An optical reception apparatus comprising: a pilot symbol detection unit which is adapted to detect a plurality of pilot symbols intermittently inserted into a received complex electric field signal that is obtained through coherent detection for a received optical signal, the optical reception apparatus being characterized in that it further comprises: an error signal computation unit which is adapted to calculate a complex electric field error signal indicating a phase variation at each pilot symbol based on the pilot symbols detected by the pilot symbol detection unit and a predetermined reference symbol; a compensation electric field signal generation unit which is adapted to estimate the phase variation between the pilot symbols in the received complex electric field signal using filter processing based on the complex electric field error signal calculated by the error signal computation unit; and a phase noise compensation unit which is adapted to perform phase compensation for the received complex electric field signal based on the phase variation between the pilot symbols estimated by the compensation electric field signal generation unit, wherein the same pilot symbol as a pilot symbol inserted by a transmission apparatus is stored in advance as the predetermined reference symbol. a pilot symbol detection unit which is adapted to detect a plurality of pilot symbols intermittently inserted into a received complex electric field signal that is obtained through coherent detection for a received optical signal, the optical reception apparatus being characterized in that it further comprises: an error signal computation unit which is adapted to calculate a complex electric field error signal indicating a phase variation at each pilot symbol based on the pilot symbols detected by the pilot symbol detection unit and a predetermined reference symbol; a compensation electric field signal generation unit which is adapted to estimate the phase variation between the pilot symbols in the received complex electric field signal using filter processing based on the complex electric field error signal calculated by the error signal computation unit; and a phase noise compensation unit which is adapted to perform phase compensation for the received complex electric field signal based on the phase variation between the pilot symbols estimated by the compensation electric field signal generation unit, wherein the same pilot symbol as a pilot symbol inserted by a transmission apparatus is stored in advance as the predetermined reference symbol. an error signal computation unit which is adapted to calculate a complex electric field error signal indicating a phase variation at each pilot symbol based on the pilot symbols detected by the pilot symbol detection unit and a predetermined reference symbol; a compensation electric field signal generation unit which is adapted to estimate the phase variation between the pilot symbols in the received complex electric field signal using filter processing based on the complex electric field error signal calculated by the error signal computation unit; and a phase noise compensation unit which is adapted to perform phase compensation for the received complex electric field signal based on the phase variation between the pilot symbols estimated by the compensation electric field signal generation unit, wherein the same pilot symbol as a pilot symbol inserted by a transmission apparatus is stored in advance as the predetermined reference symbol.