Tenpukuji Temple

Founded in 1688 partly to serve as cover for Hidden Christians under the temple registration system. The Higashi-Kashiyama area was administered by the comparatively tolerant Saga domain, and Christians used their nominal Buddhist affiliation to avoid detection while maintaining their own prayers and rites, including a 'sutra-annihilating prayer' recited before Buddhist funeral services. When Christianity was legalized in 1873, the congregation split into roughly equal thirds: those who returned to Catholicism, those who maintained the Hidden Christian tradition, and those who became practicing Buddhists. The temple's most significant object is a 50-centimeter Maria Kannon statue with traces of blue paint on the head.