Recent years in Cambodia have been marked by increasingly close interaction between the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP)and the leadership of the Buddhist Sangha. There is a clear desire of the authorities to use the Buddhist community to their advantage. The involvement of monasticism in official politics gives the country's leadership additional means of controlling the Sangha and opens up ample opportunities for manipulating the "resources of religious charisma", which in Cambodia are no less important than human or material ones. The scale and nature of the political activism of the sangha representatives is determined, on the one hand, by the degree of strength of the ruling regime, the interests of its various political forces, and, on the other, by the level of influence and authority of the Sangha itself. Keywords: Cambodia, Buddhism, Sangha, monks, ruling elite, monetary patronage, People's Party of Cambodia. An objective assessment of the current state of the Buddhist Sangha in Cambodia is possible only in the context of the history of recent decades. In the 1970s, the Sangha was virtually destroyed, and the religious infrastructure was severely damaged. During the civil war, as a result of the massive bombing of the territory of Cambodia by US aircraft, as well as as a result of the four-year rule of the Khmer Rouge, 25 thousand monks (more than 40%)1 were killed, including 900 leaders of the sangha of the central and provincial level 2 [Sou Ketya, 2005, p. 28]. 200 Buddhist hierarchs were killed by the Khmer Rouge. They were killed by the Khmer Rouge in the first two weeks after the seizure of power in April 1975. The Sangha itself was abolished as a "bearer of false religious views", and the monks were sent to "labor re-education". During this period, half of the temples were completely destroyed, the rest, occupied as warehouses, prisons, barracks, were in an extremely neglected state. The monastery's archives and libraries were burned. 30 thousan ... Read more