Ho Chi Minh City can also boast a Notre Dame of its own. Didn’t know that? Now you do!
That’s right, you read correctly: Notre Dame isn’t exclusive to the French—there’s one in Vietnam too, and we know it well, since it’s one of the regular stops on our tours of the country.
The cathedral in question is located in Ho Chi Minh City, and its local name is Vương cung thánh đường Chính tòa Đức Bà Sài Gòn. Since we only managed to write that with a good old copy-and-paste and have absolutely no idea where to begin pronouncing it, if and when you come see it in person with us, just know that we’ll simply call it the Vietnamese Notre Dame.
How about learning a little more about this gem?
In the following article, we’ll walk you through the story of how the cathedral came to be and describe its main features.
Here comes the full story!
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Ho Chi Minh City Cathedral: from its construction to the Weeping Madonna
The story of the Vietnamese Notre Dame doesn’t start well. It begins with the French colonizers who, intent on maintaining their reputation, decided to occupy much of what is now Vietnam, taking control of the Saigon area—the country’s former capital, now known as Ho Chi Minh City.
Around the middle of the 19th century, the colonizers decided to build a small wooden church right there in Saigon. Later, however, seized by a bout of megalomania, they chose to expand it and create something more grand: a cathedral modeled after the most famous church in the City of Light. Which, of course, means Paris—but we just wanted to sound a bit fancy.
And voilà, the Vietnamese Notre Dame was born, in full “let’s import everything from France” style.
Admiral Bonard launched the construction, and the materials were shipped directly from the motherland, including bricks from Toulouse, which to this day have not lost their vivid red color despite Saigon’s challenging climate.
After a long period of work and the efforts of dozens upon dozens of laborers, the cathedral opened its doors in 1880.
The finishing touch came directly from Italy, where in 1959 a granite statue of the Virgin Mary—known as the Our Lady of Peace—was sent over.
A little curiosity about it, one you can bring up the next time you want to sound well informed at a family gathering: it is said that in 2005, the Our Lady of Peace shed a tear, drawing a growing number of pilgrims from Vietnam’s Christian community and beyond.
After conducting investigations, the Church stated that there was no evidence of a miracle. But the faithful paid little attention and continue to return day after day, hoping to witness the statue’s tears in person.
Fortunately, despite a historical background that leaves much to be desired, the final result is undeniably remarkable, and Vietnam’s Notre Dame is, we have to say, something everyone should see at least once.
Before you go admire it with your own eyes, in the next paragraph we’d like to tell you a little about the cathedral’s architectural features.
A cathedral that feels a little too European for our taste
Saigon Cathedral obviously has a distinctly European look.
To echo the style of its original counterpart, it features two twin bell towers on either side, as tall as a roughly 19-story building. If you set aside for a moment their symbolic role as reminders of Vietnam’s colonial past, they really are a sight to behold.
And the spectacle continues inside, with soaring vaulted ceilings, elegant columns, and stained-glass decorations that have nothing to envy of Europe’s cathedrals.
So far, so beautiful—but in our view, the Vietnamese Notre Dame has one fundamental flaw that keeps it from being the wonder it could have become: it is just too, too European.
In short, in building it, an opportunity was missed to turn it into a mash-up between our continent and beautiful Indochina—an ideal bridge that could have stood as testimony to what can emerge from the meeting of cultures.
But we realize that expecting such an approach in a historical period still dominated by an oppressive colonial mindset would be rather naïve.
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In conclusion
This cathedral really is beautiful, but as we’ve explained, it has the drawback of straying a bit too far from the local culture—a culture we absolutely love. So much so that we explore Vietnam in depth during an amazing 14-day on-the-road itinerary!
We go see loads of incredible places, like the Cu Chi tunnels where the Viet Cong hid, the imperial city of Hue, the Mai Chau valley, and many other spectacular spots that give us the chance to connect more and more deeply with authentic local culture.
So, are you coming too? We’d love to have you with us on the next departure!
