no Bible, passing on prayers phonetically until the Latin had worn down into something else, disguising images of Mary as Kannon, and choosing a baptiser from among themselves in each generation. Rome called it a miracle. The Japanese authorities responded by exiling thousands of them, and the ban was not lifted until 1873.

The building is small, white, with a vaulted wooden ceiling and stained glass, some of it original. The stone statue outside marks the spot of the encounter. The museum in the former seminary next door tells the story properly and is the reason to allow an hour rather than fifteen minutes.

Entry is around 1,000 yen including the museum. It sits on the hill above the harbour, with Glover Garden immediately above it and the tram stop a few minutes below.