Cambodia

1555 marks the first year of evangelization in Cambodia when Father Gaspar da Cruz from Portugal stayed at the Royal Court in Longvek. Father Sylvestre D'Azevedo, also a Portuguese, did the first translation of Christian literature in the Khmer language. Persecusions in Japan to the Catholic faith at the beginning of the 17th Century would bring some Japanese faithful seeking refuge in the kingdom. Cambodia became in that century a safe place, because in 1660 Catholics from Indonesia came into due to persecutions in their country. But the decadency of the Khmer Empire and the invassions from Vietnam and Thailand were disastrous for the Church in the Khmer lands. Father Levavasseur, a Frenchman, wrote books of Christianity in Khmer by 1777 and founded seminaries and religious communities which were destroyed soon after by the Vietnamese invasion of 1784. The Thai invasion of 1785, only a year after (showing how was the political situation of Cambodia at the time), did deportations of Catholic Khmers to Bangkok (still today a community that links itself to that in Thailand). From that time is dated also the foundation of a Catholic community in Battambang. The 19th Century? was not peaceful too: wars and conflicts did a great damage to the Church communities. Mgr. Jean-Claude Miche was appointed by the Holy See to be the first Vicar Apostolic of Phnom Penh. In 1866?, due to the favor of King Norodom, the Khmer Catholics were able to build a church in Ponhea Lu. The 20th Century? did not have much to say for the Church due to the French protectorate that brought also many Catholic Vietnamese into the country, but the 1970's war would change it. The coming to power of the regime of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot (1975? - 1979?) would bring a lot sadness for the country, its people and its religions. Mgr. Joseph Chhmar Salas, Khmer priests, religious and lay people lost their life in the nightmare of the genocide. April 4?, 1990? opened a new hope for the Church: the goverment gave freedom of worship. December 3?, 2006? in Thang Koo saw the celebration of the 450th year of the coming of the Gospel in Cambodia with around 2000 faithful from around the country and the statistic number of 4,000 Khmer Catholics in a country mostly Buddhist.