1 / 6Kuroshima ChurchPhoto: Marine-Blue / CC BY 4.0
Tap a photo to see it large. 6 photographs, every one credited.
Checked against official sources · updated · Takumi Yamada
A brick church of 1902 on an island settled by families who hid their Christianity for 250 years and came out of hiding in the 1860s. It is World Heritage and almost nobody goes. The ferry leaves from Ainoura pier, about 20 min by taxi from the station, three times a day (back at 11:10 or 15:30), and advance contact is required (095-823-7650). It does not fit a usual 9-hour call.
- It is not only a photo stop: two hundred and fifty years of hiding, and then a brick church built by hand.
- This needs 7 hr 30 min, so it only fits a 9.5-hour call or longer. On a shorter one it will cost you the ship, not the view.
- No single published ride covers this one. Budget for a taxi both ways, or fold it into a guided day.
Why Kuroshima Church is famous
Two hundred and fifty years of hiding, and then a brick church built by hand
Kuroshima is an island whose people are largely descended from hidden Christians who survived 250 years of prohibition. The 1902 brick church was built by the islanders themselves, with their own labour and donations, under the French priest Marmand. It is part of the UNESCO listing for Japan's hidden Christian sites.
Christianity was banned in Japan in 1614 and the penalty was death. On small islands off this coast, families kept practising in secret for two hundred and fifty years, without priests, disguising prayers as Buddhist chants. When the ban lifted they came out — and on Kuroshima they built a church out of around four hundred thousand bricks they made themselves.
And convert large numbers in Kyushu
The penalty is death; fumi-e are used to find believers
Islands are watched less closely
Some communities rejoin the Church; some do not
Give advance notice before you go. It is a working parish church, not a monument, and the community asks.
Kuroshima Church and your ship
Both pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.
Where the 7 hr 30 min goes
Counted from the moment you step off the gangway, about 30 minutes after the ship arrives. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
75 minutes each way is the measured figure for taxi + ferry ~75 min each way, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 5 hr in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
See · ~3hKujukushima by boat
A drowned coastline of 208 wooded islets — the name means ninety-nine and undercounts by half.
See the detail
Eat · ~1.25hA certified Sasebo burger
Not a recipe — a rule.
See the detail
See · ~2.5hTenkaiho viewpoint
The classic view over the islands, from a headland the city planted with 150,000 cosmos for autumn and rape flowers for spring.
See the detail