Phat Diem stone church, the most unique church of VietNam

Referring to Ninh Binh city, there are famous names like "Tam coc, Bich dong", "Trang An", "Bai Dinh pagoda",etc where are beautiful destinations with the harmony of nature, between mountains, rivers, lakes and the unique works was built by humans. Perhaps, a place is not least unique with the other place, it is "Phat Diem stone church". "Phat Diem stone church" is a clever combination of East and West architecture. It is located in Phat Diem town,Kim Son district.


"Phat Diem stone church" is not the world's greatest religious works or the most sophisticated, but, the architecture of this place can be ranked as masterpiece of Catholicism. A whole of church was built from stone and wood , it is a perfect combination between gothic architecture of West and pagoda architecture of VietNam.


Travel tours in vietnam have not paid attention to Phat Diem stone church yet, so we do not need pushing, shoving when visiting Phat Diem stone church. Instead, a fresh atmosphere was opened in front of our eyes.


The architecture of Church is beared East's style with the concept "water in front, mountain in behind". A pond in front of the church, it is under Asia's style, with the status of God on the island. Behind in back of the church is "Kim Son mountain". The church is a combination of architectural layers: "a pond, Phuong dinh house, cathedral, artificial caves and stone church"


"Stone Church" was almost made of stone with beautiful reliefs. From the outside, we are surprised with the carvings, the column stone with motifs are pine tree,chrysanthemum, flute,ochna. All of them are beared Asia's style. More interesting when we step inside, we surprised with red and yellow like a pagoda of Viet Nam. It made uniqueness for this church. "Cathedral" is beared Western's style, it has high-pitched roofs with bold imprints gothic architecture with large ironwood column,



"Phuong Dinh" is the last works completed of "Phat Diem stone church". This is a place where the most heavy bell is hung. In the past, the bell was beat up, its sound can be heard as far as three provinces: Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh and Thanh Hoa. Although house - bell is beared Western's style," Phuong Dinh" has full of "three gates", the architect of VietNam's style and its name means " square house"


 As far as we know the ancient Vietnamese workers have been very hard to complete this works: 10 years to prepare and 24 years to built.


 We have not many time to visit artificial caves inside the church like "Lo Duc cave", the cave inside "Sinh nhat mountain"(Birthday mountain), "Be-lem cave" inside "So moutain". Leaving the stone church, we thought we would visit this place on someday.