The Basilica of Immaculate Conception ( vi, Vương cung thánh đường Phú Nhai, french: Basilique de l’Immaculée-Conception) is a

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

basilica in Phú Nhai, Xuân Trường, Nam Định,

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

History

Phú Nhai, now in the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Bùi Chu The diocese of Bùi Chu ( la, Dioecesis Buichuensis) is a Roman Catholic diocese of Vietnam. It encompasses 4/5 of Nam Định Province in terms of area, including the six districts of Xuân Trường, Giao Thủy, Hải Hậu, Nghĩa Hưng, ...

, was one of major Catholic parishes in Vietnam under the pastoral care of the Spanish

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

. One of the first two bishops of the Vietnamese Catholic church,

Pierre Lambert de la Motte Pierre Lambert de la Motte, MEP (16 January 1624 – 15 January 1679) was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionary in Asia. Biography Lambert de la Motte was born 16 January 1624 in ...

was also anointed in the diocese in 1670. The construction of the church began in 1866 after Emperor

Tự Đức Tự Đức (, vi-hantu, 嗣德, lit. "inheritance of virtues", 22 September 1829 – 19 July 1883) (personal name: Nguyễn Phúc Hồng Nhậm , also Nguyễn Phúc Thì) was the fourth emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam; he ruled ...

signed a treaty with the French promising not to harm the Christian community. The first church was built in 1881. Construction of the second church began in 1916, and was completed in 1923. Major storms devastated the church on June 24, 1929. A nationwide lottery was conducted to fund the construction, and the replacement (third) church was consecrated on the day of the feast of

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth w ...

on December 8, 1933. During the

First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vi ...

, the church suffered minor damages, after the French took over the church. Bishop Dominic Nguyen Chu Trinh decided to renovate the church in 2003, and the church in its present state was consecrated on September 26, 2004. In 2008, the church was elevated as a

minor basilica In the Catholic Church, a basilica is a designation given by the Pope to a church building. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense (a rectangular ...

by Pope Benedict XVI.

Architecture

The basilica rises to a height of 30 meters and is flanked by two bell towers, each of which are 44 meter long. The bell towers contain 4 bells, each of which weighs two tons. In front of the church, there is a square with two monuments. On the left is a 15-meter-tall tomb for 83 martyrs. On the right is a 17-meter-tall pillar topped by

St. Dominic Saint Dominic ( es, Santo Domingo; 8 August 1170 – 6 August 1221), also known as Dominic de Guzmán (), was a Castilian Catholic priest, mystic, the founder of the Dominican Order and is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientis ...

's statue.

References

External links

{{coord missing, Vietnam Basilica churches in Vietnam, S French colonial architecture in Vietnam 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Vietnam Roman Catholic churches completed in 1933 Gothic Revival church buildings in Vietnam 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Vietnam