Iceland Buddhist Association Wants to Build a Temple

February 4, 2007

Source: celand review/The Buddhist Channel

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=3,3687,0,0,1,0

Reykjavík, Iceland -- Buddhists in Iceland have submitted a request to Minister of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs Björn Bjarnason for a lot near Reykjavík to build a Buddhist temple.

The lot they want is near Vífilsstadir, an old farm and tuberculosis asylum in the Reykjavík suburb of Gardabaer. Fréttabladid reports.

According to Páll Júlíusson, the former chairman of the Thai-Icelandic Association, a Thai millionaire has promised to finance the construction of a Buddhist temple in Iceland.

The lot currently belongs to the Icelandic state. Bjarnason wrote in a letter to Gardabaer mayor Gunnar Einarsson that Júlíusson suggested Bjarnason hand over the lot on behalf of the government to Gardabaer, which would then hand it over to the Buddhist Association.