The Stone Cathedral

I was going to do a Style Imitating Art post today, but three days of rain prevented me from taking outfit pictures, so here are some photos from the first out-of-town adventure that Debbi and I had. We went to Ninh Bình, a province about 100km south of Hanoi, to visit the Phat Diem Cathedral. This church was built in 1865 and finished in 1899 by a Vietnamese priest (who came from my hometown!) It has all the elements found in a Vietnamese pagoda – curved roofs, lacquered altar, carvings of traditional Oriental images – so it’s unique amongst the other, Western-styled, churches of Vietnam. Even the bell tower was built in the same style as a traditional Vietnamese gate. It’s usually known as “The Stone Cathedral”, because there is an chapel built entirely out of stone (the main cathedral is not.) It would be awesome (in every sense of the word, I would imagine), to be able to attend Christmas service here, but it’s going to be insanely crowded as well. We went on a normal Sunday and already it was crowded with church goers, so we had to wait until Mass was over to be able to look around.

The cathedral’s interior – each of those pillars are made from one whole tree trunk

The stone chapel and its interior

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