Church of Ceylon


The Church of Ceylon is the Anglican Church in Sri Lanka. It is an extraprovincial jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who serves as its Metropolitan. It was established in 1845 with the appointment of the first Anglican Bishop of Colombo, James Chapman and until 1950 it consisted of a single diocese; in that year a second diocese was established at Kurunegala. In 2017, Growth and Decline in the Anglican Communion: 1980 to the Present, published by Routledge, collected research reporting there were 54,200 Anglicans in Sri Lanka.

Dioceses of Colombo and Kurunegala

The first services were held on the island in 1796 and missionaries were sent to Ceylon to begin work in 1818. The Church now has two dioceses, one in Colombo and the other in Kurunegala. The Diocese of Colombo was founded in 1845 and the Diocese of Kurunegala in 1950.
The Bishop of Calcutta was the Metropolitan Bishop of India and Ceylon from 10 October 1835. In 1930 Ceylon was included in the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon until 1970. In 1970, the Church of the Province of Myanmar, the Church of Ceylon, and the Church of Pakistan were separated from the CIBC.
There has been a movement for the amalgamation of traditional Protestant churches and the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India into one body, namely the Church of Sri Lanka.
The Anglican Bishop of Colombo, Dushantha Lakshman Rodrigo has four archdeaconries, namely, Colombo, Galle, Jaffna and Upcountry and East. Keerthisiri Fernando the 6th Bishop of Kurunegala has one archdeaconry.
The Church of Ceylon with around 50,000 members, is the second largest group of Christians in Sri Lanka, after the Roman Catholic Church with 1,600,000 members.

Church and education

The missionaries of the Church Missionary Society established many schools in all parts of the island. The missionaries who arrived in Galle started to establish schools in order to uplift the education of the natives and to spread the Christian religion. Robert Mayor who arrived on 29 June 1818 was the 1st missionary to establish a school in the "Church Hill", Baddegama under the name of "Christ Church" adjoining the Baddegama seminary.
During the early years, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the ‘high church’ missionary society, assisted the early bishops of the Diocese of Colombo to set up schools. The SPG helped Bishop James Chapman establish the College of Saint Thomas the Apostle in Mutwal, which opened on 3 February 1851. Later the college was shifted to Mt. Lavinia. The SPG continued to support the college until they withdrew from Ceylon in 1930.
By the year 1910 the Anglican church had 403 schools with a student population of 32,783. A teacher training college was established in 1914 in Peradeniya by Alexander G. Fraser, principal of Trinity College, Kandy. The Anglican schools in Sri Lanka provide education in English, Sinhala and Tamil languages giving prominence to the English Language.
The schools are independently and privately managed by the CMS governing body headed by the bishops of the church, while some schools like Trinity College Kandy have adopted a board of governors under the patronage of the Bishop of Kurunegala.
From the past Anglican schools have produced many notable personalities. Prime ministers D. S. Senanayake, Dudley Senanayake, Wijayananda Dahanayake and S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike were past pupils of S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia as well as Leslie Goonewardene and N. M. Perera, founders of Ceylon's first political party.
Leading Anglican schools in Sri Lanka
  1. S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia
  2. Trinity College, Kandy
  3. Hillwood College
  4. Ladies' College, Colombo
  5. Bishop's College, Colombo
  6. CMS Mowbray College, Kandy
  7. S. Thomas' Preparatory School
  8. S. Thomas' College, Gurutalawa
  9. S. Thomas' College, Bandarawela
  10. St. John's College, Jaffna
  11. Chundikuli Girls' College
  12. St. Paul's Girls School, Milagiriya
  13. St. Thomas' College, Matara
  14. Christ Church College, Matale
  15. All Saints College, Galle
  16. St. John's College, Nugegoda
  17. St. John's College, Panadura
  18. Christ Church Boys' College, Baddegama
  19. Christ Church Girls' College, Baddegama
  20. Bishop Lakdasa De Mel College, Kurunegala
  21. St Andrew's Girls College, Nawalapitiya
  22. Holy Trinity College, Nuwara Eliya

    Hymn for Ceylon

In the early 20th century an Anglican missionary, W. S. Senior popularly known as the Bard of Lanka arrived in Ceylon to work with the Church Missionary Society. He was Vice-Principal of Trinity College, Kandy for many years and spent three decades in the country. W. S. Senior wrote the 'Hymn for Ceylon,' sung to this day in churches on the island. The music for parts of this hymn was composed in 1950 by the leading Sri Lankan folk musician Deva Suriya Sena.