Chapter 593: Christianity in the Empire of Vietnam
Chapter 593: Christianity in the Empire of Vietnam
Christianity first came to Vietnam during the 16th century, but only started to establish his own position in Vietnamese society under French Colonial Rule. Roman Catholics outnumbered Protestants seven to one, or two to one, exact numbers are later hard to find and quit contested after the Vietnamese Civil War. After the Japanese helped establish the Empire of Vietnam, Christian foreign missionaries (even French ones) were not allowed to proselytize or perform any religious activity anymore and the Vietnamese government in Hué even arrested everyone who did otherwise and were caught. The main reason for this was that Catholic missionaries were strengthening their influence during French Colonial times. The French tried to increase conversion to Catholicism by various methods, therefore linking it with their colonial oppression in Vietnamese history. The first to come to Vietnam were the Jesuits, exploring the region, followed by Franciscans, Dominicans and others, but those who followed the Jesuits never reached their influence. The Jesuits were determined to further increase the faith and influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Southeast Asia. Arriving around 1627, their activities quickly spread many fields, including helping to print the first Bible in 1651, growing influential individuals and circles quit soon. The Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes created a alphabet for the Vietnamese language from Latin script in the 17th century. With the French missionary priest and Bishop of Adran Pigneau de Behaine, Catholicism began to come to widespread prominence and played a key role towards the end of the 18th century. Who was engaged in civil war during this timer. Pigneau hoped, that with Nguyễn Ánh victory, he would gain concessions for the Catholic Church in Vietnam. To archive this victory Pigneau and other missionaries bought military supplies and enlisted European soldiers for Nguyễn Ánh and they took part in military operations. Thanks to that Nguyen conquered Vietnam and became Emperor Gia Long. He tolerated the Catholic faith and permitted unimpeded missionary activities out of respect to his foreign benefactors. The missionary activity was dominated by the Spanish in Tonkin and French in the central and southern regions. At the time of Pigneau's death, there were six European bishops in Vietnam. The population of Christians was estimated at 300,000 in Tonkin and 60,000 in Cochinchina. After the establishment of the Vietnamese Empire, the Vietnamese and Japanese Coprospists claimed that Emperor Gia Long was a traitor, who ruled Vietnam as a foreign puppet to make it a colony. Even National Han China under Wang Jingwei used this history and metaphor, to compare the Vietnamese traitor Nguyễn Ánh, who became Emperor Gia Long, with his opponents in the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, who the National Han Chinese and Japanese propaganda claimed to try to become Chinese dictators, tyrants and emperors with the help of European, American or Soviet Union support, to finally make China a colony like India, that they had dreamed so long about.
Emperor Gia Long's and Pigneau's success at establishing the dominance of Catholicism over the classical Confucian system of Vietnam was not to continue unimpeded, however. Gia Long appointed Minh Mạng his successor for his deeply conservative Confucianism; his first son's lineage had converted to Catholicism and abandoned their Confucian heritage. A power struggle then developed between Minh Mạng and pro-Catholic, pro-Western officials who wanted to maintain the power they had been given by Gia Long. For the later Japanese and Vietnamese Empires Minh Mang was the first fighter against European colonialism, imperialism, religious and cultural destruction of the Vietnamese nation, so he became a famous propaganda figure during the Second Great War. During the Vietnamese Civil War, the Viet Cong also used him as a revolutionary fighter against the Emperor and tyrannical rule, even naming one of their branches, the Viet Minh in his honor. However as the atheist communists were not to found of the Catholics either, and their triple their alliance together with the democratic opposition against the Vietnamese Empires government, aristocracy and the Japanese would not last very long. Before that, back during the times of Minh Mang, 2,000 Vietnamese Catholic troops fought under the command of Father Nguyễn Văn Tâm in an attempt to depose Minh Mạng and install a Catholic "emperor". The revolt was put down, and restrictions were placed on Catholicism. Persistent rebellions occurred throughout the Nguyễn Dynasty, many led by Catholic priests intent on installing a Christian monarch. During the French colonial campaign against Vietnam from 1858 to 1883, many Catholics joined with the French in helping to establish colonialism by fighting against the Vietnamese government. Once colonial rule was established, the Catholics were rewarded with preferential treatment in government posts, education, and the church was given vast tracts of royal land that had been seized.
After the victorious overthrow of French colonial rule by the Japanese and the creation of the Empire of Vietnam, Catholicism declined in the North, where the Imperial Vietnamese government and the Japanese Army started portray them as pro-colonial traitors working with the Europeans and French against Vietnamese culture, religion, tradition and freedom. Their short-time allies, the Communists Viet Cong later categorized it as a reactionary foreign force too, opposed to both national liberation as well as social progress. No longer promoted by the new Vietnamese government and Japanese military authorities, unlike many Confucian, Buddhist and even Shintoists and other cults and sects, Catholicism declined all over Vietnam, but around nearly 762,837 to 813,526 or around ten percent of Bắc Bộ (former Tonkin or Bắc Kỳ) 7,784,000 population were Catholic or Christian at the End of French Colonial rule. They were a major backbone for the roughly 34,000 French civilians that lived in French Indochina, along with a smaller number of French military personnel and government workers. The most of them lived in the northern province, from the area around Hanoi along the coast all the way to Ron a little north of the imperial capital Hué. As Confucianism, Buddhism and Shintoism were promoted by the Imperial Vietnamese government and the Japanese, while Christians were portrayed as colonialist, imperial traitors working for the European (French) colonial powers their numbers declined to around 600,000 or 650,000. While new temples, pagodas and shrines were created all over Vietnam, secret christian churches were destroyed by paramilitary sect and Buddhist, Confucian and Shinto groups, who's religious leaders were even promoted to military ranks and regional autonomy for them to support the Imperial Vietnamese Government and the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Many Christian Vietnamese who were seen as scum, unlike the European Christians like the French were even branded and nicknamed Francos because of their supposed support of the French Colonial Regime and Tyranny because of it's close ties to the Christian missionaries. Many Christians who protested against this violet outbursts, persecution and being treated as second class citizens or criminals were quickly arrested by the Royal Vietnamese Police and the Royal Vietnamese Army and forced to work building roads, railways and the growing industry of the new Vietnamese Empire as forced labor alongside former French Colonial administration, officers and other arrested Allied Prisoners of War. While it was officially claimed that there was no religious persecution inside the Vietnamese Empire and that no religious activities of Christians inside the Vietnamese Nation State were hindered, partly to appease the Philippine Republic, another member state of the Co-Prosperity Sphere that was majorly Christian, as well as the European, Australian and North American Nations, that Vietnam traded with as a member of the Co-Prosperity Sphere. At the same time all christian missionary activity was forbidden by the government during the Vietnamese Civil War as well as the regular mess in their churches, claiming it was dangerous to do so because of the anti-christian Communist Viet Cong. Destroyed churches weren't even rebuild anymore and while some were left as ruins other were turned into temples, pagodas and shrines. Because of this many Catholics, even if not outright opposition to the Vietnamese Empire, it's government and independence, the oppression, forced labor, enforced conversion or other incidents, lead to many Christians allying with the communist guerrillas and the democratic opposition for some time until this alliance broke apart (luckily for the Vietnamese Empire).
Unlike the older and much bigger Catholicism, Protestantism first came to Vietnam in 1911 by the Canadian missionary Robert A. Jaffray in Da Nang, who came as part of the Christian Missionary Alliance, that would send over 100 missionaries to Vietnam to assist in the growing of their faith in the country. During the Vietnamese Civil War there were still 150,000 Christians in the Empire of Vietnam, many belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, the Imperial French Catholic Church, the Free French Catholic Church, the French Reformed Church, Anglican–Episcopalian, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Baptists, Church of Christ, Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, and Seventh-day Adventists. Other Catholic and Protestant associations were also represented in some social services and welfare agencies. Soon however Christian membership continued to decrease severely even if estimates between 50,000 and 160,000 people were still believed to be Christians in Vietnam. Most of them however were christian church communities in the central and northern highlands, were Christians had fled trough during the Vietnamese Civil War at the coast and started to have missionary activity with some of the local minority tribes and towns, like the Tho, White Tai, Red Tai, other Tribal Tai, Yao (or Man), Bo, So and Bru increasing their numbers a little bit once again. These tribal groups were in return for this persecuted, forced to abandon their christian faith or even treated as foreign Imperialist or Communist rebels and spies. Some were arrested and forced to work in the Vietnamese industry and build up infrastructure like during the Second Great War. Beating, torture and even starving behind bars was meant to force the remaining Vietnamese Christians to abandon their faith in favor of Buddhism, Confucianism or Shinto, despite the official claims and guarantees for freedom of religion. The Gialong Church and the Nguyễnnites tried to tie their christian faith to Vietnamese nationalism, in hopes the coprospist government and it's emperor might leave them alone to practice their faith privately at least. However the continued persecution and propaganda against Christians inside the Empire of Vietnam, lead to the so called Christian Crisis in 1954 to 1956 and again in 1965 to 1967, were Christian Priests trying to live the Gospel and worship God, protested the imperial government by lighting themselves up in fire as christian martyrs in public places. In Vietnam the Seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries Girolamo Maiorica and Alexandre de Rhodes compiled the first catechisms and other Catholic texts in Vietnamese, in 1623 and 1651, respectively. However, per the usual policy of the Jesuit missions, the Bible was not translated. De Rhodes' work included an early Vietnamese alphabet that was used for later Christian texts. Some portions of the Bible may have been translated and printed in Thailand in 1872. Jean Bonet, author of a Dictionnaire Annamite-français, translated Gospel of Luke from French to Vietnamese in 1890. The first translation from Latin was that of Albert Schlicklin (1916), and the first from Greek that of William Cadman (New Testament 1923, Old Testament 1934). The Schilicklin and Cadman Bibles remain the basis of the standard Catholic and Protestant versions until the End of Catholic Faith inside of Vietnam. The organized work of United Bible Societies in Vietnam began in 1890. These societies distributed copies of the Bible and the New Testament in Vietnam until the proclamation of the Vietnamese Empire and the ban on christian missionary activities.
During the medieval rule of the Later Lê dynasty, Christians were tolerated. The level of tolerance, however, started to become more diverse when the Trịnh lords and Nguyễn lords divided the country. In particular, the Trịnh Lords were more hostile against the Christians and had expelled Christian missionaries out the country, something later Imperial Vietnamese and Japanese propaganda would constantly praise them and view them as role models for their own future plans for Vietnam. In contrast to the Trinh, its Nguyễn rivals were more tolerant to Christians, though not without skeptics. This resulted with more Christians in the south than in the north of Vietnam, a legacy that dated back from 17th century onward. Prince Nguyễn Ánh, who later became Emperor Gia Long and founded the Nguyễn dynasty from the remnant of old Nguyễn lords, were exclusively tolerant of Christians. However, persecution on Christians increased with the death of Gia Long, when successive Vietnamese Emperors imprisoned, murdered and oppressed Christians. Brutality caused by the Nguyễn rulers was so deadly that it was part of the reason that lead to the French conquering Vietnam from 1858 onward. Although many pre-20th century rebellions against France sought for unity of Vietnamese regardless of faith, most Vietnamese Christians supported France. Under the French rule, however, the French Government leaned in favor of Christians and oppressed non-Christians in the country. This bias treatment of France, once again, brought non-Christians united, antagonizing France and any Christians across the country, in particular, the Buddhists of Vietnam were extremely hostile against the French colonial Government and its Christian allies. The same was true for some Confucianists and Shinto groups as well as religious sects made up from these religions. And even the Viet Cong, who had become more and more communist were very hostile against Christians because of their pro-French sentiment. Bias treatments by France was the cause of religious sectarianism to be increased as anti-Christian violence. Imperial Vietnamese and Japanese Propaganda and officials even promoted and rewarded such behavior and many christian Vietnamese were enslaved, killed or forced out of their faith. Christians were oppressed even further the same way Buddhist, Confucian and Shinto faith and sects were promoted and exclusively given powerful official positions, autonomy and their own fanatic religious militia, that helped them increasingly dominate social-political-military life inside the Empire of Vietnam until the 1970ies. Until than christian holidays like Easter and Thanksgiving had long time not been celebrated and gathering at Churches has also not been seen for decades then. However the continued oppression of Christians as well as their short time ties to the communist Viet Cong and the other guerrilla groups who finance themselves by foreign support and opium farming gave them a even further unpleasant connection alongside their role to turn Vietnam into a French Colony. Imperial Vietnamese politics towards Christians therefore remained difficult, oppressive and sometimes hazardous until Christianity was claimed to be completely by the Vietnamese Emperor to be completely ended and whipped out by the 1970ies and 1980ies.
Christianity first came to Vietnam during the 16th century, but only started to establish his own position in Vietnamese society under French Colonial Rule. Roman Catholics outnumbered Protestants seven to one, or two to one, exact numbers are later hard to find and quit contested after the Vietnamese Civil War. After the Japanese helped establish the Empire of Vietnam, Christian foreign missionaries (even French ones) were not allowed to proselytize or perform any religious activity anymore and the Vietnamese government in Hué even arrested everyone who did otherwise and were caught. The main reason for this was that Catholic missionaries were strengthening their influence during French Colonial times. The French tried to increase conversion to Catholicism by various methods, therefore linking it with their colonial oppression in Vietnamese history. The first to come to Vietnam were the Jesuits, exploring the region, followed by Franciscans, Dominicans and others, but those who followed the Jesuits never reached their influence. The Jesuits were determined to further increase the faith and influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Southeast Asia. Arriving around 1627, their activities quickly spread many fields, including helping to print the first Bible in 1651, growing influential individuals and circles quit soon. The Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes created a alphabet for the Vietnamese language from Latin script in the 17th century. With the French missionary priest and Bishop of Adran Pigneau de Behaine, Catholicism began to come to widespread prominence and played a key role towards the end of the 18th century. Who was engaged in civil war during this timer. Pigneau hoped, that with Nguyễn Ánh victory, he would gain concessions for the Catholic Church in Vietnam. To archive this victory Pigneau and other missionaries bought military supplies and enlisted European soldiers for Nguyễn Ánh and they took part in military operations. Thanks to that Nguyen conquered Vietnam and became Emperor Gia Long. He tolerated the Catholic faith and permitted unimpeded missionary activities out of respect to his foreign benefactors. The missionary activity was dominated by the Spanish in Tonkin and French in the central and southern regions. At the time of Pigneau's death, there were six European bishops in Vietnam. The population of Christians was estimated at 300,000 in Tonkin and 60,000 in Cochinchina. After the establishment of the Vietnamese Empire, the Vietnamese and Japanese Coprospists claimed that Emperor Gia Long was a traitor, who ruled Vietnam as a foreign puppet to make it a colony. Even National Han China under Wang Jingwei used this history and metaphor, to compare the Vietnamese traitor Nguyễn Ánh, who became Emperor Gia Long, with his opponents in the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, who the National Han Chinese and Japanese propaganda claimed to try to become Chinese dictators, tyrants and emperors with the help of European, American or Soviet Union support, to finally make China a colony like India, that they had dreamed so long about.
Emperor Gia Long's and Pigneau's success at establishing the dominance of Catholicism over the classical Confucian system of Vietnam was not to continue unimpeded, however. Gia Long appointed Minh Mạng his successor for his deeply conservative Confucianism; his first son's lineage had converted to Catholicism and abandoned their Confucian heritage. A power struggle then developed between Minh Mạng and pro-Catholic, pro-Western officials who wanted to maintain the power they had been given by Gia Long. For the later Japanese and Vietnamese Empires Minh Mang was the first fighter against European colonialism, imperialism, religious and cultural destruction of the Vietnamese nation, so he became a famous propaganda figure during the Second Great War. During the Vietnamese Civil War, the Viet Cong also used him as a revolutionary fighter against the Emperor and tyrannical rule, even naming one of their branches, the Viet Minh in his honor. However as the atheist communists were not to found of the Catholics either, and their triple their alliance together with the democratic opposition against the Vietnamese Empires government, aristocracy and the Japanese would not last very long. Before that, back during the times of Minh Mang, 2,000 Vietnamese Catholic troops fought under the command of Father Nguyễn Văn Tâm in an attempt to depose Minh Mạng and install a Catholic "emperor". The revolt was put down, and restrictions were placed on Catholicism. Persistent rebellions occurred throughout the Nguyễn Dynasty, many led by Catholic priests intent on installing a Christian monarch. During the French colonial campaign against Vietnam from 1858 to 1883, many Catholics joined with the French in helping to establish colonialism by fighting against the Vietnamese government. Once colonial rule was established, the Catholics were rewarded with preferential treatment in government posts, education, and the church was given vast tracts of royal land that had been seized.
After the victorious overthrow of French colonial rule by the Japanese and the creation of the Empire of Vietnam, Catholicism declined in the North, where the Imperial Vietnamese government and the Japanese Army started portray them as pro-colonial traitors working with the Europeans and French against Vietnamese culture, religion, tradition and freedom. Their short-time allies, the Communists Viet Cong later categorized it as a reactionary foreign force too, opposed to both national liberation as well as social progress. No longer promoted by the new Vietnamese government and Japanese military authorities, unlike many Confucian, Buddhist and even Shintoists and other cults and sects, Catholicism declined all over Vietnam, but around nearly 762,837 to 813,526 or around ten percent of Bắc Bộ (former Tonkin or Bắc Kỳ) 7,784,000 population were Catholic or Christian at the End of French Colonial rule. They were a major backbone for the roughly 34,000 French civilians that lived in French Indochina, along with a smaller number of French military personnel and government workers. The most of them lived in the northern province, from the area around Hanoi along the coast all the way to Ron a little north of the imperial capital Hué. As Confucianism, Buddhism and Shintoism were promoted by the Imperial Vietnamese government and the Japanese, while Christians were portrayed as colonialist, imperial traitors working for the European (French) colonial powers their numbers declined to around 600,000 or 650,000. While new temples, pagodas and shrines were created all over Vietnam, secret christian churches were destroyed by paramilitary sect and Buddhist, Confucian and Shinto groups, who's religious leaders were even promoted to military ranks and regional autonomy for them to support the Imperial Vietnamese Government and the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Many Christian Vietnamese who were seen as scum, unlike the European Christians like the French were even branded and nicknamed Francos because of their supposed support of the French Colonial Regime and Tyranny because of it's close ties to the Christian missionaries. Many Christians who protested against this violet outbursts, persecution and being treated as second class citizens or criminals were quickly arrested by the Royal Vietnamese Police and the Royal Vietnamese Army and forced to work building roads, railways and the growing industry of the new Vietnamese Empire as forced labor alongside former French Colonial administration, officers and other arrested Allied Prisoners of War. While it was officially claimed that there was no religious persecution inside the Vietnamese Empire and that no religious activities of Christians inside the Vietnamese Nation State were hindered, partly to appease the Philippine Republic, another member state of the Co-Prosperity Sphere that was majorly Christian, as well as the European, Australian and North American Nations, that Vietnam traded with as a member of the Co-Prosperity Sphere. At the same time all christian missionary activity was forbidden by the government during the Vietnamese Civil War as well as the regular mess in their churches, claiming it was dangerous to do so because of the anti-christian Communist Viet Cong. Destroyed churches weren't even rebuild anymore and while some were left as ruins other were turned into temples, pagodas and shrines. Because of this many Catholics, even if not outright opposition to the Vietnamese Empire, it's government and independence, the oppression, forced labor, enforced conversion or other incidents, lead to many Christians allying with the communist guerrillas and the democratic opposition for some time until this alliance broke apart (luckily for the Vietnamese Empire).
Unlike the older and much bigger Catholicism, Protestantism first came to Vietnam in 1911 by the Canadian missionary Robert A. Jaffray in Da Nang, who came as part of the Christian Missionary Alliance, that would send over 100 missionaries to Vietnam to assist in the growing of their faith in the country. During the Vietnamese Civil War there were still 150,000 Christians in the Empire of Vietnam, many belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, the Imperial French Catholic Church, the Free French Catholic Church, the French Reformed Church, Anglican–Episcopalian, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Baptists, Church of Christ, Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, and Seventh-day Adventists. Other Catholic and Protestant associations were also represented in some social services and welfare agencies. Soon however Christian membership continued to decrease severely even if estimates between 50,000 and 160,000 people were still believed to be Christians in Vietnam. Most of them however were christian church communities in the central and northern highlands, were Christians had fled trough during the Vietnamese Civil War at the coast and started to have missionary activity with some of the local minority tribes and towns, like the Tho, White Tai, Red Tai, other Tribal Tai, Yao (or Man), Bo, So and Bru increasing their numbers a little bit once again. These tribal groups were in return for this persecuted, forced to abandon their christian faith or even treated as foreign Imperialist or Communist rebels and spies. Some were arrested and forced to work in the Vietnamese industry and build up infrastructure like during the Second Great War. Beating, torture and even starving behind bars was meant to force the remaining Vietnamese Christians to abandon their faith in favor of Buddhism, Confucianism or Shinto, despite the official claims and guarantees for freedom of religion. The Gialong Church and the Nguyễnnites tried to tie their christian faith to Vietnamese nationalism, in hopes the coprospist government and it's emperor might leave them alone to practice their faith privately at least. However the continued persecution and propaganda against Christians inside the Empire of Vietnam, lead to the so called Christian Crisis in 1954 to 1956 and again in 1965 to 1967, were Christian Priests trying to live the Gospel and worship God, protested the imperial government by lighting themselves up in fire as christian martyrs in public places. In Vietnam the Seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries Girolamo Maiorica and Alexandre de Rhodes compiled the first catechisms and other Catholic texts in Vietnamese, in 1623 and 1651, respectively. However, per the usual policy of the Jesuit missions, the Bible was not translated. De Rhodes' work included an early Vietnamese alphabet that was used for later Christian texts. Some portions of the Bible may have been translated and printed in Thailand in 1872. Jean Bonet, author of a Dictionnaire Annamite-français, translated Gospel of Luke from French to Vietnamese in 1890. The first translation from Latin was that of Albert Schlicklin (1916), and the first from Greek that of William Cadman (New Testament 1923, Old Testament 1934). The Schilicklin and Cadman Bibles remain the basis of the standard Catholic and Protestant versions until the End of Catholic Faith inside of Vietnam. The organized work of United Bible Societies in Vietnam began in 1890. These societies distributed copies of the Bible and the New Testament in Vietnam until the proclamation of the Vietnamese Empire and the ban on christian missionary activities.
During the medieval rule of the Later Lê dynasty, Christians were tolerated. The level of tolerance, however, started to become more diverse when the Trịnh lords and Nguyễn lords divided the country. In particular, the Trịnh Lords were more hostile against the Christians and had expelled Christian missionaries out the country, something later Imperial Vietnamese and Japanese propaganda would constantly praise them and view them as role models for their own future plans for Vietnam. In contrast to the Trinh, its Nguyễn rivals were more tolerant to Christians, though not without skeptics. This resulted with more Christians in the south than in the north of Vietnam, a legacy that dated back from 17th century onward. Prince Nguyễn Ánh, who later became Emperor Gia Long and founded the Nguyễn dynasty from the remnant of old Nguyễn lords, were exclusively tolerant of Christians. However, persecution on Christians increased with the death of Gia Long, when successive Vietnamese Emperors imprisoned, murdered and oppressed Christians. Brutality caused by the Nguyễn rulers was so deadly that it was part of the reason that lead to the French conquering Vietnam from 1858 onward. Although many pre-20th century rebellions against France sought for unity of Vietnamese regardless of faith, most Vietnamese Christians supported France. Under the French rule, however, the French Government leaned in favor of Christians and oppressed non-Christians in the country. This bias treatment of France, once again, brought non-Christians united, antagonizing France and any Christians across the country, in particular, the Buddhists of Vietnam were extremely hostile against the French colonial Government and its Christian allies. The same was true for some Confucianists and Shinto groups as well as religious sects made up from these religions. And even the Viet Cong, who had become more and more communist were very hostile against Christians because of their pro-French sentiment. Bias treatments by France was the cause of religious sectarianism to be increased as anti-Christian violence. Imperial Vietnamese and Japanese Propaganda and officials even promoted and rewarded such behavior and many christian Vietnamese were enslaved, killed or forced out of their faith. Christians were oppressed even further the same way Buddhist, Confucian and Shinto faith and sects were promoted and exclusively given powerful official positions, autonomy and their own fanatic religious militia, that helped them increasingly dominate social-political-military life inside the Empire of Vietnam until the 1970ies. Until than christian holidays like Easter and Thanksgiving had long time not been celebrated and gathering at Churches has also not been seen for decades then. However the continued oppression of Christians as well as their short time ties to the communist Viet Cong and the other guerrilla groups who finance themselves by foreign support and opium farming gave them a even further unpleasant connection alongside their role to turn Vietnam into a French Colony. Imperial Vietnamese politics towards Christians therefore remained difficult, oppressive and sometimes hazardous until Christianity was claimed to be completely by the Vietnamese Emperor to be completely ended and whipped out by the 1970ies and 1980ies.
