Meadowlawn Presbyterian Church has an entirely new identity now, as 1,500 mostly Vietnamese Buddhists settle in.
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published June 16, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - A thriving Buddhist temple has found a new home at a shuttered Presbyterian church.
The temple known as Chua Phat Phap, which until recently had been tucked away on a back street off Gandy Boulevard, is now on a main road, at 1770 62nd Ave. N, near strip malls and schools, and with Lutheran and Assemblies of God churches for neighbors.
Pinellas County property records indicate that the temple bought the former Meadowlawn Presbyterian Church for $625,000 in April. Donations and loans from the congregation of about 1,500 paid for the property, said Tanya Vu, a member of Chua Phat Phap for about nine years. When the old temple, at 1085 Plaza Commercio Drive NE, is sold, she said, members will be repaid and the new property will be debt-free.
The purchase means the community of mostly Vietnamese Buddhists now has a place to spread out and grow, said the Venerable Tri Tinh, the monk who serves as abbot.
"It's very comfortable for many people to come here," he said during a tour of the property Monday.
At the old location off Gandy Boulevard, some neighbors had complained about the large crowds that turned out for special services and worried about being able to sell their property in an area where land has risen in value. A new waterfront community, Venetian Bay, is being completed nearby and another, Venetian Harbor, is in the works.
With its move, the Buddhist temple also is at a more convenient location for the community it serves, Tinh said. Across the street, at Hope Lutheran Church, are both the Asian Neighborhood Family Center and the Children of the World Preschool, whose students are primarily Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian.
The proximity to the Asian population made the Meadowlawn church a good find. It was one of two area Presbyterian churches to have been closed in recent years because of declining membership. Covenant Presbyterian Church, 4201 Sixth St. S, was the other. According to the Presbyterian Church (USA), 47 congregations were dissolved nationwide in 2003, a year during which the denomination also experienced its largest percentage of membership decline since 1983.
A visit to the former Meadowlawn church this week uncovered its transformation from Christian church to Buddhist temple. The building sits beyond a row of marble statues, flagpoles bearing American, South Vietnamese and Buddhist flags, and dozens of potted plants. Just inside its doors, two statues of lions stand guard. An enormous gong, once housed in the old temple's courtyard, now stands to the right, a large drum, to the left. They are sounded for important religious holidays.
But it is the mammoth bronze Buddha, weighing several tons, that catches the eye. The statue took several men an entire day to move into the building and hoist into place, Mrs. Vu said. The bronze Buddha now sits on a shored-up platform in the former chancel area, where a pulpit, communion table, lectern and even a choir loft might have been.
Besides the bronze Buddha, the main sanctuary - which has rows of pews and room in the back for people to sit on the floor - also features an altar on which candles and offerings are placed. This day there are apples, oranges, grapes and watermelons, which will be removed after a few days for everyone to share.
There are two adjacent rooms. One, Tinh said, is a meditation room. The other is the shrine room, where photographs of loved ones rest on an altar and line the wall above. Below are their ashes. The smell of incense is overpowering.
The abbot lives on the property, occupying a small room that functions as both his office and sleeping quarters. Behind a desk with a computer is a bookshelf with 45 red volumes of Buddhist teachings.
Tinh, 32, has been a monk for 25 years. He came to St. Petersburg from Texas after the death of the Venerable Thich Giac Chanh, who had served as spiritual leader for many Tampa Bay area Vietnamese Buddhists since 1988, four years after the temple was established.
Buddhism began with Siddhartha Gautama, the Enlightened One, who is believed to have lived between the fourth and sixth centuries. Tradition says he was born into a noble family in India and abandoned his luxurious life to search for spiritual enlightenment. After wandering for several years, he found enlightenment while meditating under the bhodi or fig tree and became a Buddha, or an awakened one. The Buddha spent the rest of his life wandering India, teaching that anyone, regardless of gender or social standing, could gain enlightenment and ultimate freedom from suffering.
The Buddha's insight about the suffering of humans, caught up in what he came to understand to be the endless cycle of birth and death, is presented in his Four Noble Truths. These truths acknowledge that suffering exists and tell what causes it, what ends it and how to end it. The Noble Eightfold Path suggests, among other disciplines, right speech, right action and right intention.
There are two main schools of Buddhism, Theravada and Mahayana, both of which are divided further into numerous groups. Chua Phat Phap's congregation, whose members are of mostly Vietnamese heritage, belongs to the Theravada school.
