Edifices in Dark Days: Origin, Types and Development of Oratorian Missionary Churches in Sri Lanka

1. Introduction

Up to the beginning of the sixteenth century the main forms of religious architecture in Sri Lanka were mostly the Buddhist and Hindu temples. With the arrival of the Portuguese, a new form of religious architecture made its appearance—the Catholic church. This new architecture, which the missionary zeal of the Portuguese brought to Sri Lanka, was much in contrast to the prevailing architecture of the country. The evangelization of Sri Lanka was begun by Franciscan missionaries who arrived in 1543. They were followed later by Jesuits in 1602, Dominicans in 1605 and Augustinians in 1606. Thus, the mission field of Sri Lanka was shared among the four major European missionary orders. Chronicles, such as Paulo da Trindade’s Conquista Spiritual Do Oriente and Fernào de Queiroz’s The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon provide an extensive list of Portuguese missionary churches that were built by the first half of the seventeenth century. Boudens in his study The Catholic Church in Ceylon under Dutch Rule lists over 160 Portuguese churches and chapels that existed at the end of Portuguese occupation in Sri Lanka.¹

The Dutch rule of Sri Lanka commenced with the expulsion of the Portuguese in the middle of the seventeenth century. “After the occupation of the Island by the Dutch, Catholicism, which during the long Portuguese occupation had taken a strong hold on the population, was proscribed by law and a systematic and prolonged persecution by the Dutch authorities almost led to the elimination of the Catholic element from the wealthier and more influential classes of the population.”² This period of persecution therefore can be considered as the “dark days” of the history of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. It is evident that during the early period of Dutch occupation the most of the churches that the Portuguese built were either demolished or modified to accommodate their newly established Dutch Reformed faith. Lewcock describes this situation as follows: “…for the first hundred years of their occupation the Dutch were content to convert the dozen of Portuguese churches to the use of the Dutch Reformed faith. The buildings were often re-decorated, and sometimes given entirely new façades.”³ In sum, it is evident that the Dutch occupation of Sri Lanka “acted as a weighty agent of destruction of the Portuguese-built religious heritage throughout the island.”⁴

However, the Dutch campaign to convince the native population to convert to their faith was not very successful. This emphatic rejection of Protestant spirituality in Sri Lanka contributed greatly to the success of the missionary work of members of the Congregação do Oratório de Santa Cruz dos Milagres de Goa,⁵ “staffed by the Catholic Brahmans from Goa who become both missionaries and precocious Orientalists in Sri Lanka,”⁶ when they stealthily entered the island in the late seventeenth century. This era of missionary history of Sri Lanka was started by the first Oratorian, Joseph Vaz in 1687 and ended with the death of the last Oratorian, Mathes Caetano in 1874.

Like other innovative missionary methods used to build a truly local church by adapting to indigenous culture and tradition in the fields of devotional literature, drama and other forms of religious art, the Oratorians’ involvement in restoration and reconstruction of territorial network of Catholic churches played a vital role in their missionary endeavors on the island during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The origin and the development of the network of Oratorian churches in Sri Lanka can be distinguished into two periods: first, the Dutch period, dating from the arrival of first Oratorian in 1687 to the British take-over of the island from the Dutch in 1796; secondly, the British period, from the advent of British in 1796 to the death of the last Oratorian in the island in 1874.

2. Early Churches of the Oratorian Mission

Vaz’s first and most secure field of work was the Kingdom of Kandy, where he gradually won the favour of King Vimaladharmasuriya...