diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 16971e22b..2fb7e1d58 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+Release 1.2 (in development)
+============================
+
+Bugs fixed
+----------
+
+* Fix: 'make gettext' cause UnicodeDecodeError when templates contain utf-8
+  encoded string.
+
+
 Release 1.2 (beta1 released Mar 31, 2013)
 =========================================
 
diff --git a/sphinx/builders/gettext.py b/sphinx/builders/gettext.py
index cdee4be30..87d986c85 100644
--- a/sphinx/builders/gettext.py
+++ b/sphinx/builders/gettext.py
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ class MessageCatalogBuilder(I18nBuilder):
 
         for template in self.status_iterator(files,
                 'reading templates... ', purple, len(files)):
-            context = open(template, 'rt').read() #TODO: encoding
+            context = open(template, 'r', encoding='utf-8').read()
             for line, meth, msg in extract_translations(context):
                 origin = MsgOrigin(template, line)
                 self.catalogs['sphinx'].add(msg, origin)
diff --git a/tests/roots/test-intl/_templates/index.html b/tests/roots/test-intl/_templates/index.html
index 22bc0e832..d730545d1 100644
--- a/tests/roots/test-intl/_templates/index.html
+++ b/tests/roots/test-intl/_templates/index.html
@@ -3,3 +3,8 @@
   <h1>{{ _('Welcome') }}</h1>
   <p>{%trans%}Sphinx {{ version }}{%endtrans%}</p>
 {% endblock %}
+
+{% block comment %}
+utf-8 encoded string: ニシキヘビ
+{% endblock %}
+