An optical receiving apparatus sets, efficiently and optimally, a delay interferometer and a variable wavelength dispersion compensator in the apparatus. The apparatus has a variable dispersion compensation unit performing variably dispersion compensation on a received optical signal, a delay interference unit performing a delay interference process on the optical signal from the variable dispersion compensation unit, a photoelectric conversion detecting unit performing photoelectric conversion detection on the optical signal from the delay interference unit and outputting an electric signal demodulated from the differential M-ary phase modulated optical signal, a clock signal extracting unit extracting a clock signal from the demodulated electric signal fed from the photoelectric conversion detecting unit, and a dispersion compensation controlling unit controlling a dispersion compensation amount in the variable dispersion compensation unit on the basis of the clock signal extracted by the clock signal extracting unit.