Christianity in Bangladesh

One of the oldest churches in Bangladesh, dating back to 1663
The Portuguese Church in Old Chittagong; the seat of the Bishop of Chittagong
Dhaka's Armenian Church; built in 1781

The earliest recorded Christians in the territory of modern-day Bangladesh arrived during the Bengal Sultanate. Portuguese missionaries and traders in Porto Grande, Chittagong built the region's first churches during the 16th-century. The Jesuits opened their first mission in 1600. Mughal and colonial Dhaka was home to Armenians, Greeks, Catholics and Anglicans.

Contributions

Having worked in Bangladesh as a missionary since 1952, Father Richard William Timm, C.S.C. won the Ramon Magsaysay Award Peace and International Understanding, the Asian Nobel Prize, in 1987 in recognition of his work as a teacher, as a biologist studying plant-parasitic worms, and with Caritas on relief efforts.[1]

Persecution

While anti-Christian incidents do occur from time to time, Christians in Bangladesh, due to their small numbers and status as People of the Book, generally do not come under negative attention from Muslims nearly as often as the larger Hindu minority.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Awardees: Timm, Richard William". Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation.

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress Country Studies.

Further reading

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