On November 24 the Church honors St. Andrew Dũng-Lạc, priest, and his companions, the 117 Martyrs of Vietnam, who were put to death for their faith between 1745 and 1862. They were bishops, priests, catechists, soldiers, fathers and mothers, Vietnamese and European, and they stand for the many thousands of Vietnamese Catholics who died in those persecutions. Pope St. John Paul II canonized them in 1988. In 2026 their memorial falls on Tuesday, November 24, two days before Thanksgiving in the United States. Below is their story and a prayer to the Vietnamese Martyrs.
Who were the Vietnamese Martyrs?
Christianity reached Vietnam in the sixteenth century, and by the seventeenth there were thriving Catholic communities, served by Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French missionaries and a growing Vietnamese clergy. Over the following two centuries, several rulers saw the faith as a foreign threat and outlawed it. The worst persecutions came in the nineteenth century under the emperors Minh Mạng, Thiệu Trị and Tự Đức. Christians were ordered to trample on the cross; those who refused were imprisoned, tortured, branded on the face, and executed by beheading, strangling, burning or being torn apart. Historians estimate that between 100,000 and 300,000 Vietnamese Catholics died for the faith.
The 117 canonized martyrs include:
- 96 Vietnamese: 37 priests and 59 lay people, among them catechists, soldiers, farmers, a physician and St. Agnes Lê Thị Thành, a mother of six.
- 11 Spanish Dominicans, six of them bishops.
- 10 French missionaries of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, among them St. Théophane Vénard, whose letters from prison inspired St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
St. Andrew Dũng-Lạc
Andrew was born around 1795 in northern Vietnam to a poor, non-Christian family, and given the name Trần An Dũng. A catechist took him in and taught him the faith, and he was baptized with the name Andrew. He became a catechist himself and was ordained a priest in 1823, serving as a tireless parish priest and preacher. Arrested several times, he was ransomed by his parishioners, and he took the name Lạc to avoid recognition. Finally arrested with another priest, St. Peter Thi, he was beheaded in Hanoi on December 21, 1839. He is named first among the martyrs as their representative.
Canonization
The martyrs had been beatified in four groups between 1900 and 1951. On June 19, 1988, Pope St. John Paul II canonized all 117 together in St. Peter’s Square, before thousands of Vietnamese Catholics from around the world, and set their memorial for November 24. The Church in Vietnam today, with some seven million Catholics, is one of the largest in Asia.
Their witness recalls Christ’s words:
Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.
A prayer to the Vietnamese Martyrs
Written for this page:
St. Andrew Dũng-Lạc and all you holy Martyrs of Vietnam,
you refused to trample on the cross and gave your lives for Christ.
Pray for the Church in Vietnam and for Vietnamese Catholics throughout the world,
for all who are persecuted for their faith today,
and for us, that we may never be ashamed of Jesus.
Holy Martyrs of Vietnam, pray for us. Amen.
Frequently asked questions
When is the feast of the Vietnamese Martyrs?
November 24, a memorial in the Roman calendar. In 2026 it falls on a Tuesday.
How many Vietnamese Martyrs are saints?
117 were canonized together in 1988. In 2000 Pope John Paul II beatified another, the young catechist Andrew of Phú Yên, martyred in 1644.
Who was St. Andrew Dũng-Lạc?
A Vietnamese diocesan priest, born about 1795 and beheaded in Hanoi in 1839, who is named first among the 117 martyrs.
More saints and prayers
- St. Paul Miki and companions
- St. Andrew Kim Taegon and the Korean Martyrs
- St. Charles Lwanga and the Uganda Martyrs
- Saint of the day
- Saint feast days
- St. Thérèse of Lisieux
- St. Francis Xavier, apostle of Asia
- Prayer for the Church
- Marian feast days
Texts and sources
- John 12:24–25 (Douay-Rheims).
- Dates of beatification (1900–1951) and canonization (June 19, 1988) follow the acts of the Holy See.