Julia Ota

was a 17th-century Korean Christian woman who became a lady-in-waiting of the Japanese shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu, but was later exiled for her faith.

Biography Born in Korea to an aristocratic family, Julia Ota was brought to Japan at the age of 14 during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98) by the leading Japanese general Konishi Yukinaga.

The Okamoto Daihachi incident came to light in 1612, which made Ieyasu suspicious of Christianity's influence on his subjects. He was thus quite alarmed to find many of his own servants were Christians, chief among them Julia Ota. She refused to recant her faith when presented with an ultimatum and would rather shave her head to renounce her attachments to the world. So Ieyasu banished her and other like-minded servants from his household and exiled her to the Izu Islands. Julia Ota was first sent to Izu Ōshima, then Nii-jima, and finally Kōzu-shima.

In 1619, she left Kōzu-shima and took refuge in Nagasaki, apparently having received a pardon around the time Ieyasu died. There, despite orders from the Nagasaki bugyō, she did not cease her evangelical activities and was driven out of her home multiple times. According to a letter by the Jesuit priest Francisco Pacheco dated February 15, 1622, Julia Ota was receiving financial support from Pacheco in Osaka. This was the last known record of Ota. Despite evidence to the contrary, there remains a number of gravesites on the Izu Islands purporting to be that of Julia Ota. On Izu Ōshima, a shrine was raised upon her alleged grave, making it a rare case of a Shinto shrine being raised over a Christian grave, and where a Christian soul was revered as a kami. Another purported grave site on Kōzu-shima was commemorated by a large crucifix erected on the island in 1958 by Japanese and Korean Christians, and a festival is held in her honour in May each year on the island. In 1972, earth from her alleged grave on Kōzu-shima was brought to Seoul's Jeoldu-san, a memorial shrine for Korean Christians, as a symbolic homecoming.

Ota was beatified along with 188 Japanese Martyrs in 2008.