A Vietnamese lay physician of Quảng Bình, known to his neighbors as a healer, who was executed in 1840 for refusing to abandon his Catholic faith.

Saint Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh was a Catholic layman from Mỹ Hương, in Quảng Bình province in central Vietnam. Born around 1768, he was known locally as a healer or traditional physician, a role that tradition holds gave him both standing in his community and the trust to move discreetly among Catholic households during periods of persecution. He was arrested under the escalating anti-Christian campaigns of the Nguyễn court and, after a period of imprisonment during which he reportedly continued to encourage fellow prisoners in the faith, was executed by strangulation at Đồng Hới on 10 July 1840, at about the age of seventy-one. He is venerated as one of the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs, beatified in 1900 by Pope Leo XIII and canonized in 1988 by Pope John Paul II, whose collective feast honors the vast, largely lay company of Vietnamese Catholics martyred over more than a century of persecution.

Quick Facts

• Born: traditionally dated to around 1768, in Mỹ Hương, Quảng Bình, Vietnam (exact date uncertain)
• Died: 10 July 1840, at Đồng Hới, Quảng Bình, Vietnam, aged about 71
• Feast Day: 24 November, common feast of the Vietnamese Martyrs
• Beatified: 27 May 1900, by Pope Leo XIII
• Canonized: 19 June 1988, by Pope John Paul II, among the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs
• Venerated as: a lay Catholic and traditional healer, martyred in the Cochinchina mission territory

Who Was Saint Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh?

Saint Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh was a Catholic layman from the village of Mỹ Hương in Quảng Bình province, in the mission territory the Church of the period called Cochinchina, corresponding to central Vietnam. Vietnamese Catholic tradition remembers him particularly as a healer, sometimes described as practicing traditional medicine among his neighbors — a vocation that likely afforded him a degree of freedom of movement and local respect useful for quietly sustaining Catholic community life under a government hostile to the faith. Born around 1768, he was an older man, well into his seventies by some accounts, when the persecution finally reached him directly. Arrested for being a Christian, he was held in prison for a period during which later accounts describe him continuing to encourage other imprisoned Catholics rather than despairing or seeking release through recantation. He was put to death by strangulation at Đồng Hới, the provincial capital of Quảng Bình, on 10 July 1840.

Historical Setting

Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh’s execution took place under Emperor Minh Mạng, whose edicts against Christianity in the 1830s produced some of the most intense persecution the Vietnamese Church endured before the later, even larger waves of killing under Emperor Tự Đức in the 1850s and 1860s. Quảng Bình, in central Vietnam, sat within the mission field then supervised largely by missionaries of the Paris Foreign Missions Society working alongside a developing native clergy, and its Catholic communities, like those further north, faced systematic pressure to renounce the faith publicly, often through the ritual of trampling a crucifix. A layperson known publicly for a respected local trade, such as traditional medicine, would have had more to lose by continued association with the outlawed faith, and his arrest and execution in 1840 reflects how thoroughly the persecution reached even long-established, socially integrated Catholics rather than only clergy or recent converts.

Why the Church Venerates Saint Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh

The Church venerates Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh as an example of ordinary vocation placed entirely at the service of the persecuted Church. His work as a healer was not, so far as the record shows, extraordinary in itself, but tradition’s memory of his continued encouragement of fellow prisoners suggests a man whose faith actively strengthened others even at the point of greatest personal danger. His veneration, alongside so many other Vietnamese laypeople, reflects the Church’s recognition that the survival of Catholicism in Vietnam through a century of persecution depended less on heroic individual missionaries than on countless believers like him who used their ordinary trades and standing to protect and encourage their communities.

Canonization and Feast Day

Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh was beatified on 27 May 1900 by Pope Leo XIII and canonized on 19 June 1988 by Pope John Paul II together with 116 companions as the Vietnamese Martyrs. His cause, like those of his companions, rested on the recognition of martyrdom — death accepted for fidelity to Christ — rather than on the verification of a miracle attributed specifically to him. He shares the common feast day of the Vietnamese Martyrs, 24 November, observed throughout the Vietnamese Catholic community worldwide.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh’s life suggests that an ordinary trade or profession, practiced with integrity and used to serve others, can become the very foundation of a life of holiness. His reported encouragement of fellow prisoners, offered when he himself had every reason to be consumed by fear, models a form of charity that costs nothing to imagine but a great deal to practice: attention to others’ suffering even in the depths of one’s own. For Catholics today, his example asks whether the skills and trust we build through our daily work are ever placed, even in small ways, at the service of those around us who are struggling.

A Prayer to Saint Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh

Saint Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh, healer of body who became a healer of souls in your final days, you brought comfort to your neighbors through your ordinary trade and comfort to your fellow prisoners through your unshaken faith. Teach us to use whatever skill or trust we have been given in service of others, especially those who suffer. Pray for physicians, healers, and all who care for the sick, that they may see their work as a true vocation; pray for prisoners and for all who face fear and isolation, that they may find companions in hope as your fellow captives found in you. Amen.

Sources

• the Roman Martyrology
• Vatican.va, canonization records of Pope John Paul II (1988)
• the Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent), entries on the persecutions of Christians in Vietnam
• EWTN, biographical resources on the Vietnamese Martyrs