St. Anthony's Shrine

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St. Anthony's Shrine, Colombo

St. Anthony's Shrine is a Roman Catholic church in the Archdiocese of Colombo in Sri Lanka . The church is located in the district of Kotahena in Colombo and is under the patronage of St. Anthony of Padua . The church was consecrated in June 1834 and is a national shrine of Sri Lanka.

history

The church dates back to the Dutch colonial times in the early 17th century when Ceylon was a Dutch possession administered by the Dutch East India Company and worship was forbidden for believers of the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic priests secretly celebrated mass. According to legendary tradition, one of them was Brother Antonius, who disguised himself as a trader and, after his discovery, fleeing from the Dutch persecutors, found shelter with the fishermen of Mutwal near the mouth of the Kelani . The community feared that their place would be swallowed up by the sea. For their protection they asked for help from Brother Antonius, who put up a cross on the beach and prayed. The sea withdrew after three days and the fishermen converted to the Catholic faith. Later, the Dutch authorities provided land on which Brother Anthony built an adobe chapel dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua . Brother Antonius was buried in this chapel.

In 1806 the chapel was enlarged. In 1822 a member of the congregation traveled to Goa and brought a statue of St. Anthony with him, which is still on an altar in the church. The foundation stone of today's church was laid in 1828 and the consecration took place on June 1, 1834. In 1938 significant expansions were carried out, such as the construction of a choir gallery and a mission station and a meeting room behind the main altar. The enlarged church was consecrated on February 16, 1940.

At the entrance to the church there is a showcase with a statue of Saint Anthony and a reliquary that is said to contain a piece of the saint's tongue. During his visit to Sri Lanka in 1995, Pope John Paul II also visited St. Anthony's Shrine.

The 175th anniversary of the church was commemorated in 2010 with a special stamp from the Sri Lankan Post Office.

Buddhist environment

During the 19th century, the Buddhist population of Ceylon became increasingly self-confident about the colonial administration and the Christian churches. In 1830 a piece of land was bought about 400 meters from St. Anthony's Shrine and a Buddhist place of worship was built with the Dipaduttama Vihara . In the decades that followed, tensions grew between the Catholic and Buddhist populations. The Dipaduttama Vihara became a place of pilgrimage for Buddhist believers from all over the country.

A Buddha statue was erected in Kotahena around 1880 . On February 12, 1883, a religious ceremony was to take place in Dipaduttama Vihara. Because of an outbreak of smallpox , the Buddhist religious leader agreed with the colonial administration not to allow processions to take place. Although there was initially agreement, the suspicion soon arose that the Catholic Church had arranged the ban on procession. Therefore, Buddhist processions continued to take place, which were tolerated by the administration or expressly approved by subordinate authorities and reached their climax on March 31, 1883. On Palm Sunday, March 18, Buddhist processionists were pelted with stones by Catholics without police intervention. On the morning of Good Friday, Catholic worshipers gathered at St. Anthony's Shrine, believing there would be a Buddhist procession. They announced that they would stop any procession that should pass the church. The Buddhist believers again felt threatened and abandoned by the police. The situation escalated on March 31, 1883, when several Buddhist processions with Kotahena as their destination were en route. The believers were partly armed and violent riots broke out, allegedly because of offensive depictions of the Virgin Mary and other Christian symbols that they had carried with them. One Buddhist died, but it is not certain that his death was related to the riot. In the following 40 years there were repeated clashes between Buddhists and Catholics.

As with other major Roman Catholic churches in Sri Lanka, St. Anthony's Shrine is said to have been built over a Buddhist shrine. It is said to be a shrine dedicated to the goddess Pattini . Pattini is the patron goddess of Sri Lanka, she is revered in Sri Lankan Buddhism and plays an important role in the folklore of the Sinhalese .

Attack in 2019

On Easter Sunday 2019, St. Anthony's Shrine was one of the targets in a coordinated series of bombings in and around Colombo and Batticaloa . Numerous believers who gathered to celebrate Easter were killed or injured.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ St. Anthony's Shrine. Colombo, Sri Lanka , website GCatholic.org, accessed April 21, 2019.
  2. ^ A b c Marianne David: Sanctuary for the faithful , The Nation Eye , June 8, 2008, accessed April 21, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b St. Anthony's - Kochchikade , Ministry of Christian Affairs website, 2003, accessed April 21, 2019.
  4. ^ A b c R. L. Stirrat: Constructing Identities in Nineteenth-Century Colombo . In: John R. Campbell and Alan Rew (Eds.): Identity and Affect. Experiences of Identity in a Globalizing World . Pluto Press, London and Sterling, VA 1999, ISBN 0-7453-1428-7 , pp. 39-63.
  5. ↑ List of offers , website srilankastamps.lk, accessed on April 21, 2019.
  6. ^ RL Stirrat: Shrines, Pilgrimage and Miraculous Powers in Roman Catholic Sri Lanka . In: Studies in Church History 1982, Volume 19, pp. 385-413, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0424208400009463 .
  7. ↑ Sri Lanka explosions: 137 killed as churches and hotels targeted , BBC News website, April 21, 2019, accessed April 21, 2019.

Coordinates: 6 ° 56 '48.8 "  N , 79 ° 51' 21.9"  E