Christ Church, Jaffna

This Church was consecrated on 26 June, 1872, having been opened for worship on 3 November 1871. It was built by the great help and initiative of Sir William Twynam who was for several decades the Government Agent of this Province, and Mr. John Toussaint, merchant and landed proprietor, who gave the site on which the church stands and labored with his own hands with the workmen when the building was in the course of erection. His sons, Samuel Fredrick Toussaint and Wallace Toussaint, seem to have taken a considerable share in the project; as far as is known, the latter gave the present altar, choir stalls and processional cross.

The congregation of this church had existed as far as available register records indicate, some 30 years before the present building was put up, and worshipped in the Dutch Presbytarian church in the Fort, being ministered to by the colonial chaplains the first apparently of whom was the Rev. J.C. Arndt whose tenure of office extended to 20 years (1843-1963). In a similar capacity the following also served: the Rev. E. Labrooy, Reginald Yates, Charles Koch and G.H. Gomes. In 1893 the “Colonial Chaplaincy” was abolished.  After this the Headmasters of St. John’s College, Chundikuli in the persons of the Revs. C.C. Handy and Jacob Thompson, up to 1911, were in charge of the parish. Then there served as incumbents the following clergy: The Rev. N.G. Nathaniel, Charles Vandenberg and D.G. Gunasekera.

One of Bishop Carpenter-Garnier’s last acts before he left Ceylon was to dedicate on Refreshment Sunday, 1938, the Lady Chapel in the Church where the blessed  sacrament is now tabernacle.