Photos

The Christ Orthodox Church is a sect of the Christianity called the Greek Orthodox Church or the Eastern Church. Mr. Katsumata of this town receives the baptism of the Orthodox Church after participating in Boshin war in Tokyo. And, he came home in Meiji 5(1852) and started to have propagation of the Orthodox Church in Ishinomaki with the acquaintance friend etc. Then, believers increased in number gradually and the church was built in current place in Meiji 13(1880). It was ten years or more ago than the time that Russian missionary Nikolay built the church in Tokyo in Meiji 24(1891). The Christ Ishimaki Orthodox Church church was the oldest wooden church in Japan that is existing as a church of the Greek Orthodox Church. This church is wooden two stories, and the total tile-roofing, and there are some which put in the cross in a front tile. A plane carries out a cross form and there is a projecting portion which added the tower of the octagon to the front. This is what expressed the style of the Byzantine type dome construction method by the technique of Japanese-style Endoh (building which carried out the octagon). This church can be called monumental building of Ishinomaki as a vestibule leading to the outside to the inland in which the Western culture in early stages of Meiji was accepted on it's own initiative.
This photograph was taken at the early morning in the autumn of the previous year of an earthquake disaster.