Theravada
Buddhism is practiced by over 90 percent of Cambodia's population, and is also
the major religion in other Southeast Asian nations.
Buddhism arrived in
Cambodia during the first centuries A.D. Mahayana Buddhism was the
dominant religion but was slowly replaced by Theravada after the 14th
century. During the Khmer Rouge era (1975-1979), most of Cambodia's
Buddhist monks were murdered and most of the wats were destroyed.
Other
religions to be found in Cambodia include Islam and Catholicism.
Christianity,
introduced into Cambodia by Roman Catholic
missionaries in 1555, made little headway, at
least among the Buddhists. In 1972 there were
probably about 20,000 Christians in Cambodia,
most of whom were Roman Catholics. Before the
repatriation of the Vietnamese in 1970 and
1971, possibly as many as 62,000 Christians
lived in Cambodia. According to Vatican
statistics, in 1953, members of the Roman
Catholic Church in Cambodia numbered 120,000,
making it, at the time, the second largest
religion, estimates indicate that about 50,000
Catholics were Vietnamese. Many of the
Catholics remaining in Cambodia in 1972 were
Europeans--chiefly French.
Steinberg reported,
also in 1953, that an American Unitarian
mission maintained a teacher-training school
in Phnom Penh, and Baptist missions functioned
in Battambang and Siem Reap provinces. A
Christian and Missionary Alliance mission was
founded in Cambodia in 1923; by 1962 the
mission had converted about 2,000 people.
American Protestant missionary activity
increased in Cambodia, especially among some
of the hill tribes and among the Cham, after
the establishment of the Khmer Republic. The
1962 census, which reported 2,000 Protestants
in Cambodia, remains the most recent statistic
for the group. In 1982 French geographer Jean
Delvert reported that three Christian villages
existed in Cambodia, but he gave no indication
of the size, location, or type of any of them.
Observers reported that in 1980 there were
more registered Khmer Christians among the
refugees in camps in Thailand than in all of
Cambodia before 1970. Kiernan notes that,
until June 1980, five weekly Protestant
services were held in Phnom Penh by a Khmer
pastor, but that they had been reduced to a
single weekly service after police harassment.
His estimates suggest that in 1987 the
Christian community in Cambodia had shrunk to
only a few thousand members.
There
are around 20,000 Catholics in Cambodia which
represents only 0.15% of the total population.
There are no dioceses, but there are three
territorial jurisdictions - one Apostolic
Vicariate and two Apostolic Prefectures.
The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(also known as the Mormons) has a growing
population in Cambodia. The church's late
prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley,
officially introduced missionary work to
Cambodia on May 29, 1996. The church now has
15 congregations (12 Khmer language and 3
Vietnamese language).
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