Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kompong Cham (Agenzia Fides) - Many in Cambodia including the public authorities, regard Christianity as a foreign religion imported by the French when the country was a French Protectorate from 1863 to 1953, or the United Nations Organisation during its APRONUC mandate to restore peace between 1992 to 1995. It is important for Cambodian Christians of all denominations to know their history. The Catholic Church has been present in Cambodia for more than 450 years, therefore long before French colonisation.
Ecumenism in Kompong Cham started with a visit by a French couple Jean-Paul and Geneviève Bernadat, he an evangelical pastor and she a Catholic lay woman. Their faith in Christ leads them to travel the world to promote unity among Christians. They came to Cambodia in September 1997, and their ministry of reconciliation bore fruit leading about fifteen different Christian communities to form an informal Association. Once a month they meet in one of the churches for ecumenical prayer and they also undertake specific joint initiatives, such as taking care of a cemetery. The denominations which belong to the Association include Catholic, Evangelical, Baptist, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist and Born Again Christians. In Kompong Cham city in a population of about 60,000 there are 1,500 Christians of different denominations including 145 Catholics, all baptised in recent years: the first baptisms were among the Methodists in 1988 and for most of the other denominations, baptisms started in 1993.
Last month, on 19 September, a group of 28 Christians (a few pastors, one Catholic priest, a nun and a several lay Christians from Kompong Cham, went to visit the birthplaces of the Catholic Church in Cambodia. “We went to Longvêk, the capital of the Kingdom from 1515 to 1594 - one of the pilgrims said -. In was here in fact that Dominican missionary Fr. Gaspard Da Cruz, from Portugal presented himself to King Preah Ang Chan, in 1555. In 1590 King Preah Borom Ricrea granted full and integral religious freedom to the Christian religion: mandarins who converted to Christianity did not lose their privileges and owners had no right to prevent their slaves from practicing their Christian faith. Then we went to Oudong, capital between 1610 and 1866, to commemorate the arrival of a group of Japanese Christians fleeing persecution granted political asylum around the year 1610. Later in 1660, asylum was also granted to a group of Indonesian Christians. In the mid 17th century, to escape persecution led by the King of Vietnam numerous Vietnamese Catholics took refuge in Cambodia”.
“At Prambei Chaom, at the tomb of the first Vicar Apostolic of Cambodia, Mgr. Piguel (1770), we spoke about different methods of evangelisation and the necessity of having local religious congregations, schools for catechists and a local clergy. It was to this that Mgr. Piguel dedicated his energies after the war had destroyed everything. Not far away, at Ponhea Lu, we went to the foundations of the first church which recalled negotiations undertaken by King Ang Duong (1846/1860), with the help of Mgr. Miche, to convince the French to re-establish French rule. We concluded our pilgrimage at the Carmel in Phnom Penh where we remembered the horrors of the 20th century: in this parish 515 Vietnamese were massacred by the troops of Lon Nol in April 1970. Amidst suffering and tests of loyalty we admired the work of our predecessors and the audacious course of the Good News in the land of the Khmer”. (Agenzia Fides 28/10/2006; righe 39, parole 579)
