Christianity in Vietnam
[1] Christians represent a significant minority in Vietnam: Catholics and Protestants were reported to compose 7% and 2% of the country's population respectively in 2020.
In 1524, Portuguese merchant Duarte Coelho's fleet arrived in Hội An, central Vietnam, to trade, bringing along Catholic missionaries.
In 1639, some Japanese Christians in Hội An assisted in a revolt against the government; therefore, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Lan of Cochinchina ordered the Jesuits to leave his domain.
[6] This writing system continues to be used today, and is called chữ Quốc ngữ (literally, "national language script").
Meanwhile, the traditional chữ Nôm, in which Girolamo Maiorica was an expert, was the main script conveying Catholic faith to the Vietnamese until the late 19th century.
Other missionaries active in pre-modern Vietnam were Franciscans (in Cochinchina), Italian Dominicans & Discalced Augustinians (in Eastern Tonkin), and those sent by the Propaganda Fide.
The French missionary and Titular Bishop of Adran Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, who had come to evangelize in Cochinchina, played a role in Vietnamese history towards the end of the 18th century.
[citation needed] In August 1798, Emperor Cảnh Thịnh of the Tây Sơn dynasty in Huế, suspecting that Catholic civilians in Quảng Trị supported and allied with his enemy Nguyễn Ánh, who tolerated Christianity, ordered soldiers to pogrom the Catholics.
More than 10,000 Catholic civilians in Quảng Trị were massacred; it was during this time that a Marian apparition of Our Lady of La Vang was reported.
Persistent rebellions occurred throughout the Nguyễn Dynasty, many led by Catholic priests intent on installing a Christian monarch.
Once colonial rule was established, the Catholics were rewarded with preferential treatment in government posts and education, and the church was given vast tracts of royal land that had been seized.
[citation needed] After the victorious overthrow of French rule and the country's temporary division in the mid-1950s, Catholicism declined in the North, where the Communists categorized it as a reactionary force opposed to both national liberation as well as social progress.
Meanwhile, the communists acted to isolate and neutralize hard-core opposition within local Catholics-to-party policy and to persuade less-strongly-opposed factions to join a party-controlled "renovation and reconciliation" movement.
[citation needed] Since Đổi mới reforms, the Vietnamese government alternates its treatment of Roman Catholics.
In 1988, 117 Catholics, representing hundred thousands of Vietnamese martyrs who had died for their faith, were canonized by Pope John Paul II.
Due to the separation of the country in two in 1954, the latter was renamed the Evangelical Church of Vietnam North (ECVN), and officially recognized by the government in 1963.
In 2022, local churches estimated that two-thirds of Protestants were members of ethnic minorities, including Hmong, Thai, Dzao and others in the Northwest Highlands, as well as members of ethnic minority groups of the Central Highlands (Ede, Jarai, Sedang and M'nong, among others).
[38] At least 50% of the current Protestant population is composed of members of tribal groups; the Vietnamese government's treatments towards them is varied.
[39] A young Hroi man who refused to reject his Christian faith reportedly died from injuries received while under official interrogation in April 2007.
[citation needed] Mennonite and Baptist movements were officially recognized by Hanoi in October 2007, which was seen as some improvement of religious freedom in the country.
These parishes are included in jurisdiction of the Philippinian-Vietnamese Eparchy (Diocese) belonging to the Russian Patriarchal Exarchate in South-East Asia (established on December 28, 2018, by its Holy Synod).
[41] The earliest parish, named after Our Lady of Kazan icon, was opened in 2002 with the blessing of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, which had been given in Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra.
[49][better source needed] During the First Indochina War, the communist-led Việt Minh were hostile against those did not support independence of Vietnam under their rule.
[61] In the past Christian foreign missionaries are not allowed to proselytize or perform religious activities without government approval.
[62] Vietnam is now maintaining a semi-formal relation with the Vatican, a major breakthrough in contrast to other communist countries of China, Laos and North Korea.
