Religion
As 2004, there were 27 pagodas in the province with a population of 1,918 bonzes. Pagodas are important for the Cambodian culture as a center of villages and cities. Some of the most important pagodas in the province:
- Upper Pagoda: It is also known as "Wat Chotynieng", or "Wat Lue". Located in a hill that overlooks Sihanoukville town is dedicated to Prince Chourn Nath, Cambodian Buddhist leader.
- Down Pagoda: It is also known as "Wat Krom". Located in Sihanoukville downtown. It is dedicated to Yeay Mao, a southern Cambodia divinity.
- Ream Pagoda: It is located in the Ream commune, near the Ream Naval Base.
Sihanoukville has other minority religious groups like Catholics, Muslims (Cham), Protestants and Animists. Other places of worship:
- St. Michael's Church: It belongs to the Catholic communities. There is a celebration for faithful visitors to the port in English every Sunday evening. The church was built in 1960 by sailors and it is located in the same hill of Upper Pagoda, facing the port.
- Iber Bikhalifah Mosque: It belongs to the Muslim communities. It is located in downtown, just in the popular Leu Market.
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A common altar to the ancestors.
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Statue of Mary at Saint Francis de Sales Chapel
Read more about this topic: Sihanoukville Province
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—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Where beauty is worshipped for beauty’s sake as a goddess, independent of and superior to morality and philosophy, the most horrible putrefaction is apt to set in. The lives of the aesthetes are the far from edifying commentary on the religion of beauty.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Culture’s essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)