Little pearls from the Pearl Island (Sri Lankan diaries) -Part-1

The Anuradhapura Cross of Sri Lanka

Glory to the Triune God!

This month being September (the month of the feast day of Alvares Thirumeni), John Achen and I wished to undertake a mini pilgrimage to the churches related to the life and times of Alvares Mar Julius Thirumeni (of blessed memory) and it was God’s immense grace that we were able to visit such places in Sri Lanka few days back and the series is about providing information in those respects.

Sri Lanka, known previously as Ceylon (other names include Taprobane/Serendwip), is a small island country situated on the south coast of the Indian Ocean. Also called as the ‘Pearl Island’, this is a beautiful country blessed by rich biodiversity and was unfortunately engulfed in civil war that lasted almost two decades. As with India, it also had a thriving trade route in ancient times with the then known west and was occupied by Portuguese, then Dutch and finally British- obtaining freedom in 1948.

One of the earliest notices of the existence of Christianity in Ceylon is that of Cosmos Indopleustus, an Egyptian merchant, afterwards a monk of the fifth century, who cites in his work- Christian topography that ‘in Taprobane, there existed a community of believers, with an episcopal form of discipline, priests, deacons and a liturgy’. As to doctrine, they were of same faith and form of ecclesiastical government as the Syrian churches in the southern promontory of India and there is a high probability that this Church so implanted survived till the arrival of Portuguese in 1505 (Sir James Emerson Tennent, Christianity in Ceylon, Chapter 1, pg2-4, 1850, reprint 1998, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi).

During an archaeological excavation in a place called Anuradhapura (situated north of Colombo- ~4.5 hours by train) in the year 1912, a cross was discovered having a close resemblance to the Persian cross/St Thomas cross of Kerala. This cross, now called as Anuradhapura cross, owing to its similarity with the St Thomas Cross of Kerala cites a possible link between the church in Kerala and Ceylon in ancient times.

The city of Galle, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is the place identified as the “Tharshish” in the Old Testament according to folklore. “For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.” (1 Kings 10:22 KJV). The aforementioned author- Sir James Emerson Tennent in his work also attests to the biblical accounts of trading relations between Sri Lanka with the ships of Hiram and king Solomon (Tennant, Ceylon-An account of the island, Pg 551,577).

There is another legend about one of the wise men (Magi) and Sri Lanka. It is said that one of the wise men (Magi-the wise men who visited baby Jesus and offered gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh) was a Tamil King from Yalapannam (Jaffna) in northern province of Sri Lanka and this fulfilled the prophecy as in Psalm 72: 10- “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.” (KT Rajasingham, Asian Tribune, 25-12-2006, accessed online). 

Also stated is that this king (some other legends say his name was Kassappa from which Gasper is derived) journeyed to Bethlehem when Lord Jesus was born and offered frankincense. Years later, he joined St Thomas in his apostolic mission in India (Frederick Mendis, St Thomas Church Gintupitiya magazine commemorating 200 years of this church).

The oral tradition holds that St Thomas made a stop at Colombo port before arriving in India and here he preached to the fishermen about Lord Jesus on a hillock close to the sea (where the St Thomas Church, Gintupithiya now stands). We will see more about this historical church in the next post.

The traditional location near the St Thomas Church (on a hillock) where St Thomas is believed to have preached to the fishermen.

To be continued…

In Christ,

Rincy John