Striving for a peaceful legacy, Christians in Burma (also called Myanmar) are choosing to patiently endure an influential Buddhist monk’s campaign to build pagodas on church properties, it was reported in April.
Initially social and news media registered an outcry from Christians when U Thuzana, a powerful monk better known as Myaing Kyee Ngu Sayadaw, rallied supporters to build a Buddhist pagoda on Anglican church property in south-eastern Karen state on 23 April.
A bishop at St Mark’s Anglican Church, where the pagoda was built in Kun Taw Gyi village, said that Christian leaders don’t want to inflame conflicts in a country where a newly-elected democratic government is striving for national reconciliation. Officials have already had to deflect Burmese Buddhist rancour over the Assembly election of an ethnic Chin Christian as vice president, Henry Van Thio.
‘We have to forgive each other’, Stylo said. ‘We can only see God if we forgive.’
Sayadaw has already built pagodas on church land: one in Hlaingbwe in January, and another in a Baptist compound in Pa-an, capital of Karen state, in August 2015.
