Women hold pictures of Thailand's most senior Buddhist monk, the late supreme patriarch Venerable Phra Nyanasamvara, who died in 2013, as they wait for the start of his funeral procession in Bangkok on Dec. 16, 2015. Thailand’s king named Phra Maha Muneewong, an 89-year-old abbot as his successor on Feb. 6, 2017. (Christophe Archambault/AFP)
Exercising his royal power under a recently amended law, Thailand’s king named the country’s new top Buddhist monk on Feb. 6, ending years of vacancy on the ecclesiastic throne.
Venerable Phra Maha Muneewong, an 89-year-old abbot, was named the 20th Supreme Patriarch by King Vajiralongkorn, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha told reporters after his weekly cabinet meeting, the Khao Sod website reported.
Venerable Muneewong replaced the previous patriarch who died in 2013 at 100, ending a succession issue that has been hotly debated ever since.
Prayuth said Venerable Muneewong will be instated by the king himself Feb. 12 at Wat Phra Kaew, also know as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok.
Venerable Muneewong is known for his focus on meditation and works at forest monasteries. He was Thailand’s top Buddhist missionary — an equivalent of the Holy See’s nunciature — to Australia while King Vajiralongkorn studied at a military school there in the 1970s.
Venerable Muneewong was appointed through an amendment to the Sangha Act, which gave the king the sole authority to name new supreme patriarchs. The amendment replaced an older clause that required the prime minister and the nation’s supreme Buddhist authority, the Sangha Council, to make the selection when the presiding one dies.
Proponents of the change hoped it would help reduce the chance of future power struggles among the Sangha and finally resolve the present one over who would succeed the late supreme patriarch, Venerable Phra Nyanasamvara.
After Venerable Nyanasamvara’s death, the title was supposed to pass to the next most senior monk, Venerable Phra Maha Ratchamangalacharn.
But for years the government balked at formalizing the succession, largely due to resistance from orthodox Buddhist leaders who opposed him on the grounds he had ties to the Dhammakaya movement, a sect deemed heretical by much of mainstream Buddhism.