Sakitsu Village
天草の﨑津集落32°19′ N 130°02′ EOld townHidden Christian community through the…UNESCORestricted access
Sakitsu suits riders on Ama-Ichi who want to understand how Amakusa's Hidden Christians kept their faith, and a visit inside the church needs advance notice and quiet manners.
Road closure
Kumamoto is rebuilding after the 28 July 2026 earthquake, and most roads and lines are open
An M7.1 earthquake struck the Kumamoto region on 28 July 2026, and Uki and Yatsushiro took the worst of it. The Kyushu Shinkansen fully reopened on 18 September and JR's Kagoshima line between Uto and Yatsushiro on 10 October. The Minami-Kyushu Expressway stays closed between Yatsushiro JCT and Yatsushiro-minami IC while its bridges are repaired, and aftershocks continue. Aso and Amakusa are open to visitors, and their towns ask travellers to come.
Checked 2026-10-11 · bousai.go.jp
Photo Ubuhouse · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 and others, credited in the gallery
Visiting with care · Restricted access
Sakitsu Church is a working Catholic parish church of the Diocese of Fukuoka, with Mass held there regularly. The village around it is a lived-in fishing settlement.
- Give advance notice before you visit Sakitsu Church, through the booking desk the Hidden Christian Sites information centre names (Kyushu Sanko Tourism)
- No photographs or video inside the church
- No entry past the rails, near the altar or into the choir loft
- Take off your hat and shoes before you enter the church, which has a tatami floor
- Do not ring the bell or touch the books and objects inside
- Keep your voice and footsteps quiet inside, where parishioners and clergy may be praying
- Dress for a place of worship and avoid bare shoulders and short shorts
- Walk the narrow lanes between houses quietly, since people live in every one of them
Related places
Sakitsu sits on Yokaku Bay on the west coast of Amakusa's Shimoshima island. Christianity reached Amakusa in the 1560s, and after the ban the faithful here kept their belief in secret in small communities for generations. In 2018 the village became one of the Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region on the World Heritage list.
The present church went up in 1934 under the French priest Augustin Halbout, built by Tetsukawa Yosuke with a Gothic concrete front and a timber nave, because the money ran out partway through. Inside, the floor is laid with tatami. It stands on the site of the village headman's house, where people were once made to tread on Christian images to prove they had given up the faith.
Houses crowd the slope across the road from the water. Look for the kake, wooden platforms built out over the sea for work space on a cramped shore, and the toya, the narrow lanes that run between the houses.
Worth knowing
- Park at the Sakitsu Village Guidance Centre, which also serves as the Michi-no-Eki, or at the Kintsu Ichiba market lot.
- Ama-Ichi runs down the west coast past Sakitsu on its way to Ushibuka.
Quick answers about Sakitsu Villageよくある質問
Do you need to book to visit Sakitsu Church?
Yes. The Hidden Christian Sites information centre asks visitors to give advance notice through Kyushu Sanko Tourism, and visits run from 9:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00 outside services.
When was Sakitsu Church built?
The present Sakitsu Church was built in 1934 under Father Augustin Halbout of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. The first church of 1888 stood about 80 metres east, beside Sakitsu Suwa Shrine.
Can you visit Sakitsu Village?
Restricted access. Give advance notice before you visit Sakitsu Church, through the booking desk the Hidden Christian Sites information centre names (Kyushu Sanko Tourism). No photographs or video inside the church. No entry past the rails, near the altar or into the choir loft. Take off your hat and shoes before you enter the church, which has a tatami floor. Do not ring the bell or touch the books and objects inside.
What are the opening hours of Sakitsu Village?
Sakitsu Village is open church visits run from 9:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00, and the inside closes to visitors during Mass and other services.
How should you behave at Sakitsu Village?
At Sakitsu Village: Keep your voice and footsteps quiet inside, where parishioners and clergy may be praying. Dress for a place of worship and avoid bare shoulders and short shorts. Walk the narrow lanes between houses quietly, since people live in every one of them.