Religion in Cambodia
Approximately 97% of Cambodia's population follows Theravada Buddhism, with Islam, Christianity, and tribal animism as well as Baha’i faith making up the bulk of the small remainder.
[4] According to the Pew Research Center in 2010, 96.9% of Cambodia's population was Buddhist, 2.0% Muslim, 0.4% Christian, and 0.7% folk religion and non religious.
In later history, a second stream of Buddhism entered Khmer culture during the Angkor empire when Cambodia absorbed the various Buddhist traditions of the Mon kingdoms of Dvaravati and Haripunchai.
For the thousand years of Khmer history, Cambodia was ruled by a series of Mahayana with an occasional Theravada Buddhist king, such as Jayavarman I of Funan, and Suryvarman I.
Muslim traders along the main trade-route between Western Asia through Āryāvarta were responsible for the introduction of Islam to Cambodia around 12th to 17th centuries CE.
[8] Islam also flourished among Khmer people, in Kwan village, Kampong Speu, Muslims thrived with most of the converts from Buddhism.
[9] The first known Christian mission in Cambodia was undertaken by Gaspar da Cruz, a Portuguese member of the Dominican Order, in 1555-1556.
According to Vatican statistics, in 1953, members of the Catholic Church in Cambodia numbered 120,000, making it at the time, the second largest religion.
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.
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.
[12] Various Protestant denominations have reported marked growth since the 1990s, and by some current estimates Christians make up 2-3% of Cambodia's population.
[17] The introduction of the Baháʼí Faith in Cambodia first occurred in 1920, with the arrival of Hippolyte Dreyfus-Barney in Phnom Penh at the behest of 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
[18] After sporadic visits from travelling teachers throughout the first half of the 20th century, the first Baháʼí group in Cambodia was established in that city in 1956.
[22] Many of them joined with the flood of refugees that dispersed around the world following the fall of the Khmer Rouge, resettling in places such as Canada and the United States, where special efforts were made to contact them and incorporate them into local Baháʼí community life.
Among the Khmer Loeu, the Austronesian groups (Rhade and Jarai) have a well-developed hierarchy of spirits with a supreme ruler at its head.
