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Christianity was first introduced to Vietnam 〔(Open Doors International : Vietnam )〕 in the 16th century and established a solid position in Vietnamese society since the 19th century. Roman Catholics and Protestants today constitute 7% and 1% of the country’s population accordingly; the newest government census shows that is 8% (7% Catholic and 1% Protestant).〔(Vietnam Affirms Consistent Policy on Religion: White Paper )〕 Christian〔(US State Department Country Report 2006 on Vietnam )〕 Foreign missionaries illegally, without government approval, are not allowed to proselytize or perform religious activities.〔 Undeclared missionaries from several countries are active in Vietnam. == Roman Catholics == (詳細はRoman Catholicism first entered Vietnam through Catholic missionaries in the 16th century and strengthened its influence when Vietnam was a French colony. France, through discriminatory methods, incentivized conversion to Catholicism.〔Religion in Vietnam#Roman Catholicism〕 The most active idealogues of Western "enlightenment" were the Jesuits, who were, at that time, in the prime of their exploratory efforts. The Franciscans, Dominicans, and others, although prominent, never reached the influence of the Jesuits who were determined to further the interests of the Roman Catholic Church in Southeast Asia. Having arrived there about 1627, they developed their activities in many fields. Their activities were helped by the printing of the first Bible in 1651, and the growing influence of several individuals, who were welcomed in certain powerful circles. Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes created an alphabet for the Vietnamese language in the 17th century from the Latin script. Today, it is the official writing system referred to as ''Quốc Ngữ'' (or, "National Language"). Catholicism came to widespread prominence when the French missionary priest and Bishop of Adran Pigneau de Behaine played a key role towards the end of the 18th century. He had come to southern Vietnam to proselytise.〔Hall, p. 423.〕〔Cady, p. 282.〕〔Buttinger, p. 266.〕〔Mantienne, p. 520.〕〔McLeod, p. 7.〕〔Karnow, p. 75.〕 Pigneau would ingratiate himself to and eventually become confidant to Nguyễn Ánh, the last of the Nguyễn Lords, then engaged in a civil war.〔〔Buttinger, p. 234.〕 Pigneau hoped that by "helping" in a Nguyễn Ánh victory, he would gain concessions for the Catholic Church in Vietnam.〔McLeod, p. 9.〕 Pigneau and other missionaries bought military supplies and enlisted European soldiers for Nguyễn Ánh and they took part in military operations.〔McLeod, p. 10.〕〔Cady, p. 284.〕〔Hall, p. 431.〕〔Mantienne, p.135〕〔Karnow, p. 77.〕〔Buttinger, p. 267.〕〔〔Karnow, p. 78.〕 Nguyen conquered Vietnam and became Emperor Gia Long. He tolerated the Catholic faith and permitted unimpeded missionary activities out of respect to his foreign benefactors.〔Buttinger, pp. 241, 311.〕 The missionary activity was dominated by the Spanish in Tonkin and French in the central and southern regions.〔Cady, p. 408.〕 At the time of his death, there were six European bishops in Vietnam.〔 The population of Christians was estimated at 300,000 in Tonkin and 60,000 in Cochinchina.〔Cady, p. 409.〕 This protracted success at establishing the dominance of Catholicism over the classical Confucian system of Vietnam was not to continue unimpeded, however.〔Buttinger, p. 268.〕 Gia Long appointed Minh Mạng his successor for his deeply conservative Confucianism; his first son's lineage had converted to Catholicism and abandoned their Confucian heritage.〔Buttinger, p. 269.〕 A power struggle then developed between Minh Mạng and pro-Catholic, pro-Western officials who wanted to maintain the power they had been given by Gia Long.〔Choi, pp. 56–57〕〔McLeod, p. 24.〕〔〔 Eventually, 2,000 Vietnamese Catholic troops fought under the command of Father Nguyễn Văn Tâm in an attempt to depose Minh Mạng and install a Catholic "emperor".〔McLeod, p.31〕 The revolt was put down, and restrictions were placed on Catholicism. Persistent rebellions occurred throughout the Nguyễn Dynasty, many led by Catholic priests intent on installing a Christian monarch. During the French colonial campaign against Vietnam from 1858 to 1883, many Catholics joined with the French in helping to establish colonialism by fighting against the Vietnamese government. Once colonial rule was established, the Catholics were rewarded with preferential treatment in government posts, education, and the church was given vast tracts of royal land that had been seized. After the victorious overthrow of French rule and Vietnam's temporary division in the mid-1950s, Catholicism declined in the North, where the Communists acknowledged it as a reactionary force opposed to both national liberation as well as social progress. In the South, by contrast, Catholicism was expanded under the presidency of Ngo Dinh Diem, who aggressively promoted it, through coercion and violence, as an important "bulwark" against North Vietnam. Diem, whose brother was Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, gave extra rights to the Catholic Church, dedicated the nation to the "Virgin Mary", and preferentially promoted Catholic military officers and public servants while severely restricting the practice of Buddhism and allowing Catholic paramilitaries to demolish sacred Buddhist temples and pagodas. In 1955, approximately 600,000 Catholics remained in the North after an estimated 650,000 had fled to the South in Operation Passage to Freedom. In 1975, the Communist authorities, which united the country by military force and after the US troops withdrawal, claimed that the religious activities of Roman Catholics were stabilized and that there was no religious persecution. Meanwhile, the Government acted to isolate and to neutralize hard-core opposition within local Catholics to party policy and to persuade less strongly opposed factions to join a party-controlled "renovation and reconciliation" movement. A significant number of Vietnamese Roman Catholics, however, remained opposed to communist authority. In 1988, all Vietnamese Catholics, who died for their faith from 1533 to present time, were "canonized" by Pope John Paul II as so-called "Vietnamese Martyrs".〔(Catholic Forum )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Christianity in Vietnam」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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