diff --git a/java/core/src/java/org/apache/orc/impl/ReaderImpl.java b/java/core/src/java/org/apache/orc/impl/ReaderImpl.java
index 6a4830c38d..f2e150cea5 100644
--- a/java/core/src/java/org/apache/orc/impl/ReaderImpl.java
+++ b/java/core/src/java/org/apache/orc/impl/ReaderImpl.java
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 package org.apache.orc.impl;
 
 import com.google.protobuf.CodedInputStream;
+import com.google.protobuf.InvalidProtocolBufferException;
 import com.google.protobuf.TextFormat;
 import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FSDataInputStream;
@@ -55,6 +56,7 @@
 import java.security.Key;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Arrays;
+import java.util.Collections;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Objects;
 import java.util.function.Supplier;
@@ -1035,11 +1037,15 @@ private static List<OrcProto.StripeStatistics> deserializeStripeStats(
       long offset,
       int length,
       InStream.StreamOptions options) throws IOException {
-    InStream stream = InStream.create("stripe stats", tailBuffer, offset,
-        length, options);
-    OrcProto.Metadata meta = OrcProto.Metadata.parseFrom(
-        InStream.createCodedInputStream(stream));
-    return meta.getStripeStatsList();
+    try (InStream stream = InStream.create("stripe stats", tailBuffer, offset,
+        length, options)) {
+      OrcProto.Metadata meta = OrcProto.Metadata.parseFrom(
+          InStream.createCodedInputStream(stream));
+      return meta.getStripeStatsList();
+    } catch (InvalidProtocolBufferException e) {
+      LOG.warn("Failed to parse stripe statistics", e);
+      return Collections.emptyList();
+    }
   }
 
   private List<StripeStatistics> convertFromProto(List<OrcProto.StripeStatistics> list) {
diff --git a/java/core/src/test/org/apache/orc/TestOrcWithLargeStripeStatistics.java b/java/core/src/test/org/apache/orc/TestOrcWithLargeStripeStatistics.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..a766cb01df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/java/core/src/test/org/apache/orc/TestOrcWithLargeStripeStatistics.java
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.apache.orc;
+
+import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path;
+import org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.vector.BytesColumnVector;
+import org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.vector.VectorizedRowBatch;
+
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Disabled;
+import org.junit.jupiter.params.ParameterizedTest;
+import org.junit.jupiter.params.provider.EnumSource;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.util.Arrays;
+import java.util.stream.Collectors;
+import java.util.stream.IntStream;
+
+import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertTrue;
+
+/**
+ * Tests for operations on Orc file with very large stripe statistics.
+ * <p>
+ * The test is disabled by default cause it is rather slow (approx 14 minutes) and memory greedy
+ * (it requires about 4g heap space when creating the files). If you want to run it remove the
+ * {@code Disabled} annotation and ensure that max heap (Xmx) is at least 4g.
+ * </p>
+ */
+@Disabled("ORC-1361")
+public class TestOrcWithLargeStripeStatistics {
+
+  @ParameterizedTest
+  @EnumSource(value = OrcFile.Version.class, mode = EnumSource.Mode.EXCLUDE, names = "FUTURE")
+  public void testGetStripeStatisticsNoProtocolBufferExceptions(OrcFile.Version version)
+      throws Exception {
+    // Use a size that exceeds the protobuf limit (e.g., 1GB) to trigger protobuf exception
+    Path p = createOrcFile(1024L << 20, version);
+    try (Reader reader = OrcFile.createReader(p, OrcFile.readerOptions(new Configuration()))) {
+      assertTrue(reader.getStripeStatistics().isEmpty());
+    }
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Creates an Orc file with a metadata section of the specified size and return its path in the
+   * filesystem.
+   * 
+   * The file has a fixed schema (500 string columns) and content (every column contains 200
+   * characters, which is roughly 200 bytes). Each row is roughly 100KB uncompressed and each stripe
+   * holds exactly one row thus stripe metadata (column statistics) per row is 200KB (100KB for min,
+   * 100KB for max, few bytes for sum).
+   * 
+   * @param metadataSize the desired size of the resulting metadata section in bytes
+   * @param version the desired version to create the file
+   * @return the path to filesystem where the file was created.
+   * @throws IOException if an IO problem occurs while creating the file
+   */
+  private static Path createOrcFile(long metadataSize, OrcFile.Version version) throws IOException {
+    // Calculate the number of rows/stripes to create based on the size of one row (200KB).
+    final long ROW_STRIPE_NUM = metadataSize / 200_000L;
+    Path p = new Path(System.getProperty("test.tmp.dir"),
+        TestOrcWithLargeStripeStatistics.class.getSimpleName()
+            + "_" + ROW_STRIPE_NUM + "_" + version + ".orc");
+    // Modify defaults to force one row per stripe.
+    Configuration conf = new Configuration();
+    conf.set(OrcConf.ROWS_BETWEEN_CHECKS.getAttribute(), "0");
+    TypeDescription schema = createTypeDescription();
+    OrcFile.WriterOptions writerOptions =
+        OrcFile.writerOptions(conf)
+            .setSchema(schema)
+            .stripeSize(1)
+            .encodingStrategy(OrcFile.EncodingStrategy.SPEED)
+            .version(version);
+    try (Writer writer = OrcFile.createWriter(p, writerOptions)) {
+      VectorizedRowBatch batch = createSingleRowBatch(schema);
+      for (long i = 0; i < ROW_STRIPE_NUM; i++) {
+        writer.addRowBatch(batch);
+      }
+    }
+    return p;
+  }
+
+  private static VectorizedRowBatch createSingleRowBatch(TypeDescription schema) {
+    VectorizedRowBatch batch = schema.createRowBatch();
+    batch.size = 1;
+    byte[] bigString = new byte[200];
+    Arrays.fill(bigString, (byte) 'A');
+    for (int i = 0; i < batch.numCols; i++) {
+      BytesColumnVector col = (BytesColumnVector) batch.cols[i];
+      col.setVal(0, bigString);
+    }
+    return batch;
+  }
+
+  private static TypeDescription createTypeDescription() {
+    String strCols = IntStream.range(0, 500)
+        .mapToObj(i -> "col" + i + ":string")
+        .collect(Collectors.joining(","));
+    return TypeDescription.fromString("struct<" + strCols + ">");
+  }
+
+}