The cathedral is located in Phát Diệm township of Kim Sơn District in Ninh Bình Province. It is about 29 km southeast of Ninh Binh and from Hanoi.
History
Phát Diệm Cathedral was built by the priest Father Tran Luc. Père Six's tomb is in the frontyard of the cathedral. The wooden statues in the cathedral were all carved by Pho Gia, a Vietnamese artisan. The cathedral was closed in 1954, when a division of the Vietnamese forces caused Catholics to leave; they moved to safer places in South Vietnam. Now the cathedral is again functioning as a place of worship, and there are many more churches in the district. On 15 August 1972, the cathedral was bombed, resulting in the collapse of its entire west wall, the convents and two of the schools. But now, after restoration, there are not even tell-tale marks of this destruction. The novelist Graham Greene described the cathedral as "more Buddhist than Christian" in his novel the Quiet American.
Features
The cathedral, a towering stone edifice, was built in 1892 in the Sino-Vietnamese style, blended with stone walls built in European neo-Gothic style. To test the foundation condition of the cathedral site in a boggy area, Father Six had created a mound of limestone boulders and found the conditions not to be suitable to build it. It is decorated with box-type cupolas with "upturned tiled roofs", which are like pagodas. Père Six, who built it, was particular to haul the sand stones to build the cathedral from quarry a distance of more than away. The eclectic design of the cathedral appears as if the pagodas "had been dropped into the towers of a Gothic church." in a lake by the cathedral The overall size of the cathedral is in length, with a width of. The nave of the cathedral is built over 52 pillars, of which 16 are, carved from large ironwood trees. In the front worship area, the altar is made of a single slab, ornamented in "orthodox-style" and is made of "lacquered and gilded woodwork". Above the altar, there are portrait paintings of about 30 missionaries, most of European origin. The vaulted ceiling has paintings of angels in Vietnamese style. The interior walls are decorated with Catholic iconography, but particularly have paintings of Eastern religious symbols like dragons, unicorns, tortoises and phoenixes. Apart from residential buildings for the bishops at the back wall of the cathedral, there are six other structures in the complex, including a stone chapel which looks like a tomb and an elegant bell tower in front of the cathedral. This entire complex is spread over an area of. The two-tonne bronze bell in the bell tower was hauled up over a ramp made of earth. A climb to the top of the bell tower provides a complete scenic view of the town. There is a platform in front the bell tower made of two layers of very large stone slabs. The platform was used by mandarins to watch proceedings of the ritual Mass conducted in the cathedral. The earth from the ramp, which was used for hauling the bell and other metal objects, was spread around the cathedral, rising the height of the ground by. The small chapel is built with large carved stone blocks, and the interior is cool like a cave. Near the cathedral there is 19th-century covered bridge built with stones. A white statue of the Sacred Heart is installed in a small lake in front of the Cathedral.
