.: Membership .: Cours Dates .: Newsletter .: Photo Gallery .: Location .: Accomodation & Fees .: Donations .: Volunteers .: Essential Education Italiano :: The Institute :: History Affliation   .: FPMT .:  UBI .: Other Facilities   .: Meditation Teaching .:  Conference Hall .: Chenrezing Chapel .: Library Holy Objects   .:  Stupas .:  Prayer Wheel .:  Meditation Walk Community   UBI Italian Buddhist Union The Italian Buddhist Union (UBI) was founded in April 1985 in order to represent Italian Buddhist centers of all traditions. Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa was involved in its founding from the initial meetings of the various centers in 1984. The first UBI president was a monk of the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition, Giuseppe Molinari. From its founding until it moved to Rome in 1992, the headquarters of the UBI was at ILTK. On January 3, 1991, UBI acquired legal status from the Italian government. With this, Buddhism was recognized in Italy as an official religion. The UBI is presently working together with the Italian government to reach an agreement concerning the rights of Italian Buddhists with regard to Buddhist funerals, recognition of Buddhist monks and nuns as religious ministers, spiritual assistance to the sick, dying, and imprisoned, the right to exemption from mandatory military service, paying property taxes in accordance with being a religious institution, and so forth.