Vietnam Demolished Historic Church, Christians Mourn, Pray
Posted by cih07 on 4 June 2009
The recent demolition of the historic Church, an important symbol of the Christian faith in the central highland regions of Vietnam has prompted Degar ethnic Christians to respond in prayer and cry to God.
Degar Church could do nothing “to fall on their knees, mourn and pray for three days and three nights on May 1-3,” a public statement released by Degar Christian leaders on May 27 by the Montagnard Foundation stated.
“On March 13, 2009, the Vietnamese government demolished the first Degar Church that had ever been built. This historical structure was located at Buon Ale “A” in the city of Buonmathuot in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Degar Christians mourn the loss of this church, which they hold dearly as the origin of Christianity in the central highlands,” the statement said.
As a means of peaceful protest, on May 1, 2009, nearly 90,000 Degar Christians in the Central Highlands and abroad stayed in their homes, not going anywhere for three days and three nights, to mourn for our church because we have failed in protecting our Historical Church at Buon Ale “A”, it added.
Located in Buon Ale “A” in the city of Buonmathuot in the central highlands of Vietnam, the structure was the first Degar church ever built and regarded by the people as the origin of Christianity in the region, a home church and something of a sacred historical site.
It was also meant as a collective act of repentance for failing on their part to protect the historical church and a time of prayer to God, pleading for His forgiveness in the light of their failure and the actions of the government.
Furthermore, the people prayed for their persecutors, that God would touch the hearts of Vietnamese officials so they might repent and bring an end to their persecution of the Degar people, according to Montagnard Foundation, Inc., a ministry led by an ethnic Degar and dedicated to the preservation of the indigenous people group, the statement stated.
Nearly 90,000 Degars from 375 villages and five provinces in the central highlands including around 700 from the Degar Church in Greensboro, North Carolina in the U.S. participated in the time of mourning and prayer.
Christians alleged that the demolition of the historic Degar church in the central highland region of Vietnam “marks the culmination of state persecution of the ethnic group.”
Ethnic repression in the form of the confiscation of ancestral lands – government initiatives which have been compared to Stalin’s purges – illegal logging operations in collaboration with corrupt Cambodian and Laotian officials, assimilation policies with the intention of eliminating the Degar cultural identity and coercive birth-control programmes using threats, fines and financial incentives to force Degar women to get surgically sterilised and systematic attempts to eliminate the Degar religion – the Christian faith – by forcing Degars to renounce their faith in official ceremonies under threat of imprisonment and torture has been reported by websites like that run by Scott Johnson and rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Montagnard Foundation.
Among the cases is a Degar Christian by the name of Y-Ngo Adrong who was tortured to death by Vietnamese security forces in 2006 for using a cell phone, according to the U.S. State Department, and a Degar woman, Puih H’Bat, who was arrested on 11 April 2008 and sentenced to five years imprisonment in her home province for leading prayer services at her home, citing “destruction of the unity of the people’s solidarity” – Puih refused to join the government-sanctioned Evangelical Church of Vietnam – reported reliable sources contacted by the E.U. missions in Hanoi.
Degars are an indigenous people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, they were known by various names including Montagnards (mountaineers) by French, Yards by the Americans, Moi by majority Vietnamese. They number a little over one million in Vietnam, a population of over 70 million people. More than half of Degars are Protestant with Catholic numbers a little over 200,000.
Edmond Chua
Christian Post Correspondent
