Phat Diem Cathedral is located in Kim Son District, Ninh Binh province. It is a Catholic complex in the area of 22 ha, about 120 km from Hanoi to the South. The cathedral is considered one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Vietnam with special and unique architecture. It is said to be the Catholic City in Vietnam - a great Cathedral. The cathedral was started to build in 1875 and basically completed in 1898 and it was completely build of stone and wood. One of the most unique features of the cathedral is that the architecture of the cathedral is the combination between Catholic architecture and traditional pagoda architecture in Vietnam. The architecture of the cathedral was mainly instructed by the Priest Phero Tran Luc or often called Father Six.
The cathedral is one of the most beautiful attractions in Ninh Binh attracting a lot of visitors in the province and other provinces. It consists of five main parts: the Lake, Phuong Dinh, great cathedral, three artificial caves and stone church. The lake is shaped in rectangle with the area of 4 ha wrapped surroundings by stone and it has an island with Jesus Statue in the center of the island.
Phuong Dinh was built with 25m in height, 17m in width and 24m in length including 3 storeys built of schists, and the greatest storey is the first storey build of greenstone. On the top of 4 towers has 4 statues of Thanh Su. The second storey has a big drum. The third storey has a ring with 1,4m in height, 1,1m in diameter and nearly 2000 kg in weight; the ring was moulded in 1890.
The great Cathedral was built in 1891 with 74m in length, 21m in width, 15m in height having four roofs and five entries. Inside the cathedral has 6 lines of iron wood pillar (48 pillars), two lines in the middle heigh at 11m and has the perimeter of 2,35m, each of them weighs at 10 tons. The stone cathedral was started to build in 1883 and its original name was Nha Nguyen Trai tim Vo nhiem nguyen toi Duc Me. It was called stone cathedral as all of the architectures were built of stone. Inside of the cathedral was engraved with four seasons: tung, mai, truc, cuc featuring the beauty of 4 seasons in a year. Three artificial caves were created by small and large stones.
The cathedral always attracts a lot of visitors, especially on the occasion of Christmas. Coming here, visitors will have a chance to admire the unique architectures and learn more about Catholic. It is an ideal destination of foreign tourists. Let's come to visit the cathedral to know more about the landscape of Ninh Binh as well as its specialty.
