Henri Benoît Thuan Denis

Henri Benoît Thuan Denis (born August 17, 1880 in Boulogne-sur-Mer , † July 25, 1933 in Phuóc-Son, Province of Quảng Trị , Vietnam ) was a French Roman Catholic clergyman and founder of a monastery in Vietnam. It stands at the beginning of all current Vietnamese Cistercian monasteries .

life and work

Henri Denis, who lost his mother at the age of eight, grew up in Wimille after her death . In 1892 he entered the Minor Seminary in Boulogne. He then graduated from the Lille Catholic Institute and, from 1900, the Arras seminary . From there he moved to the seminary of the Paris Mission in 1901 and was ordained a priest on March 7, 1903.

Immediately after his consecration, the Paris Mission sent Henri Denis to Annam (northern Cochinchina ), Archdiocese of Huế , where the Bishop of Hue gave him the Vietnamese name Thuan . Thuan means "obedience" or "consent". Until 1913 he was employed in pastoral care . In the meantime, from 1903 to 1908, and then from 1913 to 1918, he was employed as a teacher at the Small Seminary in An-Ninh (also spelled "Annith"). There he also taught Chinese .

In 1918, Thuan received permission to establish a monastery in Phuóc-Son in the province of Quảng Trị , north of the Ben Hai River. At first it was nothing more than a hut. Thuan called the monastery "Our Lady of Annam" (Notre-Dame d'Annam), later (after the place of its foundation) Notre-Dame de Phuoc Son ("Mountains of Happiness"). In 1920 he was dressed and took the religious name Benedictus (French: Benoît ). In 1923 the temporary profession followed in the presence of Bishop Henri Lécroart SJ (1864-1939) and in 1926 the solemn profession in the presence of Bishop Alexandre Paul Marie Chabanon (1873-1936).

Benoît Thuan's request for his incorporation into the Trappist order was rejected. Thereupon he turned to the Cistercians of the general observance. He did not experience the affiliation of Notre-Dame de Phuoc Son in the Cistercian order. It took place under his successor Bernard Mendiboure on March 21, 1935, two years after his death in the monastery that he had founded.

Cistercian Congregation of the Holy Family

Benoît Thuan himself cannot be called a Cistercian in the strict sense. Because he did not go through any Cistercian training in a Cistercian monastery and he did not take his vows before a Cistercian abbot. Nevertheless, his monastery was founded at the beginning of the flourishing Cistercian religious life in Vietnam. The Cistercian Congregation of the Holy Family grew out of his monastery, which includes five abbeys, seven conventual priories and nine dependent monasteries.

Beatification process

Benoît Thuan's heroic and holy life gave rise to the opening of a beatification process on December 14, 2018. The postulator is the Cistercian Pierdomenico Volpi.

literature

Jean de la Croix Lê Văn Đoàn O.Cist .: Le Père Benoît Thuân, Fondateur de Phuoc-Son, premier Monastère Cistercien au Vietnam. Essai d'une Biographie, à la Croisée de l'Histoire et de la Théologie , 2 volumes. Center Sèvres, Paris 2004.
Jean de la Croix Lê Văn Đoàn O.Cist .: Le Père Benoît Thuân . In: Alliance Inter-Monastères (ed.): Bulletin de l'AIM , ISSN 1779-4811 , vol. 2018, No. 115: Vietnam. Terre de renoveau monastique , pp. 68–84, here p. 68.

Due to the censorship of Catholic books in Vietnam, the following books (written in Vietnamese) were self-published, but not available in stores:

Abbot Emmanuel Chu Kim Tuyen O.Cist. († 1980): Biography of Abbot Benedikt Thuan
Collection of Thuan's writings and chapter addresses

Web links

Footnotes

↑ Jean de la Croix Lê Văn Đoàn O.Cist .: Le Père Benoît Thuân . In: Bulletin de l'AIM , vol. 2018, No. 115: Vietnam. Terre de renoveau monastique , pp. 68–84, here p. 68.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Beatification process. Pioneer of Cistercian life in Vietnam . In: Erbe und Einsatz , vol. 95 (2019), p. 98.
↑ Jean de la Croix Lê Văn Đoàn O.Cist .: Le Père Benoît Thuân . In: Bulletin de l'AIM , vol. 2018, No. 115: Vietnam. Terre de renoveau monastique , pp. 68–84, here p. 72.

personal data
SURNAME	Denis, Henri Benoît Thuan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French Roman Catholic clergyman and monastery founder in Vietnam
DATE OF BIRTH	17th August 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH	Boulogne-sur-Mer
DATE OF DEATH	July 25, 1933
Place of death	Phuóc-Son, Quảng Trị Province , Vietnam

[1] Jean de la Croix Lê Văn Đoàn O.Cist .: Le Père Benoît Thuân . In: Bulletin de l'AIM , vol. 2018, No. 115: Vietnam. Terre de renoveau monastique , pp. 68–84, here p. 68.

[Erbe_und_Auftrag-2] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Beatification process. Pioneer of Cistercian life in Vietnam . In: Erbe und Einsatz , vol. 95 (2019), p. 98.

[3] Jean de la Croix Lê Văn Đoàn O.Cist .: Le Père Benoît Thuân . In: Bulletin de l'AIM , vol. 2018, No. 115: Vietnam. Terre de renoveau monastique , pp. 68–84, here p. 72.