Reasons That Lead to the Martyrdom in Vietnam

 

In the Vietnamese history, Christianity appears for the first time in the Vietnamese Imperial Historical Records, published in 1884. This historical source reported that in 1533 under the reign of King Le Trang Ton (1514-1548), “I-Ne-Khu,” mostly Ignatus, a Christian preacher had arrived in the two villages Ninh Cuong and Tra Lu of Nam Dinh Province (North Vietnam). His national and religious congregational identity nevertheless remained unidentified in the document. Peter Phan thus suspects that I-Ne-Khu was probably a Christian priest, who was on the way from Malacca to Macao. Along the Vietnamese coastline, for unclear reasons, he had decided to sail to the coastal villages of northern Vietnam. In these two villages, I-Ne-Khu preached Christianity to the Vietnamese people.

The first missionaries arrived in Vietnam between the period of 1550 and 1615 came from Malacca, Malaysia and Manila, the Philippines. The very first one was Gaspar de Santa Cruz, a Portuguese Dominican from Malacca, who had set his foot on Ha Tien in 1550. In 1583 a group of Spanish Franciscans from Manila arrived in Da Nang in 1583. One of them was Bartolomé Ruiz. In 1596 Diego Aduarte and Alonso Ximénez, both belonged to the Dominicans departed Manila for Da Nang.

However, these missionaries virtually left no significant activities in Vietnam. Except a few individuals who received baptism from these first missionaries (for example, a dying infant baptized by Fr. Santa Cruz), the first missionaries had arrived and yet remained in Vietnam for only a short period due to several obstacles; the language and the outlaw of preaching Christianity to the native were two of these. Only until the arrival of the Jesuits in 1615 did the work of missionary in Vietnam shift to a new gear.

India, China, Japan, Malacca and Macau had received the Jesuits into their lands due to the systematic missionary plans by the Society of Jesuits. The arrival of the Jesuits in Vietnam was however due to a sole request of Fernandes de Costa, a Portuguese captain of a merchant ship. In responding to Costa’s request of establishing a mission in Vietnam, on January 15, 1615 the Society of Jesuits from Japan sent Father Franceso Buzomi, Father Diego Carvalho and Brother António Diaz from Macao to Cua Han, Quang Nam Province (Central Vietnam). From 1615 to 1659 the mission work in Vietnam was carried out by the Jesuits, of whom Alexandre de Rhodes was a standout figure. Alexandre de Rhode reported that in 1650 there were in total 300,000 Vietnamese Catholics in the North Vietnam in spite of the Vietnamese Kings’ decrees that strictly outlawed Christianity in Vietnam. Observing this statistic, one notices that within a short period of 50 years, through indefatigable works of the Jesuits, the infant church in Vietnam had grown significantly.

The infant Church in Vietnam enjoyed her speedy blossom and yet quickly prompted to the new chapter filled with blood because of her faith. The period of violent persecution in various forms lasted not only in one or two but rather in nearly three centuries (1625-1860). In 1625 the first Vietnamese ruler who officially issued a decree to outlaw Christianity in Vietnam was Lord Nguyen Phuoc Nguyen (1613-1635) of the Nguyen Lords. The last decree that had forbidden the practice of Christianity was signed in 1860 by Emperor Tu Duc (1848-1883) of the Nguyen dynasty. The persecution of the Vietnamese Christians had taken place under the reigns of 6 Lords of the Nguyen lords, 7 Lords of the Trinh lords, 2 Emperors and 2 Generals of Tay Son dynasty and 3 Emperors of the Nguyen dynasty. Altogether 20 Vietnamese rulers had issued 53 decrees to outlaw Christianity in Vietnam.

Tortures those who had disobeyed the decrees were varied. The torture that the faithful frequently received was to be decapitated by swords in execution grounds. Besides beheading, tearing the faithful flesh by red hot tongs while they were alive; strangling them to death by ropes; letting the elephants trample the victims to death; tearing the convicted faithful’s head, legs and hands by five running horses; cutting victim’s flesh off piece by piece through sharpened knifes, throwing the Christian whose hands were tied up by ropes to rivers were also applied to the convicted faithful.

About 30,000 Vietnamese Catholics were sentenced to death under during the reigns of the Trinh lords, the Nguyen lords and the Tay Son dynasty. It is estimated about 40,000 faithful were slaughtered by Emperors Minh Mang (1820-1840), Thieu Tri (1841-1847) and Tu Duc (1848-1883). Van Than (1864-1885), a patriotic movement by the intelligentsia of the Vietnamese Confucianism, had slaughtered more than 60,000 Catholics. Altogether about 300,000 the Vietnamese faithful and foreign missionaries who had died by the most brutal tortures during three centuries under 20 Vietnamese rulers.

Looking at these above statistics, one may be surprised and ask why such a brutal persecution could virtually take place and prolong in three centuries in Vietnam. Replies to this question are varied. In this essay, due reasons that caused such a phenomenon are listed in four categories: The Vietnamese religion/Viet Giao, the Vietnamese Confucianism/Nho Giao, the Vietnamese patriotism and the complicated history of Vietnam during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century.

The foremost reason that led to the persecution of the Vietnamese faithful were related to the Vietnamese religion, in particular, filial piety to the parents or the ritual of ancestral veneration.

1. The Vietnamese Religion/Viet Giao: Ancestral Veneration

The Jesuits, before leaving Chinese territories for the Dominicans, the Franciscans and members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, had permitted the Chinese to practice the common ritual of ancestral veneration. However members of the mentioned religious congregations, since their arrival into the land, strictly prevented the Chinese Catholics to practice the ritual of ancestral veneration. To ensure and to justify their decisions, the missionaries of these three congregations had also convinced the Holy See to forbid this common practice among the early Chinese faithful. As a result, in 1701 Pope Clement XI issued the Holy Office’s decree, promulgated in 1704, to condemn the core culture of the Chinese. To remind the missionaries in Asia of the Holy Office’s 1704, in 1715 Pope Clement XI enjoyed an oath of absolute obedience to all missionaries in Asian countries concerning the Chinese Rites Controversy. In 1742 Pope Benedict XIV through Ex quo singulari renewed the forbiddance in relation to the controversy.

The Religion of Venerating Ancestors, as have discussed above, focuses on the veneration of ancestors. Ancestral veneration is commonly practiced among the people on the daily basis. However, one of the catechisms the Vietnamese Catholics had received from the missionaries were to worship “the Lord your God alone.” The immediate consequence of this essential teaching was that the Vietnamese Christians were strictly prohibited to practice the core of the Religion of Venerating Ancestors: ancestral veneration. The newly Vietnamese faithful were even not allowed to participate many cultural events in their villages, since these annual events normally commenced with the ritual of ancestral veneration. At home, all wooden tablets on the ancestor altar were cleared up. The former ancestor altar was then replaced with the Catholic altar on which, the non-Catholic neighbour could notice the crucifix, icons of the Holy Family, Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Catholic Saints. When this newly Catholic-altar phenomenon was interpreted as the sure sign of unfaithfulness to filial piety, the core of the Vietnamese religion was severely pierced. Hence the Christianity was named as false religion as reported in the 1533’s document. If Christianity was officially named by the Vietnamese Emperors’ decree as the false religion, persecution was brought to the stage as means to maintain the Vietnamese Confucianism/Nho Giao, the right religion of Vietnam.

2. The Vietnamese Confucianism/Nho Giao: Filial to the Vietnamese Kings

The second reason led to the persecution was related to the Vietnamese Confucianism, from which the Vietnamese are taught to be faithful absolutely to their kings, as have discussed above. The Kings in the Vietnamese tradition expected their subject to be faithful to them since they were Sons of God/Mr. Heaven/Ong Troi. They thus had received the kingship directly from Mr. Heaven. On the other hand, the Vietnamese faithful were taught by the missionaries to worship God alone. This new teaching had undoubtedly stirred up in the mind of the Vietnamese rulers the suspicion if the Vietnamese Catholics really remained faithful to their kings. Unfortunately, if the Vietnamese faithful had replaced the ancestral altars with the Catholic ones, to the Vietnamese kings’ knowledge, the chance they changed their hearts for the foreign God was very high.

3. Patriotism

The third reason related to the patriotism of the Vietnamese. To the eyes of the Vietnamese, to abandon the practice of ancestral veneration implies the rejection of the core of being a Vietnamese for a region of Western foreigners. At this crucial moment, the patriotism that enabled the Vietnamese to survive the Chinese ruling over 1,000 years (111 BCE – 938) was severely attacked. The cause of patriotism was sufficient enough to the Vietnamese rulers and also the Vietnamese intelligentsias who had decisively arrived at the conclusion that Christianity was truly a false religion, for this Western religion encouraged its members to reject their own Vietnamese roots. Thereby, Christianity was officially branded as a “false doctrine.” This conviction was written in the report of the arrival of I-Ne-Khu in Vietnam in 1533. According to this report, “in 1533, under the reign of King Le Trang Ton, there was a sea Westerner, I-Ne-Khu, secretly entered into the… to preach the Christianity, a false religion.” The words “false religion” were also carved by knives on faces of the convicted Vietnamese Catholics.

4. Historical Situations in the Seventeenth Century

The fourth reason that contributed to the severe persecution to the Vietnamese faithful was due to the complicated historical situations of Vietnam during the seventeenth century. The nation back then was divided into two states for over one hundred years (1627-1786) under the rulings of the two Lords: the Trinh lords that ruled over north Vietnam and the Nguyen lords over south Vietnam. Both Trinh and Nguyen lords opened the doors to receive the missionaries into their own territories for trades and also their own political agendas. The essentials that the two Lords desired from these missionary foreigners were weapons and connections to the western kings for political supports. And when the two Vietnamese lords unfortunately did not receive what they had expected from the foreigner missionaries, the missionaries and the Vietnamese Catholics subsequently became the victims of these two Lords. Missionaries were expelled and the newly Vietnamese Catholics were subjects for persecutions.

Out of 300,000 Vietnamese Catholic and foreign missionaries who shed their own blood for their faith, on June 19, 1988, Pope John Paul II solemnly canonized Fr. Dung Lac and his 116 companions in Rome. Of these 117, 96 are Vietnamese, 11 are Spanish Dominicans and 10 are French missionaries of the Paris Foreign Missions (MEP). One of these 117 is a lay woman, Le Thi Thanh. The feast of the Vietnamese Martyrs is annually celebrated on November 24.

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Michael Nguyen SVD