"One pillar" pagoda, Hanoi, capital. of North Vietnam
Cao Dai temple in My Tho- Mekong Delta of South Vietnam
For much of Vietnamese history, Taoism, Confucianism and Mahayana Buddhism have strongly influenced the religious and cultural life of the people. About 85% of Vietnamese identify with Buddhism, though not all practice on a regular basis. About 8% of the population are Christians (about six million Roman Catholics and fewer than one million Protestants, according to the census of 2007). Christianity was introduced first by the Portuguese and the Dutch traders in the 16th and 17th centuries, then further propagated by French missionaries in the 19th and 20th centuries, and to a lesser extent, by American Protestant missionaries during the presence of American forces during the 1960s and early 1970s. The largest Protestant churches are the Evangelical Church of Vietnam and the Montagnard Evangelical Church. Two thirds of Vietnam's Protestants are ethnic minorities.
Vietnam has great reservation towards Roman Catholicism. This mistrust originated during the French colonial time when some Catholics collaborated with the French colonists as espionage agents and militiamen to suppress the Vietnamese independence movement. Furthermore, the Church's teaching in Vietnam regarding communism made it an unwelcome counterforce to communist rule. Relationship with the Vatican, however, has improved in recent years. Followers of Islam, a small minority faith, is primarily practiced by the ethnic Cham minority, though there are also a few ethnic Vietnamese adherents in the southwest. The communist government has from time to time been criticized for its religious restrictions although it has categorically denied that such restrictions exist today. The vast majority of Vietnamese people actually practice ancestor worship.
Next section: Protestants in Vietnam
