A Benedictine monk, he died at the age of 50 in a German hospital from cancer that doctors suspect was caused by poisoning. For years his community has been subjected to violence due to a dispute over the land surrounding the monastery, which had been seized by local authorities. Already seriously ill, he attempted to return to Vietnam in 2019, but was turned away at Hanoi airport.
Milan () – The former abbot of a Benedictine monastery in central Vietnam has died in exile in Germany after a long battle with cancer that doctors suspect may have been caused by poisoning. Father Antonio de Padua Nguyen Huyen Duc, 50, died on October 4 at the German hospital where he had been receiving treatment since 2017.
The death was announced by Fr. Luis Gonzaga Dang Hung Tan, abbot of the Thien An monastery in Thua Thien Hue province, which Father Nguyen Huyen Duc had headed from 2014 to 2017. Thien An monastery has long been years the subject of a dispute with the authorities over the surrounding land, owned by the Benedictine community since the 1940s. Founded on June 10, 1940 by French missionaries, the monastery is frequently attacked by thugs hired by the authorities locals to scare Catholics into leaving the area. Added to this are the raids by the police who, on several occasions, broke in and threatened to occupy it.
While still in Vietnam, Fr. Nguyen Huyen Duc often condemned these violent attacks. “We want to seek justice in a peaceful way to protect the legal assets of the Church until our last breath,” he declared in 2017.
In a letter to the Benedictine monks to explain his health problems – remember the UcaNews agency– The p. Nguyen Huyen Duc says he suffered excruciating pain and lost his hair after drinking coffee and tea offered to him by two visitors during Tet, the Lunar New Year celebration in 2016. He traveled to Germany for treatment and doctors diagnosed him with lung cancer. in terminal stage. At the same time, they expressed the suspicion that he may have been poisoned.
In September 2019, despite the fact that his health condition had deteriorated, he wanted to return to Vietnam. But when he arrived in Hanoi, security agents ordered him to leave the country “for his own safety and in the interest of the monastery.” A few weeks earlier, the People’s Committee of the province of Thua Thien Hue had written to the superiors of the Benedictines in Vietnam to ask them not to reappoint Fr. Duc as superior of the monastery of Thien An and they will not assign him any ministry in the province. Dung accused the monk of cutting down pine trees in the forests and encroaching on government-controlled public land, inciting hatred in the country.
When it was founded in 1940, Thien An monastery had 107 hectares of land. After 1975 the communist government immediately seized 57 hectares of the monastery’s land and assigned it to a forestry company. In 2000, almost all the remaining land was also confiscated, assigning it to a tourist company. The Benedictines only have 6 hectares left, where the monastery is located.
