Buddharama Temple Fredrika

Buddhist temple in Sweden

Buddharama Temple Fredrika (วัดพุทธาราม; ) is a planned Theravada Buddhist temple (“Wat”) near Fredrika in Åsele Municipality, Sweden. and at that point it was scheduled to become the largest Buddhist temple in Europe.

Luang Ta, the previous abbot for Buddharama Temple Sweden, died in 2004. The new abbot, Phra Boonthin, visited Umeå in the winter of 2004. During his visit he also visited a Thai Buddhist and her husband living in Fredrika, which is about 100 kilometers west of Umeå. During his visit in Fredrika, Phra Boonthin envisioned a temple building there. His ambition was to build a temple large enough for larger religious gatherings, which were not possible in the smaller temple in Värmdö, also owned by Buddharama Temple Sweden. During the spring of 2005, Phra Boonthin met with the municipal commissioner of Fredrika, the social democrat Bert Rune Dahlberg, to discuss the temple plans. Dahlberg helped to find a suitable location for the temple, and the municipality promised to finance the construction of waterlines, sewerage and broadband to the temple. and several small houses for the around 10 monks that were planned to have their permanent residence there. The temple was planned to serve Buddhists from all over Europe.

The project was initially promised financial support from the Thai government, but the new government, after the 2006 Thai coup d'état, did not fulfill this promise made by the previous government. In 2009 a businessman expressed interest in the project. He stated that he was willing to support the project with eight million SEK. The reason for the sponsorship, according to the businessman, was that he planned to establish a business in Thailand that he thought would benefit from him sponsoring a Buddhist project. The proposed sponsorship was announced publicly, and a local newspaper started investigating the businessman. They discovered that the businessman had a record of fraud, An article in The Local from 2017 stated that the project was being financed by donations only, but in 2020 the former municipal commissioner Bert Rune Dahlberg was planning on making a visit to Thailand to search for new investors. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, this trip had to be cancelled. Dahlberg and the municipality has supported the project in hope of it bringing tourists to Fredrika, which would benefit the municipality's economy greatly.