Vietnamese Catholics hand down an account that in 1798, during a violent persecution, Christians who had fled into the forest of La Vang in the province of Quang Tri were consoled by the appearance of a lady holding a child, who encouraged them to persevere. The Holy See has never issued a judgement on those events, and this entry reports them as the tradition of the Vietnamese Church rather than as an approved apparition. A chapel was built on the site, La Vang became the national Marian centre of Vietnam, and its church was raised to the rank of a minor basilica in 1961. The national pilgrimage is held around the solemnity of the Assumption.

La Vang is inseparable from the Vietnamese martyrs, and its meaning is the meaning the Church gives to Mary at the foot of the Cross: she stands with those who suffer for her Son and does not remove the Cross from them. Ecclesia in Asia points to the martyrs and to Marian devotion together as the twin roots of Asian Catholic endurance, and this shrine holds both.

Vietnam

The statue most often used shows the Virgin in the Vietnamese áo dài with an elaborate headdress, holding the Child dressed in the same manner. The ruined bell tower of the old church, left standing after the war, has become part of the shrine's own iconography.

• Đức Mẹ La Vang
• Our Lady of Lavang

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