Phát Diệm Cathedral

Image: Wikimedia Commons

In the rice lands of Ninh Bình, south of Hanoi, the stone cathedral of Phát Diệm is one of the wonders of Asian Christianity: a vast complex built between 1875 and 1899 by the Vietnamese priest Father Phêrô Trần Lục, entirely of stone and ironwood, in the shape of Vietnam's traditional communal houses, temples and pagodas. Its curved roofs shelter the great church of Our Lady of the Rosary, inaugurated in 1891 and now the cathedral of the Diocese of Phát Diệm, while before it rises the Phương Đình, the majestic stone bell pavilion whose two-ton bell, cast in 1890, once carried across three provinces. Called the Catholic capital of Vietnam, Phát Diệm embodies the meeting of the Gospel and Vietnamese culture.