Emperor Jade Pagoda, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

On the recommendation of Peter Stuckings, fellow photographer based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I visited the Emperor Jade Pagoda for a quick photo shoot. The Emperor Jade Pagoda (Chùa Ngọc) is a Taoist Pagoda located at 73 Mai Thi Luu Street, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It is also known as the Tortoise Pagoda due no doubt to the large number of tortoises in a pool in front if the temple.

My timing was perfect as on arrival there was a ceremony going on with the head priest leading a procession of followers dressed in black. The chanting, drums and burning incense really added atmosphere to my visit. The highlight was when the overhead sun came out and created these wonderful beams of light through the overhead slatted roof beams cutting through the haze of smoke from the burning incense.

The temple was very authentic and was obviously well used on a daily basis by local worshippers. The ancient old fans hanging from the ceiling made the place look like a set from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Santa María la Real de La Almudena

Santa María la Real de La Almudena is a Catholic cathedral in Madrid.

When the capital of Spain was transferred from Toledo to Madrid in 1561, the seat of the Church in Spain remained in Toledo; so the new capital – unusually for a Catholic country – had no cathedral. Plans were discussed as early as the 16th century to build a cathedral in Madrid dedicated to the Virgin of Almudena, but construction did not begin until 1879.

The cathedral seems to have been built on the site of a medieval mosque that was destroyed in 1085 when Alfonso VI reconquered Madrid.

Francisco de Cubas, the Marquis of Cubas, designed and directed the construction in a Gothic revival style. Construction ceased completely during the Spanish Civil War, and the project was abandoned until 1950, when Fernando Chueca Goitia adapted the plans of de Cubas to a baroque exterior to match the grey and white façade of the Palacio Real, which stands directly opposite. The cathedral was not completed until 1993, when it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II. On May 22, 2004, the marriage of Felipe, Prince of Asturias to Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano (known thereafter as Letizia, Princess of Asturias) took place at the cathedral.

The Neo-Gothic interior is uniquely modern, with chapels and statues of contemporary artists, in heretogeneous styles, from historical revivals to "pop-art" decor.

The Neo-Romanesque crypt houses a 16th century image of the Virgen de la Almudena. Nearby along the Calle Mayor excavations have unearthed remains of Moorish and medieval city walls.

On the 28th of April 2004, Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid blessed the new paintings in the apse, painted by Kiko Arguello, founder of the Neocatechumenal Way. The cathedral is the seat of the Patriarch of the Indies and the Ocean Sea, an honorific patriarchate created in the sixteenth century, and subsequently an honorific title for the Spanish court's chaplain.

St. Brycedale Church, Kirkcaldy

Today's church is close to home .... in fact it was my home! This is St. Brycedale Church in Kirkcaldy, Scotland as viewed from the cemetery of the Old Kirk which is situated just over the road. The church is now called St. Bryce Kirk when the two churches joined together in November, 2000. 

The Old Kirk is the oldest church in Kirkcaldy and is the Category B listed  parish church, on Kirk Wynd. The earliest mention of the Old Kirk is the record of its consecration in 1244 to St Brisse and St Patrick by David de Bernham, Bishop of St Andrews. The building's deterioration in the late eighteenth century resulted in major renovations in 1807. Only the square western tower, which dates from around 1500, was retained. In 2011 the Old Kirk was purchased by the Old Kirk Trust using a £75,000 loan from businessman John Sim, son of the late Reverend John Sim, minister of the church from 1960 to 1987. 

The story of St. Brycedale Church begins in 1843 when the Disruption of the Church of Scotland took place. In conflict with the idea of patronage, where the landowner / local gentry choses the minister, large numbers of clergy and laity left the national church. The result in Kirkcaldy was the establishing of a Free Church in Tolbooth Street.

When the premises became too small for the energetic and expanding congregation it was decided to build a new Church. The site at the top of Kirk Wynd - "in open parkland on the outskirts of the town" - was donated by Provost Don Swan in 1876 and the new church was designed to seat 1150 people. Also included in the plans were a vestry, a ladies' room, a young men's hall to hold 150 and a Sunday School room to hold 300. The spire was to be 200 feet high. And the cost? An estimated £11,500.

The architecture was Gothic of the 13th century, the structure being built of Fordell stone with the inside walls of the Tower being built of a hard stone from Gallatown Quarry. In March 1881 the church was officially opened.

Since 1881 there have been only eight Ministers serving in St. Brycedale. The development of the "new" St Brycedale Church was the brainchild of the present Minister, the Rev. J. Kenneth Froude, centring on the recognition that the building was extravagantly large for the needs of the relatively small gathered downtown congregation who used it only once a week for just over an hour.

The old church has been divided in two, horizontally at the level of the gallery, creating a two-storey structure. The upper part is now the Sanctuary, still a very large church as can be seen in the inside view of the building. The lower part, at ground level, consists of two large and several smaller rooms, an open reception area and a coffee bar. These new facilities allow more flexible use of the premises. The Church Centre which is open all day, every day, for people of all ages - from toddlers to senior citizens - is used by many organisations and charities and the general public.

Notre-Dame Basilica, Ho Chi Minh

The continuing Sunday theme of religious photography continues today with the magnificent Notre-Dame Basilica in the centre of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.


Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica (Vietnamese: Vương cung thánh đường Đức Bà Sài Gòn or Nhà thờ Đức Bà Sài Gòn), officially Basilica of Our Lady of The Immaculate Conception (Vietnamese: Vương cung thánh đường Chính tòa Đức Mẹ Vô nhiễm Nguyên tội) is a cathedral located in the downtown of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Established by French colonists, the cathedral was constructed between 1863 and 1880. It has two bell towers, reaching a height of 58 meters (190 feet).

Following the French conquest of Cochinchina and Saigon, the Roman Catholic Church established a community and religious services for French colonialists. The first church was built on today's Ngo Duc Ke Street. There had been a Vietnamese pagoda, which had been abandoned during the war. Bishop Lefevre decided to make this pagoda a church.

The first church was too small. Thus, in 1863, Admiral Bonard decided to build a wooden church on the bank of Charner canal (Kinh Lớn). Lefevre put the first stone for construction of the church on 28 March 1863. The construction was completed two years later and was called "Saigon Church". When the wooden church was damaged by termites, all church services were held in the guest-chamber of the French Governor's Palace. This palace would later be turned into a seminary until the Notre-Dame Cathedral was completed.

After the design competition, bids were accepted for construction. Again, J. Bourad was the successful bidder and became supervisor of constructions.

Originally, there were three proposed sites for construction:

• On the site of the former test school (today, this is at the corner of Le Duan Boulevard and Hai Ba Trung Street).
• At Kinh Lon (today it is Nguyễn Huệ Boulevard)
• At the present site where the cathedral is situated.

All building materials were imported from France. The outside wall of the cathedral was built with bricks from Marseille. Although the contractor did not use coated concrete, these bricks have retained their bright red color until today.

On 7 October 1877, Bishop Isidore Colombert laid the first stone in an inaugural ceremony. The construction of the cathedral took three years. On Easter Day, 11 April 1880, a blessing ceremony and ceremony of completion were solemnly organized in presence of the Governor of Cochinchina Charles Le Myre de Vilers. One can see the granite plate inside the main entry gate commemorating the start and completion dates and designer. The total cost was 2,500,000 French francs (at that time price). At the beginning, the cathedral was called State Cathedral due to source of the construction cost.

In 1895, two bell towers were added to the cathedral, each 57.6 m high with six bronze bells with the total weight of 28.85 metric tonnes. The crosses were installed on the top of each tower of 3.5 m high, 2 m wide, 600 kg in weight. The total height of the cathedral to the top of the Cross is 60.5 m.

In the flower garden in front of the cathedral, there was a bronze statue of Pigneau de Behaine (also called Bishop of Adran) leading Prince Cảnh, the son of Emperor Gia Long by his right hand. The statue was made in France. In 1945, the statue was removed, but the foundation remains.

In 1959, Bishop Joseph Pham Van Thien, whose jurisdiction included Saigon parish, attended the Holy Mother Congress held in Vatican and ordered a Peaceful Notre Dame statue made with granite in Rome. When the statue arrived in Saigon on 16 February 1959, Bishop Pham Van Thien held a ceremony to install the statue on the empty base and presented the title of "Regina Pacis". It was the same bishop who wrote the prayers "Notre-Dame bless the peace to Vietnam". The next day, Cardinal Aganianian came from Rome to chair the closing ceremony of the Holy Mother Congress and solemnly chaired the ceremony for the statue, thus the cathedral was then-on called Notre-Dame Cathedral.

St. Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin, New Zealand

We all know the famous St, Paul's Cathedral in London but here is another cathedral of the same name almost half way round the world in Dunedin, New Zealand.

St Paul's Cathedral is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin, in New Zealand and the seat of the Bishop of Dunedin. The Cathedral Church of St Paul occupies a site in the heart of The Octagon near the Dunedin Town Hall and hence Dunedin. The land for St Paul's Church was given by the sealer and whaler Johnny Jones of Waikouaiti.

Our Lady of Paris

Notre Dame de Paris (French for Our Lady of Paris), also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra (official chair) of the Archbishop of Paris, currently André Vingt-Trois. The cathedral treasury houses a reliquary with the purported Crown of Thorns. 

Notre Dame de Paris is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in France and in Europe, and the naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture. The first period of construction from 1163 into the 1240's coincided with the musical experiments of the Notre Dame school. The cathedral suffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolution in the 1790s, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. An extensive restoration supervised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc removed remaining decoration, returning the cathedral to an 'original' gothic state.

Notre Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress (arched exterior supports). The building was not originally designed to include the flying buttresses around the choir and nave. After the construction began and the thinner walls (popularized in the Gothic style) grew ever higher, stress fractures began to occur as the walls pushed outward. In response, the cathedral's architects built supports around the outside walls, and later additions continued the pattern. The cathedral was essentially complete by 1345.

To The Glory of God

This magnificent church in Vienna, Austria is St Peter's Church and really exemplifies the ornate and detailed architecture that can be seen in many of the churches and cathedrals of European cities. You can tell the effort, the money and fine detailed work that has gone into a building like this and built all to the glory of God.


The word “cathedral” is sometimes mistakenly applied as a generic term for any very large and imposing church. In fact, a cathedral does not have to be large or imposing, although many cathedrals are. The cathedral takes its name from the word cathedra, or "bishop's throne" (in Latin: ecclesia cathedralis). A cathedral has a specific ecclesiatical role and administrative purpose as the seat of a bishop.

The role of bishop as administrator of local clergy came into being in the 1st century. It was two hundred years before the first cathedral building was constructed in Rome. With the legalising of Christianity in 313 by the Emperor Constantine I, churches were built rapidly. Five very large churches were founded in Rome and, though much altered or rebuilt, still exist today, including the Cathedral of Rome which is San Giovanni in Laterano and also the better-known St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

The architectural form which cathedrals took was largely dependent upon their ritual function as the seat of a bishop. Cathedrals are places where, in common with other Christian churches, the Eucharist is celebrated, the Bible is read, the Order of Service is said or sung, prayers are offered and sermons are preached. But in a cathedral, in general, these things are done with a greater amount of elaboration, pageantry and procession than in lesser churches. This elaboration is particularly present during important liturgical rites performed by a Bishop, such as Confirmation and Ordination. A cathedral is often the site of rituals associated with local or national Government, the Bishops performing the tasks of all sorts from the induction of a mayor to the coronation of a monarch. Some of these tasks are apparent in the form and fittings of particular cathedrals.

The church that has the function of cathedral is not always a large building. It might be as small as Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. But frequently, the cathedral, along with some of the abbey churches, was the largest building in any region.

There were a number of reasons for this:

• The cathedral was created to the Glory of God. It was seen as appropriate that it should be as grand and as beautiful as wealth and skill could make it.
• As the seat of a Bishop, the Cathedral was the location for certain liturgical rites, such as the Ordination of Priests, which brought together large numbers of clergy and people.
• It functioned as an ecclesiastical and social meeting-place for many people, not just those of the town in which it stood, but also, on occasions, for the entire region.
• The cathedral often had its origins in a monastic foundation and was a place of worship for members of a holy order who said the mass privately at a number of small chapels within the cathedral.
• The cathedral often became a place of worship and burial for wealthy local patrons. These patrons often endowed the cathedrals with money for successive enlargements and building programs.
• Cathedrals are also traditionally places of pilgrimage, to which people travel from afar to celebrate certain important feast days or to visit the shrine associated with a particular saint. An extended eastern end is often found at cathedrals where the remains of a saint are interred behind the High Altar.

The Church of Our Lady - Bruges

The Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium, dates mainly from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.

Its tower, at 122.3 meters in height, remains the tallest structure in the city and the second tallest brickwork tower in the world (the tallest being the St. Martin's Church in Landshut, Germany).

In the choir space behind the high altar are the tombs of Charles the Bold, last Valois Duke of Burgundy, and his daughter, the duchess Mary. The gilded bronze effigies of both father and daughter repose at full length on polished slabs of black stone. Both are crowned, and Charles is represented in full armor and wearing the decoration of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

The altarpiece of the large chapel in the southern aisle enshrines the most celebrated art treasure of the church—a white marble sculpture of the Madonna and Child created by Michelangelo around 1504. Probably meant originally for the Siena Cathedral, it was purchased in Italy by two Brugean merchants, the brothers Jan and Alexander Mouscron, and in 1514 donated to its present home. The sculpture was twice recovered after being looted by foreign occupiers—French revolutionaries circa 1794 and Nazi Germans in 1944.