What with Easter today and another post detailing the religions of Bali, I thought I would add Vietnam to the list.
Vietnam has six major religions, namely Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Muslim, Caodaism and Hoa Hao Buddhism.
Buddism was brought to Vietnam in the 10th through 15th centuries. There are 10 million Buddhist followers, 17,000 pagodas, 40,000 Buddhist monks, and 36 schools for Buddhism.
Catholicism arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Brought by the Portuguese and Spanish. The Catholic Church has 26 dioceses, 6 million followers, 6,270 churches, 19,000 dignitaries, 6 grand seminaries, and 2 training schools.
Protestantism arrived in the 19th and 20th centuries from missionaries.There are over one million Protestants, 500 dignitaries, 300 Protestant churches, and 01 biblical theology institute.
Islam arrived in the 10th and 11th centuries. At present, there are 79 mosques, 72,000 Muslim followers
Caodaism and Hoa Hoa Buddhism are recent to the country both arising in the 1900s and spring up from Vietnam its self. There are 2.4 million Cao Dai followers and 1.3 million Hoa Hao Buddhist followers.
Kristina Lor says
I don’t know how much you found out about Caodaism but I think it would intrigue you because it fuses together various religions. We were able to visit a Caodaism temple last year in the Tay Ninh Province. Its followers wear all white and it was interesting to see artwork on the wall that featured different scholars and gods of different religions together.