News Archive Cambodia Cambodian Church saved by the prayers of a child Phnom Penh (Fides Service) - A Cambodian Christian tells us that he remembers when the Red Khmer announced to the nation that all religion would be abolished and no one would go to church any more. This was the year 1975. On April 14, 1990, 15 years later, Christians were once again allowed to profess their faith in public. Although no priests survived the persecution, the faith did. Vythy Mimetto, who was ten years old at the time, used to say the Our Father and Hail Mary every night before he went to sleep at the children's camp where he lived. "I used to whisper the prayers and keep my hand over my mouth so no one would see. I thought that if I didn't say the prayers every day I would forget them and that there would never be anyone to teach me them again". The prayers of this little boy helped to keep the faith alive and prepare a new future for the Church in Cambodia. GD (Fides 28/06/2002) Cambodian Ordinations To Be First In Wake Of "Killing Fields" 4 Deacons-to-Be Were Victims of Khmer Rouge PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, MAY 31, 2001 (Zenit.org).- Four seminarians who survived the bloody Khmer Rouge regime will be ordained deacons next month, the first such ceremony to be seen in the land of the "killing fields" in 30 years. On June 10, Son Un, Hang Ly Suon, Paul Lay and Nget Viney will be ordained to the diaconate. The four, who range in age from 30 to 40, had been victims of forced labor during the Communist regime. The Paris Foreign Mission Society founded a seminary in Southeast Asia in 1660. Waves of persecutions, however, especially by dictator Pol Pot between 1975-79, did not allow the consolidation of a local clergy. Until now, the three ecclesiastical jurisdictions of Cambodia have had only one native priest, Father Sophol Tonlop. Cambodia's famine in the 1980s, shortly after Pol Pot's fall, caused a massive migration to refugee camps in Thailand. In those camps the major seminary was reborn in 1991. When missionaries were able to return to Cambodia, the seminary was established in 1992 in Battambang province, on the border with Thailand, under the direction of Father Bernard Durpaz and Jesuit Father Jean-Marie Birsens. The seminary was moved to Phnom Penh, the capital, in December 1998, in an effort to offer new possibilities for the formation of local clergy. The seminary has been under the direction of Father Omer Giraldo, MXY, and Paris Foreign Mission Father Bruno Cosme.