Places of Worship in Chiangmai 2

An Invitation to Two Faiths

Chiangmai is a city of temples, but it is also a city of quiet religious diversity. Among the Buddhist wats that dominate the skyline, there are Christian churches, Muslim mosques, Hindu shrines, Sikh gurdwaras, and Jewish congregations that have served their communities for generations.

This is not a story about theology or doctrine. It is a true story about what I have found in some of Chiangmai’s churches. A genuine welcome, mutual respect, and a shared humanity that transcends the boundaries of faith.

I write as an observer who has been received with kindness in places where I might have expected reserve or even hostility. I write as someone who has attended a church I later discovered was fake.

In both The First Church of Chiangmai and the small Sunni mosque in Changklan, I found something that has become increasingly rare in the West: communities that open their doors and their hearts without suspicion or hesitation.

An Anglican church that serves as a spiritual home for expatriates and Thais alike, and a small mosque where my Myanmar gardener taught me an unexpected lesson in fidelity.

What follows is not a comprehensive survey of religion in northern Thailand. It is a personal account, shaped by handshakes and conversations, by wafers and apple juice, by a wedding and a new-born baby. I invite you to read it with the same openness I tried to bring to these encounters.

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Sacred Heart Cathedral is the heart of the Roman Catholic community in Chiangmai. Located on Charoenprathet Road, near the Ping River, it stands as a quiet witness to the city’s Christian heritage. The building itself is modest by European standards—no soaring spires or flying buttresses—but it has a dignity that comes from age and faithful service.

The congregation is a mix of Thais, expatriates, and tourists. Mass is celebrated in Thai, with some English readings. The liturgy follows the Roman Rite, familiar to any Catholic from anywhere in the world.

This is both a comfort and a challenge: comfort in its predictability, challenge in its language. But the gestures—the sign of the cross, the kneeling, the sharing of peace—are universal.

What struck me most about Sacred Heart was the silence. Before Mass, the church is quiet. People pray. They prepare themselves. There is no chatter, no socialising. The sacred space is treated as sacred.

The congregation listens to the sermon only when Father Paul steps into the pulpit. He has a knack of weaving the Gospel, some of the bible readings, and even the hymns into his homily. No-one pays attention when other priests, speaking in broken English, deliver sermons they clearly haven’t structured well.

A Typical Buddhist Wat

No account of Chiangmai’s religious landscape would be complete without mentioning the wats. They are everywhere—over 300 temples in the city alone. Some are ancient, some are modern, but all share a common purpose: to provide a space for merit-making, meditation, and community.

Especially, community. It’s not unusual to hear women chatting when the monks aren’t present, sharing the local gossip and having a meal together.

I visited Wat Phra Singh, one of the most famous wats in Chiangmai. The grounds are extensive, with multiple buildings, chedis, and a library. The main viharn (assembly hall) houses a revered Buddha image, the Phra Singh, which gives the temple its name.

What struck me was the activity. Unlike the quiet of Sacred Heart, a wat is a bustling place. Monks chant in the mornings. Devotees offer food and flowers. Tourists wander through the grounds, cameras in hand. There is a sense that the sacred and the everyday coexist here without tension.

The doctrine of Buddhism is complex, but its practice is accessible. Offerings are made. Merit is accumulated. The monks offer blessings and advice. There is no priestly hierarchy in the same way as in Catholicism or Anglicanism. The Sangha (the monastic community) is central, but laypeople are active participants.

What I found most striking was the absence of exclusivity. A wat is not a church. It does not claim to be the only path to salvation. It offers a way—one way among many.

For a Christian visitor, this is both disorienting and liberating. There is no pressure to convert, no insistence that one must believe a certain set of doctrines. There is only the invitation to be present, to be mindful, to be kind.

In a city where Buddhism is woven into the fabric of daily life, the wats are not just places of worship. They are community centres, tourist attractions, and living museums. They are also a reminder that faith, in Thailand, is rarely a private affair. It is public, visible, and shared.

Changklan Mosque

An exceptionally friendly small mosque in Changklan, in the heart of a Sunni Muslim community in Chiangmai. I don’t use the word “ghetto” in a pejorative sense—only to describe the concentrated, self-contained nature of the neighbourhood.

I see no anti-Christian extremism here. Quite the opposite. When I visit, I enjoy the sincere friendliness and a feeling of mutual trust.

I’m content that I’m in a religious building where I can worship my God alongside those of the Islamic faith. As in The First Church of Chiangmai, the welcomes, the handshakes, the greetings all continue inside and outside the actual religious building. The warmth doesn’t end with the service; it spills into the courtyards and streets beyond.

It is a relief, frankly. In parts of the West—England most notably, in my view—I see a very different dynamic. There are communities where integration has failed, where parallel societies have emerged, and where the authorities seem unwilling or unable to enforce the law consistently.

I have read reports of Sharia courts operating unofficially, of police hesitating to investigate certain crimes for fear of being accused of racism, and of politicians turning a blind eye for fear of losing votes.

Whether these are isolated incidents or systemic failures is a matter of debate—but the perception, at least, is widespread among those who follow these issues closely.

I have my own views on why this happens. I believe the security services sometimes suppress uncomfortable truths to avoid civil unrest. I understand that reasoning—riots help no one—but I also believe it comes at a cost: the truth is buried, and the problems fester rather than being addressed.

In Changklan, I see none of that. Whatever tensions may exist elsewhere, they do not seem to reach this small mosque. The Muslims I meet here are not extremists. They are neighbours, friends, and fellow worshippers of the same God.

As Pope John-Paul II once said to a gathering of young Muslims: “We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who created the world and brings his creatures to their perfection.” 

All three Abrahamic faiths—Islam, Christianity, and Judaism—trace their spiritual lineage to Abraham, a patriarchal figure honoured in the Quran, Bible, and Torah. This shared ancestry is central to the argument that Muslims, Christians, and Jews worship the same God, albeit with different understandings.

Muslims and Jews accept Jesus as a prophet but not as God; Christians believe Christ died for our sins, was resurrected, and is God, one part of the Holy Trinity. These differences matter, but they do not preclude genuine fellowship.

A Gardener’s Lesson

Zakay, my gardener from Myanmar, invited me to his wedding a few weeks ago. He’s a conscientious worker—meticulously reliable in a way that stands out. He never cuts corners or stops when you’re not watching.

I used to think he didn’t have the mai pen rai attitude I associated with some local Thai workers—until I realised his absences had a deeper logic.

His one frustrating feature: he doesn’t always turn up on time. Usually, he does let me know—but not always. Because Muslims generally fear and avoid dogs, I keep mine inside whenever Zakay is due. They hate it—and so do I when he’s a no-show.

After the wedding, I visited Zakay and his new wife, Lailah, at their home. It was the first time I’d been inside a Muslim house. The main space was one large room, roughly 5 by 15 metres, with a few smaller rooms leading off it, including an open-air kitchen.

While I was there, a dozen or so people came in and out—helping with food, chatting, and one sister, Zakay’s niece, checking on a new-born baby lying under a mosquito net.

I realised that Zakay’s home wasn’t just his—it was a communal space for a network of people he called brothers and sisters. Some were blood relatives; many were not. In Muslim culture, that term extends to close friends and fellow believers. The only private space was Zakay and Lailah’s bedroom.

This communal living revealed something important. Since they all share space and resources, they instinctively help one another. When one member of the community needs support, others rush in without hesitation.

I immediately understood why Zakay sometimes didn’t arrive to work in my garden. He couldn’t refuse to help a fellow Muslim in greater need.

The last time he missed an appointment, he rang at 2pm—his normal arrival time—to explain. His friend’s son had just been killed in a motorcycle crash. He wouldn’t be coming.

Suddenly, his unreliability wasn’t unreliability at all. It was fidelity—to a different set of obligations, to a community that functioned as an extended family. Zakay wasn’t letting me down. He was showing up for people who needed him more.

That is the lesson of Changklan Mosque, too. The building is small, the community is concentrated, and the rituals may differ from my own. But the warmth is real. The mutual trust is real. And the God we worship—however differently we understand Him—is the same God who calls us to love our neighbours as ourselves.

I wish I could say the same for every Muslim community in every country. But that is not the world we live in. Here, in this small corner of Chiangmai, I have found what I hoped for: genuine coexistence, mutual respect, and a shared humanity. That is worth documenting—and worth defending.

Chiangmai’s Legitimate Churches

Chiangmai is home to a surprising number of Christian churches. Some are mainline Protestant denominations—Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist. Others are independent, often founded by missionaries or expatriates. A few are Thai-initiated, emerging from the small but growing Christian minority in a predominantly Buddhist country.

The Presbyterian Church of Thailand has a strong presence in Chiangmai, a legacy of American missionaries who arrived in the 19th century.

The church is active in education and social services, running schools and hospitals. Its worship services are traditional, with hymns and sermons in Thai. The congregation is predominantly Thai, though there is a small expatriate presence.

There is also a Lutheran church, an Anglican church (First Church), and a Roman Catholic cathedral. Each has its own character, its own history, and its own approach to worship and community.

What distinguishes the legitimate churches—by which I mean those that are legally registered and recognised by the Thai government—is their transparency. They operate openly. Their finances are accountable. Their leaders are known to the authorities. There is no secrecy, no hidden agenda.

This is not the case with all religious groups in Thailand. There are unregistered churches, often led by charismatic figures, that operate on the fringes. Some are benign. Others are not. The distinction matters, especially for those who seek to understand the religious landscape of the city.

For most residents, however, the legitimate churches offer a reliable place of worship. They are not flashy. They do not make headlines. They simply serve their congregations, week after week, year after year.

What About All Saints?

Against this backdrop of fluid authority stands All Saints, Chiang Mai. A church set up by Iain Baxter on his own initiative and without authority. Baxter has written his own account which an independent agent has paraphrased below. Still very much his words and concepts.

The church claims to be a worship community welcoming all people. It is LGBTQ founded, and led by people of many genders and orientations: gay, straight, bi, trans, cis, and non-binary. It is a church for whoever you are.

Each Sunday the congregation meets together to share the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, as they seek to worship God together and learn from one another. Most are genuine believers. When I attended I didn’t realise that he and his colleagues had no authority to administer the bread and wine.

It anyway didn’t bother me that much as I believe in the presence of Jesus in the communion. My concern was how the congregation were being fooled.

Back to Baxter’s Words

Iain Baxter is a figure I have mentioned elsewhere in my writing. His approach to church leadership is corporate, efficient, and results-oriented. He runs his church like a business, with clear targets, measurable outcomes, and a focus on growth.

This has been successful in some respects—the church has grown—but it has also created tensions, as his approach sometimes clashes with the more relational, community-driven style of church life that many Thais and expatriates prefer.

Baxter’s words are worth revisiting. He uses language borrowed from business and marketing. He sees the church as an organisation that must be managed effectively to achieve its goals.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach. Churches are organisations. They require leadership, planning, and resources. But there is also a danger: that the organisation becomes the goal, rather than the community it serves.

When I think of Baxter’s words, I contrast them with what I experienced at First Church and at Changklan Mosque. At First Church, the emphasis was on welcome—not on growth, not on numbers, but on making people feel seen and valued. At Changklan Mosque, the emphasis was on mutual support—on helping one another in times of need.

Neither of these places felt corporate. Neither felt like a business. They felt like communities. And that, perhaps, is the lesson that Baxter and others could learn: the kingdom of God is not a franchise. It is a family.

First Church’s Standard

There is a stark contrast between the rigid, corporate efficiency of how Iain Baxter runs his church and the more fluid, community-driven rhythm of The First Church of Chiangmai. While Baxter’s model might prioritise structure, the First Church operates on a different metric: the quiet grace of acceptance and the warmth of its congregation.

On paper, the church adheres strictly to the Anglican Standard. It holds clear authority from the Anglican Diocese of Singapore to celebrate the Sacraments and teach from the Gospels, and its ordained clergy follow the liturgical procedures that expatriate Anglicans would recognise from their home countries. Yet, the reality on the ground is distinctly Thai.

The congregation is a modest mix, with about 5% being non-Thai. These foreigners are offered a headset intended to translate the service into English. Intention, however, does not always meet execution. Upon my first visit, I assumed the silence emanating from the earpiece was a faulty unit, but replacements proved equally inert.

Despite raising the issue with the volunteer distributing the sets and even with the senior pastor himself, the headsets remained symbolic rather than functional—a small, quiet metaphor for the gap between structure and practice.

The Clergy and the Crew

Rev. Boonyawat Manopan leads the church as senior pastor, supported by four qualified clerics. Rather than their formal titles, I will use their Thai nicknames, which are more revealing of their personalities: Ann oversees church management, Ying tends to family and youth matters, Hyod heads up evangelism, and Tee acts as a minister without portfolio.

In Thailand, titles and uniforms are often bestowed with great ceremony; how deeply one engages with their designated role is another matter entirely. In practice, these lines blur, and they likely assist one another wherever the need arises.

Alongside them are three lay volunteers. Aht starts the morning service with music and congregational singing. Azer assists Pastor Ying with the youth. R-fern holds the title of Christian Education, ensuring the younger minds are nurtured.

The Liturgy of Seats

The most distinct divergence from Western Anglican tradition occurs during the Eucharist, celebrated only on the first day of each month. During communion, each participant receives a wafer and a small cup of apple juice—representing the body and blood of Christ—while remaining seated in the pews.

There is no procession to the altar, no kneeling at the rail. The congregation partakes from their seats, while only the pastors and one or two select communicants stand at the altar. It is a practice that prioritises communal participation over individual piety.

Friendly human touches punctuate the service, softening the formality. Pastor Boon has an endearing habit of announcing birthday anniversaries, prompting the entire congregation to join in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday.” He also unfailingly welcomes new visitors, ensuring that even the most transient foreigner feels seen.

The pastor is the only cleric fluent in English, and after the service, I have often found myself in deep conversation with him, occasionally joined by a few other expats. It was during one of these post-service chats that a fascinating theological nuance emerged.

While the Anglican faith officially holds that the bread and wine are symbolic (consubstantiation), Pastor Boonyawat gently entertained the possibility of transubstantiation—the Catholic doctrine that the elements become the body and blood.

He suggested that perhaps the change occurs only upon reception, at the very moment of consumption by the communicant. “God moves in ways we cannot question,” he said with a smile, acknowledging my reasoning even as he remained unconvinced himself.

The Overflowing Peace

The First Church of Chiangmai maintains the tradition of offering the sign of the peace inside the sanctuary. But unlike the guarded formality of Sacred Heart, where the peace often ends with the final hymn, this friendliness overflows into the church courtyards.

The same people who smiled and shook your hand during the service will acknowledge you, chat with you, and welcome you into their community long after the service has ended.

Ultimately, The First Church of Chiangmai may not win awards for its audio equipment or its strict adherence to Western liturgy. But in a city that can feel transient and overwhelming, it offers something rarer: a standard of genuine, unpretentious welcome. For that, the headsets are hardly necessary at all.

A Baptist Church in Hang Dong

The Baptist church in Hang Dong is a small, unassuming building set back from the road. It is easy to miss. The congregation is mostly Thai, with a handful of expatriates. The service is in Thai, with some English translation.

What stands out about this church is its commitment to community service. The church runs a food bank, a children’s program, and a support group for families in need. The pastor, a Thai man named Somchai, is deeply involved in the local area. He knows his neighbours, visits the sick, and helps those in difficulty.

The theology is what you would expect from a Baptist church: evangelical, Bible-centred, with an emphasis on personal salvation and baptism by immersion. The worship is contemporary, with a band and projected lyrics. There is none of the formality of the Anglican or Catholic churches.

But what I found most striking was the sense of belonging. The congregation is small—maybe fifty or sixty people—but they know one another. They pray for one another. They share meals together. They are a family.

In a city that can feel transient, this sense of permanence is rare. Many expatriates come and go. They stay for a few years, then move on. The Baptist church in Hang Dong offers something different: stability, continuity, and a place to put down roots.

I am not a Baptist, and I do not share all their beliefs. But I respect what they are doing. They are serving their community in practical ways, and they are doing it quietly, without fanfare or self-promotion. That is worth appreciating.

What I Came Here Looking For

I came to Chiangmai expecting temples. I found, instead, a city where faith is not a weapon but a bridge.

The First Church of Chiangmai taught me that liturgy can be adapted without losing its meaning. The headsets did not work, but the welcome did. The communion was not processed to the altar, but it was received with reverence from the pews.

Pastor Boonyawat may not believe in transubstantiation, but he was willing to entertain the mystery—and that willingness is, in its own way, a form of faith.

Changklan Mosque taught me that community is not a building; it is a network of obligations that transcends blood. Zakay was not unreliable. He was faithful—to a different set of commitments, to a community that functioned as an extended family.

In that communal space, I saw the Gospel lived out by people who do not read the Gospel. They read the Quran, and they worshipped the same God I do—though they understand Him differently.

Sacred Heart Cathedral taught me the value of silence and reverence. The Buddhist wats taught me that the sacred and the everyday can coexist without tension. The Baptist church in Hang Dong taught me that small acts of service matter more than large declarations of faith.

I cannot pretend to understand all the complexities of interfaith relations. Chiangmai is home to Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, and others. Tensions exist. But the handshakes at Changklan Mosque were real. The peace at The First Church was real. The welcome I received was genuine, not performative.

Other Fake Places of Worship

The problem of fake places of worship in Thailand is not unique to Chiangmai.

In 2023, Thai police exposed a major operation in Chonburi province where Chinese criminals had rented at least fourteen temples. They hired fake monks to perform ceremonies and sold overpriced amulets to Chinese tourists. Items costing four hundred baht were sold for twenty thousand baht.

The operation generated over one hundred million baht in just five months.

In Rayong province, a monk and his accomplice were arrested for placing donation bins in shops. They falsely claimed the money was for an abandoned monastery that no longer existed.

These cases show that fake religious operations are widespread across Thailand and often target tourists.

The Chonburi case was particularly sophisticated, involving a network of translators, tour guides, and drivers who directed Chinese tour groups to these rented temples, making the scam almost invisible to visitors who assumed they were visiting authentic religious sites.

Police investigations revealed that the criminals had forged temple registration documents and even created fake donation receipts bearing the names of real temples. The scam unravelled only when a tourist who had visited the same temple years earlier noticed discrepancies in the architecture and reported his suspicions to the authorities.

This pattern of renting existing temples rather than building fake ones from scratch is a relatively new development in Thailand. It allows criminals to bypass the need for construction permits and avoids raising suspicion among local residents. The temples used are often genuine but poorly managed, making them easy targets for criminal networks.

The Problem Is Global

Misinformation about religious buildings also circulates globally.

In 2026, a viral Facebook post claimed that photos showed a massive church being built in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The images actually showed The Ark, a stadium-sized megachurch under construction in Nigeria with a capacity of over one hundred and nine thousand people.

The original post was completely false.

The Congo church post was shared over fifty thousand times before fact-checkers intervened, illustrating the speed at which false information about religious buildings can go viral and the difficulty of correcting the record once misinformation has spread.

Similar misinformation has been observed with images of mosques and Hindu temples being mislabelled and shared across different countries, often to generate political or religious tensions. Fact-checking organisations have identified this as a recurring pattern, particularly during periods of interfaith conflict or national elections.

What has your experience been with interfaith encounter—whether in Thailand or elsewhere? Have you found welcome in unexpected places? I would love to hear your stories. Leave a comment below and join the conversation.

(Scroll to the VERY bottom of the post you want to comment on. Your email address is required but NOT published.)

Take a look at some previous posts

https://understanding-thailand.com/some-of-my-published-posts/

Why I write on Thailand

https://understanding-thailand.com/about-me-2/

A short account of Christianity in Thailand from Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Thailand