Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture (Myanmar)

သာသနာရေးနှင့်ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန
Ministry overview
Formed	1 April 2016; 8 years ago (1 April 2016)
Preceding agencies	Ministry of Religious Affairs Ministry of Culture
Jurisdiction	Government of Myanmar
Headquarters	Nay Pyi Taw
Minister responsible	Ko Ko
Website	www.mora.gov.mm

The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture (Burmese: သာသနာရေးနှင့်ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန) administers the religious affairs, cultural affairs and historical and archaeology research efforts of Myanmar (formerly Burma). The Department of Religious Affairs purification, perpetuation, promotion and propagation of the Theravada Buddhist Sasana and promotes Myanmar traditional customs and culture.^[1]

History

The Ministry of Culture was established on 16 March 1952 as the Ministry of Union Cultures, and later renamed the Ministry of Culture on 15 March 1972.^[2]

The Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) came into being before the Union of Burma (now known as the Republic of the Union of Myanmar) regained its independence in 1947. On 2 March 1962, the Union Revolutionary Council government reorganised all ministries. MORA became a department of the Ministry of Home and Religious Affairs. On 18 September 1988. the State Law and Order Restoration Council formed the department for the Promotion and Propagation of the Sasana, also under the Ministry of Home and Religious Affairs. On 20 March 1992, the ministries of Home Affairs and Religious Affairs were separated. A cabinet meeting on 26 June 1998 confirmed that the International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University would be formed under MORA.^[1]

On 1 April 2016, MORA and the Ministry of Culture were combined to form the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture, as part of a government downsizing.^[3]

Departments

• Union Minister Office
• Department of Religious Affairs
  • To ensure that all people living in the Union of Myanmar can freely believe in any religion and freely practice that religion.
  • Since the great majority of the people are Buddhist, to purify, perpetuate and propagate the three kinds of Sasana of the Buddha namely, Pariyatti, Patipatti, and Pativedha.
  • To preserve and promote the traditional and cultural heritage of Myanmar.^[4]
• Department for Promotion and Propagation of Sasana - Responsible for supporting missionary activity within Myanmar and abroad. It also undertakes translation of Pitakas and compilation of Buddhist Treatises
  • State Pariyatti Sasana University, Yangon
  • State Pariyatti Sasana University, Mandalay^[5]
• International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University
• Department of Archaeology and National Museum
• Fine Arts Department
• Department of Historical Research and National Library - publishes the Myanmar Historical Research Journal
• National University of Arts and Culture, Yangon
• National University of Arts and Culture, Mandalay

Publications

The ministry's department of historical research, in collaboration with the National Library of Myanmar and the Myanmar Historical Commission, publishes the biannual Burmese language Myanmar Historical Research Journal (Burmese: မြန်မာသမိုင်းသုတေသနစာစောင်), an academic journal covering the history of Myanmar.^[6]

Ministers