Visitors to Xom Chieu Parish in District 4, HCM City, after touring the Cathedral’s Hall and being immersed in hymns, often hear about the "sacredness" of the parish.

The people of the parish say the preservation of the body is a mystery, appearing in 1856. The 100-year-old dead body is kept inside the Easter Waiting House of the parish.

Behind the iron door, the coffin stands out among the high iron shelves containing the ashes of deceased parishioners. The coffin's glass sides allow people to see the body inside.

Inside the coffin, the body is dressed, has a silk scarf on its head, and is placed in a supine position. On the outside of the coffin is a black marble stele with a photo printed on it, recording the year of birth and death of the deceased.

The words say the woman is Anna Nguyen Thi Si, who was born in 1840 and passed away in 1906.

Giuse Dinh Quang Luat, Vice Chairman of Xom Chieu Parish Internal Affairs Board, said that Anna Nguyen Thi Si was a parishioner of the parish, not a nun. During her lifetime, she attended the activities of the parish.

After she passed away, her descendants buried her at the old Saigon Port cemetery. Later, when the French colonial government relocated the cemetery, Si’s grave was exhumed by her relatives.

When exhuming the grave, people discovered that the woman's body was still intact and had not decomposed. Only her clothes were damaged, and her body was mostly unaffected.

The woman’s relatives and parishioners believed that this was a sacred sign and decided to carry her body to Tan Quy cemetery in district 7. Her dead body was put into a coffin on the ground, not in a grave.

"For Catholics, the human body is created by Christ, bearing the image of Christ. Therefore, when her relatives saw that the old woman's body was still intact, they respected the woman and did not cremate it,” Luat explained.

Later, when Tan Quy cemetery was cleared, the body was carried to the parish and placed in Easter Waiting House.

Parishioners wanted to keep the dead body of the woman. Luat said he doesn’t know if any embalmment method was used before burying the woman. However, since the day of exhumation, the dead body has become blacker and smaller compared with the initial size.

The corpse is in a coffin, with no chemicals or scientific method used for preservation. Luat said that more than 100 years have elapsed since the woman passed away, but there is no sign of damage.

Many people take this as a good omen and visit the corpse to beg for the deity to offer support and wish for health and luck.

Xom Chieu Parish is opening the Easter Waiting House and welcoming people to visit the corpse at certain times.

When seeing the corpse which has been existing unchanged for 100 years, visitors don’t feel afraid, but they feel curious. They want to find the answers to the question why the corpse doesn’t get damaged, though no preservation method is applied.

However, Luat affirmed that his parish won’t agree to allow to carry out research on the corpse, because parishioners consider this a sacred thing and the corpse needs to be respected.

Si’s grandchildren now live overseas. They return to the parish once every several years and came to Xom Chieu to see the body of the deceased. As they are away, they authorize a local person to take care for the corpse.

Ha Nguyen