The creation of the first Christian communities in Vietnam was a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. It was associated with the interpenetration and mutual influence of two different civilizations - Western European and Far Eastern, with the perception of Christian teaching by one of the societies of this region - Vietnamese. Studying the history of the spread of Christianity in the countries of the Far East helps to highlight many complex and still undisclosed socio-cultural problems. Suffice it to say that the result of the existence of Christian communities in Vietnam was the emergence of an unusual organization for the local society, an alternative to the traditional community. The most important role is played by studying the mechanism of finding and identifying common, similar provisions in two different religious systems - a method of adaptation that has become universal in the history of the spread of Christianity as a world religion.

Keywords: Vietnam, Dangngoai, Dangchong, Christian communities, rites, ruler (tua), missionaries.

The spread of Christianity in the countries of the Far East and Southeast Asia is associated with European missionaries who appeared in this region in the first half of the XVI century. as a result of the beginning of the era of Great Geographical Discoveries. The most successful missionaries were the Jesuit Order, established in 1534. The members of the Order aimed to strengthen the authority of the Pope and fight the Reformation. The new order quickly gained great influence, power, and power in Europe. In many European royal houses, it was the Jesuits who were advisers to the supreme rulers (for example, the Jesuits of La Chaise and Le Tellier were such advisers to King Louis XIV of France) [Andreev, 1998, p. 56]. Missionaries of the Jesuit Order of the XVI-XVII centuries were spiritually heirs of the humanism of the Counter-Reformation era, as well as adherents of the new natural and exact sciences that were emerging in Western Europe at that time: mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, astronomy. They were some of the most educated people of their time.

The Jesuit missionaries carried out their preaching activities in the countries of the East - China, Japan and Vietnam - based in Macau, the farthest point of Portuguese influence in the region. At the beginning of the 17th century, there was a fairly large group of missionaries in Macau, waiting for the opportunity to get to the mission of their destination-Japan, where Christianity spread from the 16th century. it was very successful. But the wait was prolonged by the authorities ' brutal crackdown on Japanese Christians and former missionaries, and it soon became clear that the country was "closed" to contacts with the West. One of the Portuguese merchants of Macau, who, like many of his compatriots, conducted a lucrative trade in the ports of Dangchong, or Cochinh, as the Europeans called the central part of Vietnam-the possessions of the Nguyen rulers,

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He suggested the possibility of establishing a new Jesuit mission there. The leaders of the Macau mission decided to send missionaries to Vietnam.

FOUNDING OF THE COCHIN HIN MISSION (1615)

In January 1615 in the port of Turan The first two missionaries of the Jesuit Order landed in Da Nang: Francesco Busomi, an Italian, and Diego Corvalho, a Portuguese, who were assigned to create a new mission. The beginning of the missionaries ' activities was facilitated by the help of Japanese Christians who had fled the persecution of the Japanese authorities and had already settled in Faifo (near Turan) for quite some time, as well as the excellent knowledge of the Japanese language by Diego Corvalho. A year later, there were already 300 Vietnamese Christians in the district, gathering in a chapel in Turan, built on the initiative of missionaries [Nguen Huu Trong, 1959, p. 71]. The most important goal of the mission leader, Father Buzomi, was to enlist the support of the ruler of Cochinchina, Chua Sai. Buzomi was given a good reception, land was allocated for the construction of the temple, as well as for his personal residence near the location of Tua Sai, which allowed Buzomi's father to continue his missionary work at the court of the ruler of Dangchong. One of the first to be baptized was a noble court lady, taking the name Jeanne. She was a great help to Buzomi, setting up several altars and oratories in her house and promoting the baptism of many of her relatives [Borri, 1631, p. 429]. Father Buzomi's successful efforts to build some of the first Christian churches and convert quite a large number of Vietnamese to Christianity meant that the first Christian mission was established in Cochin Hin.

Buzomi was destined to remain in Vietnam for the next twenty-odd years as head of the mission. This missionary can be considered the founder of the first Christian community in Vietnam. He was so successful that he was able to baptize about 12,000 people, although on his arrival he found a very small number of Christians among the local population in Cochin (Rhodes, 1884, p. 70). He left Vietnam in 1639 to return to Macau, where he died shortly afterwards.

Under the leadership of Father Buzomi and thanks to the good attitude of the Tua Sai towards the missionaries, they gradually spread the Gospel throughout the territory of Cochinchina at that time, and the results of this work were encouraging. A few Christian communities were still established everywhere, the earliest of which appeared in such centers as Faifo, Turan and Hue. It was in these places that the priests had their residences. Small temples appeared in Faifo and Turan, which in their size, architecture and decoration could be compared with some European ones. Conversion to Christianity was encouraged by the support of a senior official who was impressed by the missionaries ' astronomical knowledge, who predicted with great accuracy an eclipse of the sun that was not listed in the Chinese lunar calendar, and after that he said everywhere that they preached the best science and the most correct laws [Bonifacy, 1930, p. 16].

This example clearly shows one of the motives of the first conversions of Vietnamese to Christianity: the benevolent opinion of an authoritative person with a high social status. Such a motivation for accepting Christianity is characteristic of this very first period, when baptism was performed mainly not out of inner conviction, but under the influence of various external factors. In addition, the Jesuit missionaries did not know the Vietnamese language, and they could not even briefly explain or explain the essence of the Christian faith. Vietnamese translators knew Portuguese and then only within the limits of "buy-sell", " how much does it cost?".

Buzomi began to look for a way out of this situation and succeeded in it. Despite his lack of knowledge of the Vietnamese language, he was able to find the right terms that Vietnamese people can understand. He may have found them in Christian books published by that time

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missionaries in China. Chief among these terms was the tao (path). The same term was later used by A. de Rod as the basis for his presentation of the Christian faith in Vietnamese in Tonkin. Over time, the Vietnamese Christian religious language was gradually formed, and just as gradually the ideas of Christianity became clear to the Vietnamese and penetrated their consciousness.

It should be noted that the Jesuit Order was the first and only religious order of that time that set its members the task of mastering the languages of the countries where they preached. Ignorance of Oriental languages was one of the main reasons for the failure of the Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans in the region in the sixteenth century.

Cristoforo Borri, one of the first missionaries to work in Cochin from 1618 to 1621, took up the study of the Vietnamese language in earnest with de Pin and succeeded in this difficult task so much that he was soon able to preach in Vietnamese. In addition to mastering almost all the complexities of polytone (six-tone) Vietnamese on his own, C. Borri was one of the first missionaries who tried to solve the problem of its transcription in Latin letters. These first sketches, made by C. Borri, later became the basis of the already systematized and well-established Latinized writing of quoc ngy, which is now the state script of Vietnam.

K. Borri was the first of the missionaries who wrote and published his "Description of the country of Cochinchina" [Borri, 1631, p. 285-402], introducing this genre, which became popular and firmly established in missionary literary and reporting practice. Thanks to the" Description " of C. Borri, we have invaluable information from a witness and eyewitness of the events of those times, not only about the various aspects of Vietnamese life in Dangchong, but also about the activities of the missionaries themselves, as well as the methods of organizing missions and preaching the Gospel, the number of converts, the motives for their adoption of a new religion, etc.

Describing the first Christian church in Turan, K. Borri notes that it "was a large and very good church, where a large crowd of people celebrated Holy Mass with the Holy sacraments and preached the holy Christian faith with the help of translators" [Borri, 1631, p. 340-341]. From the "Description" it can also be understood that there was a house in Turan that served as a residence for Jesuit missionaries: "In 1615, Fr. Buzomi was in Turan, where he lived." The construction of another temple was also carried out in Kaksiam in 1615 [Borri, 1631, p. 340]. "Father Buzomi (as the senior in the Mission) was allocated a site by the authorities for the construction of the temple, and it was built very quickly and diligently. Everyone participated in this construction, some with money, some with their own labor. The reason for all this was the participation and assistance of a very noble lady who was baptized and took the name Jeanne... " [Borri, 1631, p. 341].

This passage is interesting because we have information from the original source about how the first Christian churches and nearby houses of priests ' residences were built in Vietnam in the XVII century, and continued to build until the August Revolution of 1945. A certain rich donor or donor gave a large sum of money or a plot of land to missionaries. The rest was left to local Christians, who either collected money or allocated special working days for the construction of the temple. This is an application of Vietnam's old communal traditions. In addition, even in this first period of the spread of Christianity in Vietnam, a new custom appears, when after the completion of the temple, most of the families of Vietnamese Christians built a small altar in one of the parts of their house, replacing the usual home altar of the ancestral cult. Here, the most important features of the behavioral model of Vietnamese Christians, known as cultural adaptation, were revealed. Despite the fact that the new religious teaching, Christianity, was unusual for them, the new converts chose those features of it that had the greatest similarity with their previous customs. But the missionaries are strict

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they made sure that this adaptation did not go too far, fearing (and with good reason) distortions of Christian dogmas of faith. The method of adaptation was first used by Jesuit missionaries. Their methods encouraged Vietnamese converts to the Christian faith to abandon the centuries-old practice of ancestor and ruler worship, as well as the traditional "three religions": Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.

In 1618, just three years after the arrival of the first missionaries in Cochin, the missionaries initially had a residence in the town of Nyokman in Binh Dinh Province, which was assigned to them by the provincial governor, and a few days later a temple was built by the same governor [Borri, 1631, p. 350-351]. Thus, another Vietnamese Christian community was founded in Nyeokman, which was an important commercial center and the seat of the provincial governor.

The spread of Christianity in Vietnam in its first period shows how much Vietnamese realities and the situation in the country (we are talking about the Nguyen - Dangchong domain) differed from those in China. First of all, we should note the significantly weaker position of Confucianism and the role of Confucian scholars in comparison with China. Their opinion in Vietnam certainly played a big role, but it was not decisive. Therefore, missionaries in Vietnam primarily addressed the" common people", the crowd (hence the mass character of the converts), without trying at all costs to convert Confucian scholars, i.e. the ruling class, to Christianity, as the most famous missionary M. Ricci tried to do in China in the XVI century.

The attention of the Vietnamese was drawn to the European missionaries by their knowledge of astrology and astronomy. In Vietnam, as well as in China, astrology was held in high esteem. The ruler and his adult children had their own astrologers, believed in the influence of the stars on their lives. Special attention was paid to such phenomena as solar and lunar eclipses. Vietnam, like China, adopted the lunar calendar. And when calculating the movement of the Sun and Moon, there were often errors of two or three hours, and sometimes even a whole day, compared to the new, more accurate Gregorian European calendar. The same can be said about eclipses. If the Vietnamese astrologers were correct in their calculations and predicted a solar eclipse correctly, they received a plot of land as a reward from the ruler, but if they were wrong, the land was taken away from them [Borri, 1631, p. 373]. The attention paid to solar eclipses in Cochin China was connected with sacred ceremonies, which were carefully prepared for. A full collection of subjects was announced in all provinces. The ruler in mourning clothes walked at the head of the main procession, accompanied by officers with weapons. Everyone was looking at the Sun or Moon with expressions of condolence, as they thought they were being devoured by the Dragon. Then everyone beat drums, gongs, and shot arquebuses, i.e. they made a big noise to frighten the Dragon [Borri, 1631, p. 373-374].

We do not know how the missionaries made their astronomical observations while in Vietnam, or what instruments they were able to bring with them, but it is clear that they did their calculations very accurately. Their authority greatly increased in the eyes of the surrounding population, they often appeared in the eyes of the Vietnamese as omnipotent people, which contributed to numerous conversions to Christianity.

For the missionaries, all the many ceremonies, sacrificial offerings of buffaloes and other animals, ritual dances, drumming and saber-swinging were superstitions and dark pagan superstitions that filled the lives of Vietnamese people, from the ruler to the common people. They had to be converted to the Christian faith as quickly as possible. But the missionaries quickly saw and understood that what they were looking at was not a chaotic and meaningless jumble of beliefs and rituals, but a well-established system that had been established for centuries, where the center was the veneration of ancestral spirits at all major social levels of society: family, regional, and national levels.

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The somewhat strengthened position of Confucianism at that time brought to the fore the main sacred moment of this teaching - the worship and cult of the ruler (vyong), his ancestors and the worship of Heaven. All this was unacceptable to Christianity and went against its basic dogmas. Therefore, the missionaries soon took another important step in evangelizing the Vietnamese people in order to make it as easy as possible for them to perceive the ideas of Christianity on a more conscious level. In the 1920s of the 17th century, they prepared the first Catechism, which was undoubtedly successful among the baptized Vietnamese and brought great benefits in explaining Christian teaching. This first catechism was a systematic exposition of Christian teaching, beginning with the creation of the world and including the main provisions of the New Testament. It was a book that can be called a textbook for all new converts in each country (recall that by this time the Roman Catechism, compiled after the Council of Trent in the second half of the XVI century, had already been written, officially expounding the teachings of the Catholic Church in response to the events of the Reformation in Europe) [Kozlov, 2009, p.38]. The very fact that the first catechism appeared in Cochin China indicates that there was already a sufficient number of Christians there. The missionaries attached the utmost importance to the study and knowledge of the catechism, since together with the text of the Bible, it became an important aid in understanding Christian dogmas.

This first catechism is of great interest as a model and first experience of the Vietnamese Christian literature, later so numerous. We have information about the first Vietnamese catechism from another official document (in addition to the "Description" by C. Borri) - the "Letter" of Fr. Gaspard Louis [Lettre..., 1931, p. 420], written by him from Macao on December 17, 1621 and addressed to the general of the Jesuit Order Fr. Mutio Vitellecchi in Rome. It was compiled as a handwritten text by the first missionaries with the help of Vietnamese Christian translators, as well as with the help of several Vietnamese Confucian scholars (or fu) whom they had already baptized or with whom they were able to establish friendly relations. The text of the catechism was first written in European letters, so that missionaries could use it, then, and possibly simultaneously, in the ty-1 script [Leonov, 1996, p. 207] for translators and for shi fu. Then, when the catechism was fully compiled, several handwritten copies were made in quoc ngy for missionaries and in ti nom for Vietnamese. The missionary Luis Neez claims that as early as the beginning of the 18th century.Catechists were taught the catechism according to a variant written in Chinese characters (ty nom script) [Mariller, 1995, p. 9]. This statement is quite plausible, since at that time the Latinized writing system of Quoc nga was not yet fully and definitively developed, and it was much easier for Vietnamese people to use the well-known hieroglyphic script from childhood.

The first catechism compiled by the missionaries in Cochin China was quite short, as it was necessary to learn it by heart. In addition, it did not consist of questions and answers like contemporary catechisms, most likely, it contained a continuous descriptive text, as in the later catechism of A. de Roda. It can be assumed that this first catechism was written under the influence of similar works compiled by Jesuit missionaries in China in the XVI century.

Ten years later, in December 1624, a large new group of Jesuit missionaries arrived in Cochinchina, consisting of 17 priests and four assistants, but Fr. Buzomi. The most famous among them was Alexander de Rod, whose name has remained firmly connected in the history of Vietnam with

1 Vietnamese national script - writing the Vietnamese text using graphic means of Chinese characters. Its development went from the use of signs that record the sound, to newly created ones that first record the sound and meaning,and then only the meaning.

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the spread of Christianity there in the 17th century. Alexander de Rod was the first to understand the full significance of a sermon coming directly from the preacher, without an intermediary-an interpreter, usually poorly educated and lacking the necessary conviction in the faith. It was this innovation and outstanding personal qualities of A. de Roda, as well as his tireless missionary work, that ensured the extraordinary success of his preaching from the first steps of his activity in Dangchong, and then in Dangngoai (Tonkin - North Vietnam), where he became the founder of the Catholic mission. Arriving in Cochinchina, A. de Rod immediately began learning the Vietnamese language with the help of a Vietnamese boy who did not know Portuguese at all. Six months later, he began preaching in Vietnamese. In 1625, A. de Rhode, together with de Pin, who by this time already spoke Vietnamese well, and several other priests, preached in Vietnamese. Their activities took place in Tham Province (present-day Quang Nam Province), where there were already quite large groups of Christians. The missionaries managed to baptize "a large number of pagans" (Rhodes, 1884, p. 67).

In Vietnam, missionaries moved quite freely around the country, from province to province (when there was no persecution), increasing the number of Vietnamese Christians, but also not forgetting to visit the residence of the ruler and establish friendly relations with him and his entourage. It was there, in the residence of Tua Sai (Thuanhoa Province) 2, that this was done through his close relative - "Princess Mary", a noble court lady, a close relative of the Nguyen rulers in Dangchong.

Princess Minh Duc Vyong Thai Phi-at her baptism, Mary heard de Pin's sermon and came to the missionaries with a request to be baptized [Cadiere, 1931, p. 70]. After she was baptized herself, many of her relatives, who were also relatives of the ruler of Cochinchina, were baptized under her influence. In her palace, she built a small chapel where missionaries and Vietnamese Christians took refuge during the persecution (Bonifacy, 1930, p. 17). Her high position greatly contributed to the growing authority of Christianity in Cochin China, which once again convinced missionaries of the importance of the baptism of high-ranking persons. It should be noted that high-ranking court ladies were more easily and willingly baptized than men. They were the aforementioned Dame Jeanne, Ursula, wife of the Vietnamese ambassador to Cambodia, Princess Mary of Champa, and Princess Mary of the Nguyen court in the seventeenth century. All of them not only received baptism, but also became fervent believers and provided great help and support to Vietnamese Christians and missionaries with their financial situation and authority. We can talk about the special role of women in the adoption of Christianity in Vietnam.

In part, this fervent faith and religious zeal can be attributed to their relationship to traditional religions in Vietnam in the past. A. de Rod reports that in the past, Mary Magdalene (her baptismal name) was very attached to "idols"(a Buddhist cult): "Many Vietnamese women, especially when they reach a certain age, show sincere piety with a great penchant for mysticism. All this is reflected in the fact that they begin to create various religious congregations - Buddhist or Taoist, to participate in various processions, religious meetings, hypnotic sessions. They start (if possible) build pagodas, make sacrificial offerings, and do charity work. If they accepted Christianity, they brought the same diligence and zeal to the new religion that they had shown before

2 " Wandering capitals "(in this case, in Dangchong) were characteristic of the 17th century, because their role was played by the headquarters of the Nguyen rulers, who often moved from place to place, which was due to the military situation (attacks by northern Chin rulers) and the ongoing process of settling the central and southern parts of the country by the Vietnamese.

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in Buddhism" (Rhodes, 1884, p. 69). This behavior was typical of many Vietnamese women who converted to Christianity.

In Cochin China, in the 1920s and 1930s, Christianity was preached all over the country, in all the main localities of Cochin China, where ten missionaries could hardly cope with the enormous amount of work. In 1639, according to missionaries ' reports, there were more than 15 thousand Vietnamese baptized in Cochin (Cardim, 1646, p. 100).

FOUNDATION OF THE TONKIN MISSION (1627)

The leadership of the Jesuit Order in Macau has long been planning to establish a new mission in Dangngoai. It was clear to the missionaries that the people of both parts of Vietnam spoke the same language, had similar customs, beliefs, and cultures, and that both parts of the north and south were one country. They also found that Dangngoai was older and richer than Dangchong, which was in the process of becoming a state. But the enmity between the two principalities, which sometimes turned into another war, prevented them from entering Tonkin. Nevertheless, Macao decided to open a new mission in Tonkin, and Giuliano Baldinotti was sent there in February 1626, accompanied by a Japanese assistant, Giulio Piani. Baldinotti was favourably received by Tua (ruler) Chin Chang, but the Italian did not know Vietnamese, so he soon left Tonkin and returned to Macau, assuring his leadership that the people of this country were very well disposed to accept Christianity. In Macau, the success of A. de Roda in preaching the Christian doctrine and in learning the Vietnamese language was well known. Therefore, the choice fell on him and another missionary-Pierre Marquez. Both priests were recalled from the Cochin mission and arrived in Tonkin in March 1627. They landed at the port of Kyabang in Thanh Hoa Province. Since that day, according to the Catholic calendar, was the feast of St. John the Baptist. After the death of St. Joseph, A. de Rode chose this saint as the patron saint of the Tonkin mission. Subsequently, this choice of his was officially approved and approved by the Vatican.

On the return of the ruler of Chinh Chang from another military campaign to the south against the Nguyens, he invited two missionaries to the capital of Dangngoai Thanglong, ordering them to build a good wooden house next to his palace. This house served as both a home and a temple for the missionaries. The experience of the Cochinchina mission was repeated in Tonkin: construction of houses for missionaries and their accommodation near the residence of the ruler.

There were a lot of people who wanted to be baptized, and here, as in Cochin, the court ladies, relatives of Chua Chin Chang, played a big role. One of his sisters converted to Christianity, and 17 of her close relatives were baptized with her. Even Buddhist worshippers converted to Christianity. A. de Rhodes himself baptized more than 200 people (Rhodes, 1884, p. 74). Newly baptized Buddhist worshippers offered missionaries Buddhist pagodas as Christian chapels. The missionaries refused for obvious reasons. But detractors still accused them of destroying Buddhist statues, and Chua Chin Chang issued a decree banning the Christian religion (Rhodes, 1884, p. 74).

The easy conversion of Buddhist worshippers to another religion, Christianity, was probably due to the fact that in the XVI-XVII centuries Buddhism was in decline, as it became an instrument of political struggle. The role of servants of the Buddhist cult was reduced to the role of guardians of pagodas and protectors of the ruler's power. The monasteries stopped studying the provisions of Buddhist teaching, and almost all research on Buddhism was abandoned. In addition, there was a lack of contact with other Buddhist countries. All these reasons explained the easy conversion of not only ordinary Buddhists, but also members of the Buddhist hierarchy to the Christian faith (Gheddo, 1970, p. 205).

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Missionaries tried to celebrate all Christian holidays with special solemnity and with a large crowd of people, to the joy of the newly converted. At the same time, the Jesuit missionaries applied the method of cultural adaptation with great success, which brought results, as it made it possible to avoid acute conflict situations. When the most popular Vietnamese holiday, Lunar New Year (Thet), occurred, newly converted Vietnamese could plant peach trees near their homes, as is customary in local customs, and decorate them with a cross (Rhodes, 1884, p. 75).

Another example. Before the priest left the community, the faithful brought him their offerings-rice, money and wax, which he gave to the catechists. Offerings were also made on the 15th day of the seventh moon , one of the most popular Buddhist holidays, when the Buddha saved souls from hell. Catechists visited villages this month and preached on the topic of difficulties in this life and rewards in the next, afterlife [Bonifacy, 1930, p. 58-59].

In this case, the missionaries, using the method of adaptation, allowed the Vietnamese to participate in one of the main Buddhist holidays, but its "pagan" essence was softened by the arrival of a Catholic catechist and his sermon. A solemn Christian service for the dead was supposed to replace the ceremonies of the ancestral cult, which the Vietnamese who converted to Christianity had to abandon, since the missionaries considered the entire belief system of the Vietnamese as "pagan", contrary to Christian teaching in everything. In addition, the traditional "three religions" -Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism - also presented missionaries with great difficulty in convincing Vietnamese people to convert to Christianity (Cadiere, 1955, p. 6).

A. de Rod, who by that time was fluent in Vietnamese, began to apply the same method of cultural adaptation described above in Tonkin. He did not begin his sermons by criticizing existing Vietnamese customs and rituals, but tried to explain Christian teaching from the simplest points, without touching on the existing Vietnamese beliefs. He would tell the audience, of whom there was no shortage, the most popular biblical stories - about the deluge, the Babylonian confusion of languages, etc. - and only then would he approach the story of the mystery of St. John the Baptist. The Trinity (Rhodes, 1884, p. 25).

The method of adaptation also consisted in using the experience of O. Matteo Ricci in China: A. de Rod used Chinese terms in his sermons, not Latin or Portuguese, to refer to such concepts as God, soul, etc. He also sought to adapt the most commonly used Confucian concepts, placing them in the context of a Christian religious text (Bernard, 1939, p. 19).

According to the calculations of A. de Roda, on the feast of St. On the day of Holy Trinity in 1628, there were 1,600 Christians in Tonkin [Bonifacy, 1930, p. 23]. Such a large number of Vietnamese converts to the Christian faith led de Roda to create a new catechism. Unlike the first one, it was much more extensive, with numerous explanations for each day of the week. The creation of the Tonkin mission and the writing of the catechism by A. de Roda opens the second period of the spread of Christianity in Vietnam, characterized by a higher level of preaching, the use of already established Christian terms, as well as a qualitatively higher level of perception of Christian teaching by Vietnamese people.

As the number of Christian communities increased, missionaries needed more and more time to perform various religious requirements and ordinances. Among the new converts, many came to the missionary's residence from afar. And then they themselves, in their own locality, became preachers among relatives, neighbors, and sent them to missionaries. The missionaries ' main concern was visiting these communities and providing them with spiritual guidance. The missionaries ' visits were very important for the believers, for their religious life. Therefore, the missionaries paid most of their attention to

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spend your time visiting communities, making sure to visit all of them at least once a year. At the same time, even at an early stage of the spread of Christianity, communities quickly began to develop their own traditions of life and religious way of life.

However, for the main task - the creation of the Vietnamese Catholic Church and its viability-it was necessary to create a corps of local clergy. The growing number of Vietnamese Christians clearly showed that the efforts of the few missionaries were clearly insufficient. Therefore, the Macao mission leadership decided to attract catechists - auxiliary church personnel, based on the experience of Francis Xavier, who widely used this practice in India in the XVI century. The Vatican sanctioned this initiative [Goyau, 1931, p. 74].

The credit for creating a staff of catechists, from which the first Vietnamese priests were subsequently ordained, belongs to A. de Rod. He began to form the first groups of them in Tonkin from the most capable unmarried Christians. There were many applicants. There was a tradition of catechists living together in the priest's house - "God's House", as Vietnamese Christians began to call it. The missionaries ' adopted children also lived there, bought from poor families for debts or picked up on the street. The best-trained catechists received the title of Teacher (Thei), which was given to them in a solemn atmosphere. After taking the oath to live in poverty, to be celibate and obedient, they could already live in a separate house, devoting all their time to the study of theology, explaining it to the faithful, and raising about fifteen students (Bonifacy, 1930, p. 56-57). Thus, the process of preparation and promotion from an ordinary Vietnamese Christian to a catechist candidate for the priesthood, and then to ordination to the priesthood, gradually took place.

In Cochin, the catechist corps was also established by A. de Rhode in 1642, twelve years later than in Tonkin. Three of them later became Vietnam's first martyrs for their faith (Rhodes, 1653, p. 600). A. de Rod himself left the Vietnam mission in 1645. In 1660, this mission was headed by the missionary Marini. It was the eve of the arrival in Vietnam of a new group of missionaries - French priests from the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris, who replaced, not without conflicts and difficulties, the missionaries of the Jesuit Order, who had previously preached virtually monopolistically in Vietnam and China. The French priests drew much on the experience of their predecessors, giving them credit as pioneers, but they brought new principles and methods of work to the work of preaching Christianity in Vietnam.

The French missionaries did not apply, as might have been expected, the introduction of the cultural model of their nation through the teaching of the French language and French cultural values. Their plans were quite different. It was supposed to create a new elite of Vietnamese society, both Christian and Vietnamese, so that in the future its representatives could occupy the highest and middle echelons of public administration [Burel, 1997, p. 7].

Christian communities in Tonkin were particularly successful [Cao The Dung, 2002, tr. 500 - 506]. They were concentrated mainly on the coast and gradually became spiritual, religious and socio-economic centers of Catholic life. Christianity has become most widespread in Vietnam among the poorest segments of the peasantry, in backward agricultural areas (for example, in Ngean Province), as well as among the marginal layers of cities. The latter in traditional society were excluded from the social life of the two main systems of Vietnam: at the state and community levels.

Therefore, it is obvious that for such marginal strata and groups, Christianity became an alternative and offered, instead of violence and cruelty, a different perspective of life and concrete patronage. And indeed, missionary activity has led to the fact that where the traditional community excluded, "threw" for bam-

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The beech hedge was occupied by the poorest population, and next to it missionaries created another, Christian community, a new, parallel socio-economic organization. In addition, the thesis of individual salvation and a better afterlife provided a powerful incentive for the perception of the new religion. By preaching the message of personal salvation, Christianity responded to the deepest human feelings and needs. This message was addressed to each individual and distinguished him from the faceless community, making him a person. All of the above gave Vietnamese Christians a sense of being chosen, the possibility of a certain emancipation, liberation from the old, traditional rules and regulations.

Missionaries often took on the tasks of economic management of Christian communities. They acquired land, participated in the distribution of property, and lent money [Forest, 1988, p. 216-217]. All this led to an adjustment in the socio-economic sphere of life of Christian communities, increased their material level, and, in the end, contributed to the feeling of being chosen by Christians, their uniqueness in comparison with others, and strengthened their belief that they lead a "correct" life. But this isolation, the exclusion of Vietnamese Catholics from traditional society, was often very difficult for them, so it was important for missionaries to convince the whole family, including children or a group of families, to be baptized. Then the break with the past, established life was not so dramatic. But in real life, a Catholic's complete separation from his relatives was rare. There were still friendly ties in the form of solidarity and assistance, which largely explains the cases of protection of Catholics before the authorities during the persecution. Therefore, it is more likely that we can talk not about a complete break, but about a partial replacement of previously existing relationships. In addition, among the non-Christian population, men preferred to marry Christian women because of their highly valued morals, but provided that traditional family norms were preserved. Thus, we can say that the Vietnamese traditions were not discarded, they took their place in the newly created missionaries of individual communities. But these traditions were not preserved in the same form, they were purposefully modified by missionaries in the direction of their departure from the old superstitions and pagan cults towards Christianization, and were filled with new content.

Summing up, it should be emphasized that Vietnamese Christian communities, which have become a real phenomenon in Asia, played a key role in the creation of the Catholic Church of Vietnam. Their intense inner spiritual life, largely isolated from the rest of Vietnamese society, actually had a strong, if ambiguous, impact on it, with far-reaching consequences. In Christian communities, a different society was created, parallel to the traditional one. This new organization of society had such a high level of cohesion that the authorities unwittingly began to see Christian communities as a certain threat to their interests. Christianity unwittingly accumulated the main lines of power around which Vietnamese society was organized for centuries and thus became opposed to it, which indirectly undermined the existing system of state structure in Vietnam, while exposing its fragility.

Although the perception of Christianity was similar in China and Japan, only in Vietnam, despite the often hostile attitude of the authorities and persecution against Christianity, the Vietnamese Catholic Church was established with the full composition of the church clergy, up to cardinals, based on Christian communities.

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