Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture (Myanmar)

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]

Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture (Myanmar)

သာသနာရေးနှင့်ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန
Ministry overview
Formed	1 April 2016; 9 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

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

Myanmar Historical Research Journal

Discipline	Burmese history
Language	Burmese
Publication details
History	1995–present
Publisher	Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture (Myanmar)
Frequency	Biannual
Standard abbreviations ISO 4 (alt) · Bluebook (alt) NLM · MathSciNet
ISO 4	Myanmar Hist. Res. J.
Indexing CODEN · JSTOR · LCCN MIAR · NLM · Scopus · W&L
OCLC no.	46428663

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

No	Name	Start Date	End Date	Ministry/Department	Cabinet
1	U Tun Phay	16 March 1952	12 August 1953	Department of Union Culture
2	General Khin Maung Lay	12 August 1953	5 September 1953	Ministry of Home Affairs and Union Culture
3	U Win	5 September 1953	17 November 1955	Department of National Planning and Union Culture
4	U Tun Tin	12 June 1956	25 February 1957	Department of Education and Union Culture
5	U Tun Tin	1 March 1957	18 July 1958	Department of Education and Union Culture
6	Thakin Tin	18 July 1958	28 October 1958	Department of Mechanized and Union Culture
7	U Maung Kyaw Zan	28 July 2005	28 October 1958	Department of Education and Union Culture
8	U Chit Thaung	28 October 1958	4 April 1960	Department of Union Culture
9	U Ba Saw	4 April 1960	2 March 1962	Department of Social Welfare, Religious Affairs, Union Culture and Health
1.	Col Saw Myint	2 March 1962	17 August 1964	Department of Information and Union Culture
11	Col Thaung Dan	17 September 1964	2 March 1974	Ministry of Information,Ministry of Culture and Social Welfare
12	U Aye Maung	2 March 1974	1 March 1987	Ministry of Culture
13	U Mya Maung	2 March 1979	20 March 1979	Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Information
14	U Man San Myat Shwe	20 March 1979	16 October 1980	Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Information
15	U Aung Kyaw Myint	16 October 1980	18 September 1988	Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Information
16	Gen Phone Myint	21 September 1988	6 March 1992	Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Information
17	Lt Gen Kyaw Yair Aung	6 March 1992	20 June 1995	Ministry of Culture
18	Col Thaung Myint	20 June 1995	29 May 1996	Ministry of Culture
19	U Aung San	29 May 1996	20 December 1997	Ministry of Culture
20	U Win Sein	26 December 1997	9 November 2001	Ministry of Culture
21	U Tin Win	15 November 2001	12 September 2002	Ministry of Culture,Ministry of Labour
22	Gen Aung Kyi	13 September 2002	15 May 2006	Ministry of Culture
23	Col Khin Aung Myint	15 May 2006	29 March 2011	Ministry of Culture
24	U Kyaw San	30 March 2011	27 August 2012	Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Information
25	U Aye Myint Kyu	7 September 2012	30 March 2016	Ministry of Culture	Thein Sein
26	U Aung Ko	30 March 2016	31 January 2023	Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture	Htin Kyaw
27	U Tin Oo Lwin

See also

• Agga Maha Pandita
• List of Sāsana Azani recipients
• State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee
• International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University
• State Pariyatti Sasana University, Yangon
• State Pariyatti Sasana University, Mandalay
• Culture of Burma
• Cabinet of Myanmar
• National University of Arts and Culture, Mandalay
• National University of Arts and Culture, Yangon