Urakami Cathedral

Nagasaki


Once the largest church in Asia (1914), the cathedral took three decades to complete and three seconds to flatten. This smaller replacement cathedral was completed in 1959 on the ruins of the original. Walk around the side of the hill to see a belfry lying in state where the original building fell after the atomic blast.

Catholic visitors are welcome to worship, in a side chapel where the original hibaku Maria is kept, a charred figure of the Virgin Mary.