Witnesses of Christ unto the sacrifice of their lives

Beginning in the early decades of the sixteenth century, the proclamation of the Gospel reached the regions of present-day Vietnam, and in 1659 the Holy See gave stable form to missionary activity by entrusting two vast areas to the Apostolic Vicariates of the North (Đàng Ngoài) and the South (Đàng Trong). Despite difficulties and hostility, that work eventually produced a remarkable growth of the Christian community.