Vietnamese Martyrs

Who they were

The Gospel reached Vietnam early in the sixteenth century. Between 1625 and 1886 its rulers issued 53 decrees against Christians, and some 130,000 were killed; the emperor Tự Đức (1847-1883) offered silver for every missionary captured and had the bodies of the executed thrown into rivers.

The Church documented 117 of these martyrs by name: 11 Spanish Dominicans (6 bishops and 5 priests), 10 French missionaries of the Paris Foreign Missions (2 bishops and 8 priests), and 96 Vietnamese, 37 of them priests and 59 lay people, among them a mother of six and a boy of nine.

The miracles

They were beatified in groups by Leo XIII (1900), St Pius X (1906 and 1909) and Pius XII (1951); their causes were united in 1986. As martyrs they did not need approved miracles. In 1990 John Paul II named them patrons of Vietnam.

Why that counted as sanctity

Bishops, priests and lay people, Vietnamese and European, gave their lives for Christ through two and a half centuries of persecution, standing for a multitude whose names only God knows.

Connected on this site

• Agnes Lê Thi Than Saint one of this group
• Andrea Nguyen Kim Thong Saint one of this group
• Andrea Tuong Saint one of this group
• Andrew Dung-Lac Saint one of this group
• Andrew Trần Văn Trông Saint one of this group
• Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh Saint one of this group
• Anthony Nguyễn Đích Saint one of this group
• Augustin Nguyễn Văn Mới Saint one of this group
• Augustin Schoeffler Saint one of this group
• Augustine Phan Viết Huy Saint one of this group
• Bernard Due Van Vo Saint one of this group
• Dominic Bùi Văn Úy Saint one of this group