This Cathedral is located in the town of Phat Diem, Kim Son district, Ninh Binh province, it is about 120 km from Ha Noi to the south. Phat Diem Church is a complex of work placed on a piece of land about 22 hectares including a large church, five chapels, square temple (like bell house), lake… these constructions are combined minutely between traditional architectural style of Vietnamese temples, pagodas and Western architecture. Most of works here are made by stones from the foundation, floor , walls, columns to the bars. Thus, it is also called as Phat Diem Stone Cathedral.
Entering the church, the visitors will be see a strange construction, it is called Phuong Dinh, means “square temple”, shaped like a large village communal house that is empty, 21m long, 17m wide, 25m high, 3 floors.
Standing and remaining in square temple, the visitors would feel like in front of the majestic and great construction. And coming to the façade of this, visitors will be admired by sophistication and attraction of this place. That is the large church, with five stone entrances, three brick towers with curved roofs as Oriental motifs. At the top of the middle tower, there are statues of two angels holding the Cross, the two sides are two other angels are singing.
Approaching the church, the visitors can be attracted by the two large pillars in the middle leading to the sanctuary, creating a calm and silent atmosphere for praying and convivening conveniently. Between the sanctuary, there is a large altar that was made of monolithic boulders with 3m length, 0.90m width and 20 tons weight standing on the on two stone pillars carved in the shape of bamboo. Behind the altar is a carved wood wall, lacquered and gilt-edged dazzlingly. In the middle, there is the shrine of Our Lady holding infant Jesus, framed by the pictures of the saints. On the above portion, we can also see seven glass doors depicted the six Vietnamese martyrs around, and Christ King picture at the middle.
Coming to Phat Diem cathedral which was built by Priest Tran Luc 120 years ago, the visitors are touching an evidence of the desire to harmony and integrate with Vietnamese religions. Priest Tran Luc also wanted to encourage Vietnamese Christians to worship the Lord with the good mind, culture and tradition and most importantly a good heart with pure intention as Vietnamese people.
Phat Diem Church is also a sign of God’s Love protecting from the bombs thrown the church area that many people witnessed about this. If the bombs were thrown in straight direction, the Cathedral and square temple will surely be destroyed. But thanks God, bombs fell into the empty spaces. Is that God’s protection? Is really God present during that moment? Yes, because this church was built by the faith of our initial Christian, thus, God wanted to protect it from bombs to educate and to give awareness for the next generations.
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