BEIJING, Dec. 4-- China's religious authorities will offer official certificates for Buddhist and Taoist temples to display in an effort to help believers tell real temples from fake ones.

Religious sites can hang the document outside their establishment to help curb profiteering and illegal fund-raising, thus protecting the interests of religious circles and believers.

The Guangji Temple and Fire God Temple in Beijing were among the first to receive the certificates from the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA), which oversees religious organizations.

"There have been some non-religious sites employing fake monks who tricked tourists into donating money or buying expensive incenses," Liu Wei, an official from the administration, said.

Fake monks are not a novelty in China, especially in rural areas where those impersonating monks in order to cheat money often go unchecked. One high-profile case resulted in two 'temples' being shut down last year in Mount Wutai, a sacred Buddhist mountain in north China's Shanxi Province. Six people were also arrested for swindling tourists out of donation money.

The official said SARA will promote the "anti-fake" label nationwide, giving people the ability to check whether a temple is a legal religious site.

China currently has some 33,000 Buddhist temples and more than 9,000 Taoist temples. Chinese authorities banned any act of profiteering from religious activities after the over-commercialization of temples and other sites in recent years. Temples seeking to raise funds by listing on the stock market was also banned.

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